Cara Rosehope: Hello, and welcome to Encounter on ABC Radio National. I'm Cara Rosehope, and today we'll explore the history of the Bukharians, the oriental Jewish community of Central Asia. For millennia, the Bukharians have lived at the crossroads of the east, but today they stand at a crossroad in their very identity. This is Shalom from the Silk Road, the story of the Bukharians.

SINGING

Reader: Zedekiah was the King of Judah and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And in the ninth year of his reign, it came to pass that Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, came on to Jerusalem and the city of besieged. And many were the people of Judah who were carried away unto the land of Babylon.

And when in time Babylon fell to Persia, the captives were freed. And though some returned to Jerusalem, others did, by their own choice, remain.

Cara Rosehope: It's a hot, hot day in Uzbekistan in Central Asia. I'm in the ancient Silk Road city of Bukhara about 100 ks north of the Uzbek border with Afghanistan. It's early summer, late in the afternoon. I've ventured out of my air-conditioned room, and done the historic mosques and madressas. Then I decided to explore the residential part of this mediaeval town. Grateful for the shade cast by its tall mud walls, I venture down a narrow street, just off the central square.

For over a century Uzbekistan and its neighbours were under Russian rule, first the Tsars, then the Soviets. After the break-up of the USSR, there's been a general resurgence of religion in its former territories, following the decades of religious repression.

MOSLEM PRAYER (recorded in the Guri Amir in Samarkand)

Cara Rosehope: While some of its neighbours have embraced Islamic fundamentalism, I found Uzbekistan unexpectedly tolerant. I've seen brand new Orthodox churches, gold domes gleaming and bold, and though the majority of Uzbeks are Muslim, I've never yet heard the call to prayer. Faith here, is, it seems, a matter of personal choice.

Still, I'm surprised by the sign above the door in the ancient city street. It's in Russian, so I can't actually read it, but the symbol it bears is unmistakable. It's the Magen David, the Star of David. It's the entrance to a synagogue that belongs to the Bukharians, the indigenous Jews of Central Asia.

EVENING PRAYERS (old Bukharian Synagogue, Bukhara)

The Bukharians date their time in the region to the Babylonian exile. For over 2,000 years, against an ever-changing backdrop of despots and dynasties, theologies and ideologies, world wars and cold wars, the Bukharians have maintained a distinctive language, culture and religion. But today the Bukharians are facing a new challenge. After more than 2,000 years, the Jews of Central Asia have all but gone from the region that's been their home for generation upon generation. But the Bukharians have not disappeared, but rather, they've transported their vibrant oriental culture around the world. For today, the Silk Road winds through some unexpected places.

MUSIC (Shash Maqam)

Cara Rosehope: Aron Aranov lives in New York, in the borough of Queens, amid the large Bukharian community who have settled there over the last 30 years. The linguist, turned community historian is the founder-curator of the Bukharian Museum.

Aron Aranov: After the destruction of the First Temple 586BC when we were in Babylon captivity, we lived there in Babylon, and then after 50, 60 years when Persian Empire emerged, the King of Persian Empire said 'You can either stay here, or you can go back to your country and rebuild your Temple.' 30% of people went back to rebuild the Temple, which was later destroyed by the Romans, in 70AD, and my ancestors stayed in Babylon.

Cara Rosehope: Imanuel Rybakov is a Tashkent-born, New York based Bukharian historian.

Imanuel Rybakov: We believe that we are Babylonian captives, we were captives of Nebuchadnezzar, and we are the Jews who, when the Second Temple was built, we decided to stay in the area where we were living before, that's Iran, Iraq, that area, and we keep all tradition from the First Temple.

CHANTING

Paul Forgasz: My name's Paul Forgasz, I'm a lecturer in Ancient and Mediaeval Jewish History in the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation at Monash University.

