Jews in Kyrgyzstan
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The history of the Jews in Kyrgyzstan is linked directly to the history of the
Bukharian Bukharan Jews ( Bukharian: יהודיאני בוכארא/яҳудиёни Бухоро, ''Yahudiyoni Bukhoro''; he, יהודי בוכרה, ''Yehudey Bukhara''), in modern times also called Bukharian Jews ( Bukharian: יהודיאני בוכאר ...
Jews of Uzbekistan. Until the 20th century, most Jews living in the Kyrgyz areas were of the Bukharian Jewish community. However, during the 20th century, large amounts of European Jews began to emigrate to Kyrgyzstan which was then part of the Soviet Union, and a small amount of them still live in the country. Archeological findings suggests that Jewish traders from Khazaria started visiting the Kyrgyz territory around the 6th century CE. In Kyrgyz tradition, the term "Djeet" was used in order to describe Jews, and it is mentioned in the Kyrgyz epic poem
Manas Manas may refer to: Philosophy and mythology *Manas, the Pali and Sanskrit term for "mind"; see ** Manas (early Buddhism) ** Manas-vijnana, one of the eight consciousnesses taught in Yogacara Buddhism *''Ramcharitmanas'', a retelling of the Ramay ...
, which dates back to the 10th century CE. In Manas, several central-Asian cities are described as having Jewish communities in them, among them
Samarkand fa, سمرقند , native_name_lang = , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from the top:Registan square, Shah-i-Zinda necropolis, Bibi-Khanym Mosque, view inside Shah-i-Zinda, ...
,
Bukhara Bukhara (Uzbek language, Uzbek: /, ; tg, Бухоро, ) is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan, with a population of 280,187 , and the capital of Bukhara Region. People have inhabited the region around Bukhara ...
and Baghdad, though non of them have ever been inhabited by a majority of Kyrgyz people nor included in a Kyrgyz territory. According to a census held in 1896, the Jews represented about 2% of the region total population. It can be assumed that almost 100% of these Jews were Bukharian Jews or at least Sephardic Jews, meaning no Ashkenazi Jews were living in the Kyrgyz area before the 20th century. During World War II many Jews fled from the European parts of the Soviet Union to central Asia, including Kyrgyzstan, making the Jewish community of Kyrgyzstan combined out of an Ashkenazi community and a Bukharian Sephardic one. The two communities functioned separately and though it did occasionally happen, Ashkenazi–Sephardi intermarriages were not common.


Bukharan Jews

Bukharan Jews Bukharan Jews ( Bukharian: יהודיאני בוכארא/яҳудиёни Бухоро, ''Yahudiyoni Bukhoro''; he, יהודי בוכרה, ''Yehudey Bukhara''), in modern times also called Bukharian Jews ( Bukharian: יהודיאני בוכאר ...
, also known as "Bukharian Jews" or "Bukhari Jews" are Jews from Central Asia who speak
Bukhori Bukharian (autonym: Bukhori, Hebrew script: בוכארי, Cyrillic: бухорӣ, Latin: ''Buxorī'') is a Judeo-Persian dialect historically spoken by Bukharan Jews of Central Asia. It is a Jewish dialect derived from —and largely mutually in ...
, a dialect of the Tajik language. Their name comes from the former Central Asian
Emirate of Bukhara The Emirate of Bukhara ( fa, , Amārat-e Bokhārā, chg, , Bukhārā Amirligi) was a Muslim polity in Central Asia that existed from 1785 to 1920 in what is modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. It occupied the lan ...
, which once had a sizable Jewish community. Since the
dissolution of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
, the great majority have emigrated to Israel and to the United States, while others have emigrated to Europe or Australia.


Medieval period

In his memoirs,
Marco Polo Marco Polo (, , ; 8 January 1324) was a Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295. His travels are recorded in ''The Travels of Marco Polo'' (also known as ''Book of the Marv ...
mentions the existence of Jewish traders along the
silk road The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and reli ...
which passed through modern day Kyrgyzstan, who built synagogues and spoke Aramaic. Famous Arab geographer Al-Maqdisi (946−1000) mentioned the cities of Osh, Uzgen,
Taraz Taraz ( kz, Тараз, تاراز, translit=Taraz ; known to Europeans as Talas) is a city and the administrative center of Jambyl Region in Kazakhstan, located on the Talas (river), Talas (Taraz) River in the south of the country near the borde ...
and others as having communities of Jews.


Modern period

Ashkenazi Jews first arrived to Kyrgyzstan with its conquest by the Russians. In the city of
Karakol Karakol ( ky, Каракол, Karakol, قاراقول, ; zh, 卡拉科尔), formerly Przhevalsk (russian: Пржевальск), is the fourth-largest city in Kyrgyzstan, near the eastern tip of Lake Issyk-Kul, about from the Kyrgyzstan–C ...
, one Jew was recorded in 1885. By 1900 there were seven Jews in the city and by 1910 the city had 31 Jewish inhabitants. While in 1885
Bishkek Bishkek ( ky, Бишкек), ), formerly Pishpek and Frunze, is the capital and largest city of Kyrgyzstan. Bishkek is also the administrative centre of the Chüy Region. The region surrounds the city, although the city itself is not part of ...
had eight Jews, by 1913 there were 43 Jews in Bishkek. The city of Osh had the biggest amount of Jews in Kyrgyzstan prior to the 20th century, due to its Sephardic Jewish community, which even had its own Jewish cemetery outside the city. During the beginning of the 20th century, numerous Jewish Businessmen owned businesses in the Kyrgyz area − among them Yuri Davidov, who owned cotton factories in the
Fergana Fergana ( uz, Fargʻona/Фарғона, ), or Ferghana, is a district-level city and the capital of Fergana Region in eastern Uzbekistan. Fergana is about 420 km east of Tashkent, about 75 km west of Andijan, and less than 20 km fr ...
valley, Boris Kagan who established a network of bookshops, and the Polyakov brothers who founded a branch of the "Azov-don commercial bank". Due to the need in doctors, teachers and engineers, many Ashkenazi Jews began to emigrate to Kyrgyzstan from European Russia.


