208 · Alanna E. Cooper
discover the “muddy streets,” the “poor ramshackle houses and shops,”
and the “crumbling ghetto inhabited by poor Jews.”^28 It was these sites
that provided the tourists with an explanation for the Jews’ mass migra-
tion from the region. A portion of the Jewish population—it seemed—
was sequestered in a crumbling ghetto on the margins of society. Despite
the opportunity to “rebuild” Jewish life in Uzbekistan under the reign of
the “benevolent Karimov,” the chance to “abandon their poverty” and
their marginalized position in society was apparently a more compelling
option.
In sum, the media attention given to the Bukharan Jews since 1989
depicts their life in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan as a bleak existence. In the
early years of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, emphasis was placed
on the persecution they suffered at the hands of Muslim fundamentalists.
While this story has continued to appear in the press, a second reason
was offered once the region stabilized: the Jews’ abject material condi-
tions. In both these approaches, migration is portrayed as an escape, the
only natural answer to the Jews’ long-standing condition of oppression
under Muslim rule, which was exacerbated once Uzbekistan gained her
independence.
In this presentation there is no room for a depiction of the home that
Essya and her children left behind. More broadly, the communities, fami-
lies, and lives the Jews built for themselves over the many centuries that
they dwelled in Central Asia are forgotten. By portraying immigration as
a choice, in which individuals made difficult, conscious decisions about
what they would lose and what they would gain by leaving their ancient
Diaspora homes, I am attempting to portray the mass migration as a com-
plex process that cannot be fully understood without highlighting their
condition of marginalization as well as their deep ties to their Diaspora
homeland.
Reconsidering the Reasons for Leaving
Economic Situation
Like the Muslims who lived in Uzbekistan’s urban areas, Jews lived in
the new parts of the cities, which were developed under Russian and
Soviet rule, and in old parts of the cities, which existed prior to the co-
lonial era. As the press reports indicate, the streets of these older areas