The Babylonian exile was really a - I suppose one could regard it as a turning point event in the history of the Jewish people, because it was really the first significant moment in history when a large number of Jews were, for the first time, living outside of their land without all of the sort of trappings of national Jewish life, a temple, a king, and certainly without a land. The way in which I often like to describe that period is to suggest that it's a period where we start to see gradually a move away from a sort of more national religion, to seeing greater importance being attached to the trappings of individual religious life. So, for example, in exile, Jews would have placed much, much greater importance on practices like circumcision, the observance of the Sabbath, the observance of dietary laws, if for no other reason than it set them apart in a very visible and physical way, from their pagan neighbours.

MUSIC (Shash Maqam)

Cara Rosehope: The Babylonian Diaspora lived within the countries of the Persian Empire. The Empire was a unified state, with a well- developed and a protected system of roads. With this stability, an emerging understanding of what it meant to be Jewish, and living outside Israel, some Jews began moving out along the trade routes we know as the Silk Road. They would travel through much of Central Asia during 1,000 years of Persian rule.

Imanuel Rybakov: Bukharians are also known as Jews of the Silk Road. From the history we know that Jews were known as traders, and Jews came to Central Asia through Persian cities, through Babylonian cities, to Central Asia, like from Meshed to Bairam Ali, which is now Turkmenistan, and today archaeologists found old graves in the old cemetery and Bairam Ali Cemetery today known as the most ancient Jewish cemetery in that region.

Aron Aranov: : They passed through Iran, and not far from Afghanistan, and a few steps northward, and we got into Turkmania and Uzbekistan.

Cara Rosehope: In the first few centuries of Persian rule, Central Asia was a place where Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Judaism existed side by side. But in the 7th century, Arab forces would take the region in the name of Islam.

CALL TO PRAYER

Cara Rosehope: The Arab conquest saw the introduction of laws which discriminated against those who would not convert to Islam. These included the anti-Jewish Law of Omar. Imanuel Rybakov.

Imanuel Rybakov: Omar laws, which were the laws which discriminated Jews in their rights, didn't allow them to ride on the horse, didn't allow them to wear the same clothes as Muslim people used to wear, and Jews were obligated to pay taxes. They were protected but they should pay taxes. Majority of Bukharian Jews lived in Bukharan kingdom, Bukharan Emirate. They used to live only in a special area given to Jews.

Cara Rosehope: Over the centuries which followed the Muslim conquest, Central Asia has been invaded by the Mongols, the Timurids, the Turks, and most recently the Russians. The Jews experienced alternating periods of tolerance and persecution. The Bukharians were restricted to the Jewish quarter, the Makhallah Yuhidiyon, forbidden to live elsewhere. But the Makhallah offered better shelter and protection, and allowed the Bukharians to practice their religion undisturbed.

CHANTING

Cara Rosehope: Riva Alayev is not much short of 100. She lives in suburban Melbourne, within the city's Jewish heartland, the elder in a household of four generations of her extended family. But Riva started life half a world away in the Tashkent Makhallah in 1913, when Uzbekistan was under Russian rule.

Riva Alayev (in translation): There were five children in the family. My father died when I was 7, so my mother brought us up on her own. She was a dressmaker, she worked from home, and she also used some of the time to do some trading to make extra money. Mama was working day and night; it was so hard to raise enough to support us.

After my father died, we lived with my uncle. We lived in a separate area from Uzbeks. There were no Uzbeks there. The whole Makhallah was very strong with keeping the religion. Nobody worked on Shabbat, everyone knew what kosher meant, we all knew our Jewishness, lighting the candles for Shabbat; observing our dietary laws, all the Jewish traditions, very, very strict, the whole Makhallah.

BUKHARIAN COMMUNITY OF MELBOURNE, CHANUKAH

Gershon Yitsharki: We have to light the candle every day, from right to left. So it's its second day, like example, we go two...

Cara Rosehope: It's Chanukah in Melbourne, and the Bukharian community has gathered to celebrate this festival of light. Gershon Yitsharki leads the community in lighting the Chanukah menorah. Gershon too knew the Makhallah, growing up as he did in the legendary city of Samarkand.