Religious life

It is known that the Jewish community of Osh bought its Torah scrolls from its neighboring community of Uzbek
Bukhara Bukhara (Uzbek language, Uzbek: /, ; tg, Бухоро, ) is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan, with a population of 280,187 , and the capital of Bukhara Region. People have inhabited the region around Bukhara ...
. Until 1915, there were no synagogues in Kyrgyzstan. The nearest one was in Verniy, nowadays
Almaty Almaty (; kk, Алматы; ), formerly known as Alma-Ata ( kk, Алма-Ата), is the List of most populous cities in Kazakhstan, largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population of about 2 million. It was the capital of Kazakhstan from 1929 to ...
in Kazakhstan, Tashkent,
Samarkand fa, سمرقند , native_name_lang = , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from the top:Registan square, Shah-i-Zinda necropolis, Bibi-Khanym Mosque, view inside Shah-i-Zinda, ...
and
Fergana Fergana ( uz, Fargʻona/Фарғона, ), or Ferghana, is a district-level city and the capital of Fergana Region in eastern Uzbekistan. Fergana is about 420 km east of Tashkent, about 75 km west of Andijan, and less than 20 km fr ...
in Uzbekistan. A separate Jewish cemetery operated only in Osh, while in all other cities Jews were buried in separate areas of the general Muslim/Christian cemeteries. While there was no Jewish education in Kyrgyzstan, some of the Sephardic Jews in Osh sent their children to learn at the
Heder A ''cheder'' ( he, חדר, lit. "room"; Yiddish pronunciation ''kheyder'') is a traditional primary school teaching the basics of Judaism and the Hebrew language. History ''Cheders'' were widely found in Europe before the end of the 18th ...
in Samarkand. Ashkenazi Jews did not practice Judaism publicly, and sent their children to Russian schools.


After World War I

After World War I, more and more Ashkenazi Jews came to Kyrgyzstan. Among them many representatives of different political parties who were exiled to central Asia, or government officials who were asked to work in rural areas such as Kyrgyzstan. With the # outbreak of the Communist revolution, many political activists were sent to Kyrgyzstan to promote the communist ideas − many of whom were Jews or of Jewish origin, such as G. Broido who was chairman of the Bishkek city soviet, and Pinchasov, Lifschitz and Frei who were members of the local city soviets of Osh, Djahlal-Abad, and Tokmak. In 1920 the local ministry of education initiated a Jewish institute run by Simon Dimanshtein meant for alphabetization of Sephardic Jews. In 1929, Alexander Volodarsky, a former Yeshiva student from Vitebsk, became the leader of the Ashkenazi Jewish community of Osh, after being exiled from Belarus due to his religious practices.


World War II and on

During the Second World War, more than 20,000 Ashkenazi Jews fled to Kyrgyzstan from the Nazi-occupied western parts of the Soviet Union. The Jewish Theater Company of Warsaw with the renowned actress Ida Kaminska (1899−1980) was evacuated to Bishkek until it was moved back to Europe after the war. During that time, the theater performed in Bishkek in
Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
and Russian. By 1945, some 70 Jews of the Bishkek community visited the local synagogue daily. On holidays, some 2,500 Jews visited the synagogue. Later, the synagogue began to host also Sephardic prayers for the city's Sephardi community. During the 1950s, the Jewish community of Bishkek reached about 3% of the total population of the city. Jews became dominant in the local university, clinics and schools, living mostly at the center of Bishkek. On other cities, smaller communities of Jews had lived also in the center mostly.The Jews of Kyrgyzstan - The Museum of the Jewish People at Beit Hatfutsot
/ref> During the 1970s, some Jews began to emigrate to Israel, though the Soviet government made it hard for them to emigrate. Later on, and especially from 1989 and on, the vast majority of the Kyrgyzstan Jewish community emigrated to Israel, leaving around 500 Jews living nowadays in the country. In 2000, Rabbi Arie Reichman, member of
Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States The Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States is a union of rabbis residing in Muslim countries, established in December 2019 to support Jewish life in the region. Its activity is approved by Chief Rabbi of Israel Grand Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef and follo ...
was sent by the Chabad movement to serve the Jewish community of Bishkek as Chief Rabbi, and nowadays there is a Jewish day school named "Pri Etz-Chaim", teaching some Hebrew and Jewish texts. The community is characterised by inter-religious marriage, and secular practice.


Cemeteries

Jewish graves can be found at the Bishkek old and new cemeteries, in specific sections. Local cemetery workers usually know about these areas. In Djhalal-abad, at the local cemetery, Jewish graves are scattered all around the cemetery, marked usually by the Magen David sign.


See also

*
History of the Jews in Central Asia The history of the Jews in Central Asia dates back centuries, where Jews have lived in countries which include Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Kazakhstan Joseph Stalin forcibly relocated thousands of Jews from other ...


References

{{Asia in topic, History of the Jews in Jewish Kyrgyzstan Jews and Judaism in Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan