212 · Alanna E. Cooper
Samarkand and Bukhara. With these language skills, they rarely found
themselves marginalized prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Once Uzbekistan became independent and new language policies were
instituted, however, Jews began to find it difficult to gain admittance
into universities and to get jobs because they did not speak Uzbek. They
also began feeling marginalized as Russian faded from its position as
the primarily public language. Israel, a middle-aged man in Bukhara,
explained, “Nationalism is growing. Who the hell knows what will hap-
pen? Before perestroika, I felt at home. Afterward, I began to feel differ-
ent, like an outsider. There has been a cut in Russian broadcasting, and
there are no longer Russian newspapers on sale. I can’t understand a bit
of Uzbek, and it’s too late for me to learn.” Another woman in Bukhara
expressed a similar sentiment. “I’ve lived here for fifty years, and I don’t
know Uzbek. Now the language is everywhere.” Mazal, a middle-aged
woman in Bukhara, explained that while the new language policies did
not discriminate against Jews per se, they were bringing an end to Uz-
bekistan as a multicultural society. “Bukhara used to be a city with many
different nationality groups. But now the Russians have left, the Tatars,
the Armenians. Each has gone to their own place. Karimov did this. He
made it so that only the Uzbeks are staying.”
In sum, Bukharan Jews in Uzbekistan expressed feelings of margin-
alization both in terms of their religious identity as Jews among Mus-
lims and in terms of their national (or ethnic) identity as non-Uzbeks.
These two factors may have been particularly potent in the first months
after the Soviet Union’s dissolution, as the Jews in Uzbekistan may have
feared that Tajikistan’s civil war would spread across the border. They
were, however, set against the backdrop of Bukharan Jews’ strong ties to
the local space and the sense that they were at home in the region.
This feeling of belonging was due in large part to their long history
in Central Asia. Having lived in the area for well over a millennium, the
Jews’ presence there stretches back long before the arrival of the Uzbeks
themselves. Furthermore, Bukharan Jews have no collective memory of
having lived in any other Diaspora home. Unlike the Jews in Turkey,
for example, who carry the collective memory of their ancestors’ long
sojourn in Spain, Central Asia is the only home Bukharan Jews have
known since their forebears’ expulsion at the hands of the Babylonians
in ancient times. This deep connection to place was well articulated by
an elderly man who began an interview by explaining, “I was born in