Gershon Yitsharki: In Samarkand was a place called Makhallah, Makhallah mean usually Jewish people make some suburbs, which only Jewish people can live there. Makhallah it's sort of place, you can keep things which, out of the Makhallah if people find out, maybe be dangerous on life. You can run most of the things usually Bukharian religious people used to keep inside of the Makhallah which is a sort of secret, like mikvah we used to use...

Cara Rosehope: Riva Alayev had come into the world when Central Asia was ruled by the Tsars. But the 1917 Soviet Revolution saw the four-year-old living under a new regime. For the Bukharians Soviet policy brought some benefits but created many problems.

Riva Alayev: During my childhood time there was no problem with being a Jew in Uzbekistan. We had a better time than our parents, but I remember, in my grandmother's time, Basmachis - raiders - would steal the Bukharian girls - about 20 of them would come at night, if they saw a beautiful girl, they would find out where she lived, rape her, wrap her in the blanket and off they'd go. There were a lot of cases in my grandmother's time, so the girls' families tried to keep the girls close, inside out of sight.

I always knew that I was a Jew. In 1917 there was a revolution, and after the revolution it was easier for the Bukharians. All identities were more out in the open in Uzbekistan because when the Soviets came, the Uzbeks were then afraid to harm the Bukharians, the Soviets laws were stricter.

Cara Rosehope: Margarita Pinkhasova is a senior nurse at a major Melbourne hospital. Her paternal family had once lived in Iran before moving, first to Afghanistan, then on to Samarkand during the time of the Tsars.

Margarita Pinkhasova: They were rich people when they came to Russia, in the 1800s they were working in trade as well as vineyards until the revolution, the Russian Revolution in 1917 they had a few big houses and they were only left with a small part of their house, and some of the houses were turned into hospitals, which was probably good for the poor people. But they adjusted and they lived their own lives.

Cara Rosehope: But for the Bukharians the Soviet policy of religious repression was sorely felt.

Riva Alayev: I went to school for a while, but my uncle was a rabbi so they didn't want me there - when the Soviets came they didn't approve of religion. All my friends were educated. Some became doctors.

There were a lot of Bukharian girls at the school but they were Uzbeks and Russians as well. There were Bukharian schools, but with the Russians there, it was changing, peoples merging.

Margarita Pinkhasova: In Dushambe there was a synagogue and you could practice Judaism, everybody knew we are Jewish. There were a lot of Jews lived in the central part of the city and they lived close to each other, because, you know, to support -and because of the family or the Jewish holidays; I remember at Passover we used to go to my great-uncle and it was the family affair, so we always had to be close by. We didn't have cars there, so we walked everywhere.

Cara Rosehope: But the effects of the Soviet religious repression varied from place to place.

LEVI BEN AVRAM LOOKING AT TASHKENT MAP)

Cara Rosehope: Levi Ben Avram knows his way around Tashkent. We stand at the table in his Melbourne home, as he traces his past on my map. The former architect spent much of his adult life in the Uzbek capital, but Levi was born in a regional town, south-west of Samarkand.

Levi Ben Avram: My father was a rabin, his parents in the history, grandfather, was all my generation, my father's generation was high educated, and he used to teach the people to make some kosher meals, to kill sheeps and cows and the chicken, and he teach the people around six months, and he give him rashrud, it's called rashud, it means it's a diploma. These people come from all around Middle Asia.

Cara Rosehope: Levi Ben Avram.

MUSIC

Melbourne Bukharian Zarra Ochildieva, also spent her childhood beyond the big cities.

Zarra Ochildieva: My family was very observant. My family was not living amongst the bigger Bukhara community. I was born in 1948 in a little town, Margilan, part of Uzbekistan, but we could see how my auntie's and uncle's families were very knowledgeable about traditions and the dates in the Jewish calendars.

