Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Culture

Bridge to Bukhara

On an auspicious day in the late 1980s, New York-based photographer Joan Roth decided to visit Bukhara in the former Soviet Union to photograph the centuries-old Jewish community there. The community’s relative isolation from the greater Jewish world and their constant and historic struggle against Muslim oppression had resulted in a unique set of traditions: They spoke a dialect of the Tajik language, their rituals stem from both Persian and Sephardic Jewish practices, and their clothing, silk gowns and caftans reflect the styles of their neighbors and rulers.

While staying at a Communist hotel near the Mahalla, the Bukharan equivalent of the Jewish ghetto, Roth slowly endeared herself to the 2,000-year-old community, with help from some broken Hebrew — and her art form.

“The camera worked as a bridge between us,” Roth recalled in a recent interview with the Forward.

Now, 20 years later—with most of the community since transplanted to these shores—the results of Roth expedition are being shown in “Remembering Old Bukhara,” an exhibit at the Center for Jewish History through September 30. In addition to photographs, the show also features objects borrowed from the Bukharian Jewish Museum in Queens, New York — now home to many Bukharian Jews, including some found in Roth’s photos.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.