222 · Alanna E. Cooper
- Ephraim Neumark, Masa b ̓ereṣ ha-qedem, ed. Avraham Ya ̔ari (Jerusalem:
ha-Aḥim Leṿin Epshtayn, 1947), 102. - Kate Fitz Gibbon and Andrew Hale, Ikat: Splendid Silks of Central Asia (Lon-
don: Laurence King in association with Alan Marcuson, 1997), 103. - Ben-Zvi, The Exiled and the Redeemed, 87.
- In 1979, only 6 percent of the married Uzbeks living in Uzbekistan’s capi-
tal city, Tashkent, had married non-Uzbeks. Survey data indicate that in 1991,
39 percent of the Uzbeks living in Tashkent spoke Russian either with some
difficulty or with great difficulty, and 5 percent did not speak Russian at all. Ju.
V. Arutjunian, Uzbekistan: Inhabitants of the Capital (Moscow: Russian Academy
of Science, 1996), 89, 186. - In 1962, only some 8 percent of Central Asian Jews in Tashkent, Uzbeki-
stan’s most cosmopolitan city, were married to non-Jews. Mordechai Altshuler,
“Some Statistics on Mixed Marriages among Soviet Jews,” Bulletin on Soviet and
East European Jewish Affairs 6 (1970): 30–32. - See Baruch Gur, “Situation Paper No. 6: The Jewish Population of the
Former Soviet Union,” Jewish Agency for Israel Briefing, 1993. - CIA, “The World Factbook,” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications
/the-world-factbook/geos/uz.html. - Elaine Wishner, “Mission to Tashkent,” Jerusalem Post, 19 December
- The number of homes destroyed is disputed. On 10 May 1990, Walter
Ruby reported that forty Jewish and Armenian homes were burned, with the
ratio being “approximately equal in number” (Jerusalem Post, “Four Arrested
for Torturing Jewish Family in the Caucasus”). On 16 May, Ruby reported that
sixteen Jewish homes, twelve Armenian homes, and five Russian homes were
“burned to the ground” (Jerusalem Post, “Frightened Jews in USSR’s Moslem
Regions Desperate to Flee to Israel”). In David Waksberg’s “Report on Events in
Andizhan, Uzbekistan, May 2, 1990,” issued by the Bay Area Council for Soviet
Jews, more than fifty Jewish homes were said to have been “looted and burned
to the ground.” - Jerusalem Post reports of 10 May and 16 May, as cited above, and Walter
Ruby, “Tashkent’s Jews Fear a Rising Tide of Nationalism in Central Asia,” Je-
rusalem Post, 27 June 1990. - In an article entitled “USSR Breakup Raises Questions about Emigra-
tion,” Garth Wolkoff reported, “There is concern here about the cultural atti-
tudes toward Jews in the six Moslem republics,” and “growing Moslem funda-
mentalism may inspire the Central Asian republics eventually to curtail Jewish
emigration, particularly if they fall under the influence of neighboring Iran.”
Northern California Jewish Bulletin, 3 January 1992. Likewise, in an article en-
titled “Danger Stalks New Republics,” Robert Leiter reported, “If prices for
goods continue to skyrocket, it could lead not just to discontent but also to
social unrest and violence directed at Jews.... [We] are most concerned about