CHANTING

Zarra Ochildieva: As kids we used to have fun to participate in things like making matzo, or celebrating different Jewish festivals with the huge family. When I say 'huge family' I include all my cousins, which at the time would be consisting of 60 people.

Margarita Pinkhasova: For Passover we couldn't make our own matzos, it all had to be in hiding because in Russia, anyone couldn't, no-one could actually practice religion, you know, if you were a Jew, Christian or Muslim. But there was some aspect of Judaism that was allowed.

Cara Rosehope: In the 1920s charges of blood libel had been brought against the Uzbek Jews. Two Bukharian families had been accused of using the blood of Muslim babies in their Passover matzos. This would leave its mark on future generations.

Zarra Ochildieva: We were making our own matzos because they were not provided as they are now. I didn't realise then that we had to hide it, but I could say that my aunties were not advertising it, though Muslim neighbours probably knew about that. I know as a fact that my grandma used to invite her Muslim neighbours so they would see there was no blood being mixed in the dough. And later on, when we had to face the questions of our friends, saying, 'Oh, you add blood into matzos', so we openly told them 'Well come with me and watch us.'

Cara Rosehope: The Jewish cemetery in Bukhara is a quiet and restful place, its silence broken only by the birds in the trees, and the odd rustic sound nearby. But the graves here tell the story of a difficult time for the Bukharians. Old worn headstones cut with Hebrew lie alongside more recent neighbours inscribed with Russian.

By mid-century, only Russian was allowed. This had a profound effect on the Bukharians. Their Bukhori language was banned, effectively putting an end to the Bukharian literary life. But the ban on Hebrew was perhaps even more painful for the group, whose religious and community life was shaped by their holy books. Gershon Yitsharki.

Gershon Yitsharki: I grew up on quite religious family, which we used to keep all tradition and all holidays and stuff like that, Jewish holidays. We didn't know so much about religion on olden days, because we don't read Hebrew which is holy language of the Torah, so most things we don't understand what we learn or we read, but we try to keep much as we can.

Zarra Ochildieva: Only in Australia it occurred to me that all my uncles, my grandparents, they knew how to read Hebrew, because I remember our seder for Pesac, Passover, my uncles read Hebrew; I'm not sure they need translation, but they were very good in Hebrew, so obviously they learnt it, and I was told that my father could read Hebrew. I think every child was taught Hebrew. I didn't know if my mother did or not, but certainly they knew some prayers in Hebrew, and only in Australia I realised when I started learning my Hebrew in a synagogue, I realised that I actually never saw the seder Books with Russian translation, which tells me that there were not such books. So they had to probably memorise all these prayers, and they knew exactly what they were praying about.

Cara Rosehope: Against these small annual events, for the people of Soviet Russia, a larger event was about to play out.

RED ARMY CHOIR: Sacred War

Cara Rosehope: When Germany invaded Russia in 1941, it set in motion an evacuation of 16 million Soviet civilians, mostly women and children, to the Urals, Siberia and to Central Asia. Uzbekistan received a huge influx of evacuees. Tashkent's population increased by 400,000 in the space of a few months. Sixty years on, from her Melbourne home, Riva Alayev recalls.

Riva Alayev: There were a lot of refugees, a lot, a lot. Even at the house where we were living, they vacated some of the rooms for four families to live in. There were a lot of refugees, a lot.

At that time, a loaf of bread was 200 roubles. To make a dinner for us was 500 roubles. We sold everything that we had in the house to buy food. There were a lot of people that were dying of hungers. Even for money you couldn't find something to eat. It was such a time!

There was a voucher system. For every person, 400 grams of bread, for people who were working, a kilo of bread, and for kids, 600 grams.

Cara Rosehope: The food shortage extended beyond the main cities and could affect even those most respected within the community. Rabbi's son, Levi Ben Avram.

