Jews in Tajikistan
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Jews in Tajikistan were originally primarily Bukharan Jews.
[edit] History
Jews first arrived in the eastern part of the Emirate of Bukhara, in what is today Tajikistan, in the 19th century. After the Communists came to power they organized the country into republics, including Tajikistan, which was first formed as an autonomous republic within Uzbekistan in 1924 and in 1929 became a full-fleged republic.
In an effort to develop Tajikistan, Soviet authorities encouraged migration, including thousands of Jews from neighboring Uzbekistan. Most Jews settled in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, where they opened the Dushanbe synagogue. During World War II a second wave of Ashkenazim Jews migrated to Tajikistan.
Beginning in the 1970s Jews in the USSR, including those from Tajikistan, began to emigrate to the US and Israel. By the late 1980s many of Tajikistan's Jews had left. After Tajikistan gained independence in 1991 the country fell into a state of civil war. In the fall of 1992 most of the country's Jews were evacuated to Israel.
During the 1990s most the remaining 1,000 or so Jews emigrated. One tragic event in the Jewish community was the murder of journalist Meirkhaim Gavrielov in 1998. Today there are only a few hundred Jews left in Tajikistan.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
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