206 · Alanna E. Cooper
migration was the outbreak of civil war in Tajikistan in 1992, when Presi-
dent Rakhmon Nabiyev, who had been Tajikistan’s Communist Party
leader during the Soviet era, was overthrown by the Democratic Islamic
coalition. Reports focused on the “wave of panic” among all ethnic mi-
norities in response to Muslim fundamentalism. Articles about the Jews
in particular reported on the large number of visa applications to Israel
and on the direct flights from Dushanbe to Tel Aviv that were arranged
by the Jewish Agency for Israel.^19
In the years following these four particular historical moments, de-
scriptions of Bukharan Jews’ flight from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have
continued to appear in the press. Emphasis is still on the oppression they
face as Jews living in a Muslim fundamentalist society. In 1993, for ex-
ample, the Northern California Jewish Bulletin reported that the Jews in
Uzbekistan live as “second class citizens” as the local Muslims’ attitude
toward them has been “benevolent tolerance, but never fully accepting
them as equal members of Uzbek society.”^20 In an article published in
1994 about Bukharan Jewish immigrants New York, the New York Times
described them as “refugees who fled their homes to escape growing
xenophobia and Islamic fundamentalism.”^21 Likewise, in 1995 the Jew -
ish Press Magazine referred to the “pressures of fundamentalism” leading
the Jews in the region to the “conclusion that they must leave... for the
sake of their children’s future, if not for their own safety.”^22 In 1997, an
article about the Bukharan Jews again appeared in the New York Times,
which referred to their “centuries of oppression in their predominantly
Muslim homeland.”^23 And in 2001, the journal Central Asia and the Cauca-
sus referred back to the 1990 riots in Andizhan, noting that the Jews who
remain there live in insecurity, unable to forget the event, “where Jewish
homes were burned and ruined, their property ransacked.”^24
While the dominant story told about Bukharan Jews in the press has
been about the oppression they have suffered in the face of Muslim fun-
damentalism, the media has also focused on their difficult economic
conditions in Central Asia. Those who have written these articles have
been Western tourists to Uzbekistan who were surprised to discover
that Jewish community life there was flourishing. Religious activities
had resumed after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and international
non-profit Jewish organizations (including the Joint Distribution Com-
mittee, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Bnei Akiva, Chabad, and Midrash