Levi Ben Avram: All my life, from beginning the war to the end, I lived with my parents in the Qashe. And my father died in 1942. He was 78 years old, and he was old and sick because conditions, living conditions were too bad and during the war, it wasn't enough food and it wasn't enough bread, even bread, we're not talking about the meat or some another - it was very hard to live during the war.

Cara Rosehope: And food was not the only thing that was in short supply. The truth, too, was rationed.

Riva Alayev: No, the government didn't reveal what was happening in the world to the Jews. It was closed. But we did hear what was being done. My sister's husband fought in the war, and he came for a visit at one stage. She told us that the Germans were killing Jews, and if they capture a soldier who was Jewish, they killed him too. In our family alone, five men went to the war. Only the women and children were left. All the Bukharian men fought in the war.

Cara Rosehope: Riva Alayev's husband had died some years before the war, leaving her with a small son to support. By the end of the war, Riva was one among many Bukharian widows.

Riva Alayev: There were a lot, a lot of widows - in my day, a lot, a lot. They were all trying to earn money any way they could for their family. Being a hairdresser, one of my sisters was selling dumplings at the market.

Cara Rosehope: Riva was able to find work in a factory, making parachute silk for the war effort. They paid her well for it, she says, but she was required to work double shifts while her mother cared for her son. Riva now shares a house with her son, Eliahu. For Eliahu, growing up during the war, brought a sense of belonging.

Eliahu Izraelov (in translation): We grew up with the Uzbeks. The Uzbeks knew we were Jews, and they knew that we would have to be together, grow together, live like that, and respect each other. They didn't mind us, or perhaps it was deeply hidden. Maybe there were some particular people, but I can't say it was the whole nation.

The question of nationality didn't came up until about thirty years ago. Before the war I felt no discrimination. It first started over the next 30 years, when they heard the Jews were leaving. I felt no discrimination until I made Aliyah, the return to Israel . Or maybe I didn't understand.

MUSIC

Cara Rosehope: After the war, the tide would again turn against the Bukharians as anti-Semitism became official policy across the USSR. The Bukharians were no longer classified as local, indigenous people. Their passports gave their nationality simply as 'Jew'. This would affect the Bukharians on many levels. Immanuel Rybakov.

Imanuel Rybakov: In the beginning of the Soviet era, Bukharian Jews in their passports, in the part of 'nationality', in their passport was written 'Bukharian Jew', or 'Indigenous Jew'. That means that Bukharian Jew had the same right in education as local Muslim, but after the war, Soviets gave new passport where only 'Jew' was mentioned. And for the Soviet Union, only five percent of the Jews were accepted to colleges and universities. Even if you entered the college and graduated, later when you would like to become Director or Manager, in different periods of the Soviet era it was difficult to be a Jew, and the same time to be a Manager or Director of a big factory or company. That's why some Bukharian Jews, they used to call themselves 'not in Jewish manner'.

Zarra Ochildieva: I was born as Sarah, but changed my name later at the age of 16, to Zarra. Then I knew exactly why I was doing that, because living in a Muslim and Christian street, everyone was calling me names like "Zaha, where's your Avram" and I didn't know why they were doing it, because at that stage I had no knowledge of religion. All I knew was that I was Jewish and I knew I wasn't different from all other kids, but I could see there was always a distance created, sometimes, not by the kids but their parents.

Aron Aronov: To be equal with local people you had to be superior. I spoke many languages, I was hired a translator because I spoke in addition to English, French, German and other languages, so I was an around A student, we needed to work very hard to study hard, because the authorities were interested that local people get promotion and all that. Bukharian Jews, we put up with this situation; we knew that we couldn't go to the top, we knew our place.

Cara Rosehope: But there was one field in which Bukharians were allowed to excel, and one in which they'd done so for unbroken centuries: that of music.

SINGING

Ezra Malakov comes from a Rabbinical and musical dynasty from Uzbekistan. He's a cantor, or hazzan, and also a secular singer who performs the courtly classical music of Central Asia, known as Shash Maqam.

SINGING

Ezra Malakov (in translation): We're Bukharians, we lived in Central Asia for 2,000 years, and during that time the Bukharians have shown that they're very talented musicians and singers. I don't know why, perhaps life pushed them that way. But it's a fact that they were very talented, musically.

There are two ways with our musical tradition: religious music and Shash Maqam. We have sacred music for all religious occasions, Shabbat, Rosh Hashannah, Yom Kippur, Purim, Pesach.. Each religious occasion has its own music;

I've put together about 15 hours of this music. With Shash Maqam we perform this music a little bit differently from the singers of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan. You can hear the difference from the Bukharians. It's a little bit different in colour. The Ashkenazi religious music is coloured a little bit differently, too. The Jews from Syria, Iran, Iraq have their own way, each community has its own form of music.

Cara Rosehope: In 1971, international trade sanctions against the Soviets made immigration possible for the Bukharians. Over the next two decades, many made the decision to leave, and for many reasons. Zarra Ochildieva.

Zarra Ochildieva: Education was always the number one priority for every Jewish family. And for us as well. So, it was worrying me that my children would find it very hard to go to universities eventually, so I was sort of thinking with the years upfront, and it helped me to convince my ex-husband because he was scared to leave. At that time the war broke with Afghanistan, and I didn't want my children to be taken to the army and fight for the country which they never lived.

Cara Rosehope: Zarra Ochildieva is a former music teacher. Immigration regulations meant that she and her three sons were required to stay in Italy while waiting to be accepted by their country of choice. They found themselves part of a large community of Jewish émigrés-in-waiting. This was to bring unlooked-for benefits.

SINGING

Zarra Ochildieva: My boys would never have Bar Mitzvah in Tashkent, we wouldn't make it such a noisy celebration, we were not allowed. For me to be a teacher, I would be scared to do anything. For all three of them I found it very hard to organise circumcision, day because it had to be as a celebration, and when we went to Italy, we didn't now what time we had to wait, how many months. We were told it might take up to one year, so my boys started yeshiva there, and I was approached by one of the rabbis, if I would be happy for them to have their Bar Mitzvah because my middle one was approaching the age of 13, and the eldest one turned 15, and he never had Bar Mitzvah. So my two boys had Bar Mitzvah in a little town of Italy, Ladispoli, around 40 kilometres away from Roma and there were like 200 people. At the time there were 4,000 emigrants waiting for their visa. So for me, it was such a big event, and for my children, to have their Bar Mitzvah and to have the sense of belonging.

CHANTING

Cara Rosehope: Successive waves of immigration to Israel, to America, and elsewhere in the West, have reduced the number of Bukharians in Central Asia to a fraction of their world-wide population. While immigration has freed the Bukharians of many of the constraints of their earlier environment, one old spectre remains. Here's Aron Aranov.

Aron Aranov: We left Russia to avoid assimilation. But in America there is a danger of assimilation which could take place in a much faster pace than in Central Asia, because we have lost our environment, oriental bazaars and those, you know, instead of those clay houses, crooked streets and lanes, oriental bazaars, and donkeys and camels, we see here skyscrapers, Cadillacs an all that. It is a little bit different. And then school and movies and TV have a great impact on our children, and our children speak English. And parents boast that children are very fluent in English, but they're not aware that this happened at the expense of losing our own language, Bukharian language.

Schlomo Nisavov: Well democracy, it's a double-edged sword, you know, you have something that I have a choice to do what I have to do or not.

Cara Rosehope: Bukharian Rabbi Schlomo Nisavov.

Schlomo Nisavov: And sometimes in most of the rhetoric in authoritarian dictatorships, the Jewish people they are more successful because there is a reason to fight. When it comes to freedom, you know, it comes with its pitfalls because now I don't have to do it. Now nobody's persecuting me for being Jewish. So I don't have to per se be Jewish. I don't have to look Jewish, I don't have to act Jewish, and that has with it its pluses and minuses. The pluses is obviously, you are - there is no persecution of religion, race, or ethnicity and you could do whatever you like. You could go to openly Bukharian synagogue. We have Bukharian festivals, and it's great for us to come, you know. Where I come from is not on the map, and to be sitting with the former presidents of the United States, with the governors and mayors, it's a big plus. The younger Bukharians, the disenchanted Bukharians, you have to understand this, it's unprecedented. We have 60,000 Bukharian Jews in a 10 mile radius.

Cara Rosehope: Ezra Malakov too, has made the move to Queens, where he's anthologised much of the vast repertoire of Bukharian sacred music. For Bukharian musicians too, the move to Queens has been a double-edged sword.

Ezra Malakov: It's already been 20, 21 years since we came here with our music to America. We haven't lost that music. It's with us every day. During the time of the Soviet Union it was hard to teach religious music, but in Muslim countries like Uzbekistan, it was a little bit easier. Fathers, grandfathers, used to sing like we do, and now, what was hidden before is out in the open. We've put it in books and CDs, everyone can hear who we are. I don't think this is going to disappear right now. Maybe in Israel the music will change. It's already blending in. The music that our fathers and grandfathers sang, I tried to show the people what it is, but there this tradition - only history now.

Cara Rosehope: Ezra Malakov also performs both classic and folk Bukharian music in the Ensemble Maqam. For his friend and colleague, Tamara Katayeva, the move to Queens has been a positive one. Tamara was born in Tajikistan, where she had a successful career as a singer, dancer and actor. She's also a Sazaandar, a performer for the women-only gatherings that are part of the life rites for her community.

Tamara has continued that work here, and as well, has found new opportunities with the interest in world music. I spoke to Tamara in a sumptuous dining room of a Bukharian restaurant as the traffic rumbled down the 12-lane boulevard outside.

Tamara Katayeva: My name is Tamara Katayeva. I was working in Tajikistan in Ensemble Gushan. We came here, we continue our, our musician. Now I am working in Ensemble Maqam. We also going all the world, we was in Germany, in Austria, in Israel, in Morocco, in many time in Uzbekistan, in Tajikistan; I'm very glad I came to New York and the we did not sit home and I like American people interest in our folk musician, folk dance, and folk song, and we have performed with my Ensemble Maqam in the Carnegie Hall, in UJ Federation, and 42nd street, and every year we go into Washington DC for performing to Smithsonian Folk Festival. We was many, many countries, in many cities. I am very glad these American people till now interesting. This is very important for our people and for us, like, musician people.

Aron Aranov: When Michael Bloomberg says that New York is a melting pot, I tell Michael Bloomberg please, don't say to my people that it is a melting pot, because we want to integrate into the American society, but at the same time we want to preserve our Bukharian Jewish identity. So why won't we call it, like New York is a mosaic, consisting of so many colours, and we are some of those colours.

Cara Rosehope: The Bukharians in Queens are taking active measures to preserve their identity. As well as the Bukharian Museum, they have classes in Bukhari language and Bukharian culture. And the Bukharians have joined the global community; they have a website, online consultations with Bukharian rabbis, an internet Bukharian dating service, and worldwide community news. They're doing all they can to preserve their identity. And using those twin pillars of food and music, the Bukharians are building bridges to the wider community, finding their place within the mainstream, while yet preserving, and indeed celebrating, their unique culture. And they're reaching out to educate others and just what it means to be Bukharian.

ARON ARANOV ANNOUNcING BUKHARIAN MUSICIANS IN RESTAURANT

Here at the King David restaurant on Queens Boulevard, Tamara Katayeva and her fellow musicians perform for a Jewish women's groups from Manhattan, after a festive Bukharian meal. A visit to the Bukharian Museum preceded the meal; a trip to the shopping strip of Bukharian food stores on 108th Street will follow.

In Central Asia today, maybe as few as 1,000 Bukharians remain. Their small numbers may mean that they struggle to retain their cultural integrity.

MELBOURNE TRAM

And what of Melbourne's Bukharians, with around 65 families?

KLEZMER MUSIC

In the predominantly Ashkenazi Jewish population in which they now live, many find that little is known of their history, even among historians. Paul Forgasz.

Paul Forgasz: The question of how much is known about the Bukharian Jewish community within the context of the wider Jewish community, I guess I could probably use myself as an example, I guess. And I have to say to my great shame, that I know almost nothing about Bukharian Jews, other than the fact that I've sort of heard about them, I know very, very little about their sort of culture and about their way of life and their history. And given the fact that I would regard myself as fairly well-educated in matters of Jewish history and so on, I would probably pretty much exemplify the situation that exists in the wider Jewish community, and I think that there's an interesting add-on to that. And that is that I think the experience of the wider Jewish community and their knowledge of the historical experience of the Jews, tends to be I think, very much Ashkenazic-centric, because so many Jews for example in Australia, come from an Ashkenazic sort of background. A great deal of Jewish intellectual history when it's studied, tends to focus very much on the Franco-German-Italian sort of areas, and therefore those other communities, including the whole of the Sephardic world, tends often to be marginalised, and I say regrettably so, even in more formal studies of the Jewish historical past.

Cara Rosehope: Here in Melbourne, some marrying outside the community has already occurred, and will no doubt continue. But the Bukharians here feel strongly about their identity, and some, like Gershon Yitsharki, have begun to organise community events.

MELBOURNE BUKHARIANS WITH CHANUKA SONG.

Gershon Yitsharki: Before I become more religion in my life, I saw so many beautiful things happening in Melbourne, one thing that's missing it's no-one really care about Bukharian community. Slowly, slowly, we start only with Pesach, which is Passover, then thank God, we now doing three Jewish holidays per year. My identity is first of all to be a Jew, then definitely to be Bukharian. And I feel I can pass that to my children, next generation, and I hope my children pass to their children.

Cara Rosehope: Among those celebrating Hanukah that night was Milla Israelov. Milla is married to Riva Alayev's grandson, Rami, and is part of the extended Israelov household.

Milla Israelov: The Bukharian identity became to be more important for me than it was in my teens. I would never, I guess, have on my own wedding the traditional Bukhari gowns, but on my son's Bar Mitzvah I actually purchased those gowns myself. I have them at home, I'm proud of them, we also out of the proudness of being Bukhari Jew, we gave all the male guests the Bukhari kippar, which we ordered from Samarkand just to prove I guess, or to show that we Bukharian, we're proud Bukhari.

Cara Rosehope: Milla and her husband met and married in Israel. The family still has extensive contacts in Israel, and so celebrated their son Elli's Bar Mitzvah there. Elli also received a Bukharian kippar, a skullcap, to mark the event. Thirteen-year-old Elli treasures his kippar. His thoughts conclude this program as he reflects upon his experience of growing up Bukharian in Melbourne, and on how he feels about his Bukharian identity.

Elli Israelov: Being a Bukharian Jew is really important to me because it's the identity that I've grown up with. Throughout my knowledge I don't think there is anyone in my year level who is Bukharian, so I feel a bit lonely, 'cause there are some Sephardic Jews in my year, but none of them are Bukhari, so I don't have many people to relate to or a similar way of living.

When I went to Israel for my Bar Mitzvah, I remember walking down to the Kotel in my suit and a red Bukharian jacket, you could say, and my Bukharian kippar, and the whole time I was walking, I remember that I'm Bukharian and I'm proud of it.

CHANTING, MUSIC

Cara Rosehope: On ABC Radio National, you've been listening to Encounter. And Shalom from the Silk Road, the story of the Bukharians. Thanks to all those who took part. Thanks also to Timothy Nicastri for studio production.

I'm Cara Rosehope. Thanks for your company.