In Queens, New York, Cyrillic signs adorn storefronts, restaurants with names like Shalom and Cheburechnaya serve bread baked in a tandoor and a museum showcases elaborate robes and kippot—all signs of the thriving community that came from Central Asia, bringing their unique heritage with them. 

On a fall Sunday afternoon, the chandeliered party room at Troika in Forest Hills, Queens, is filling up. Friends and relatives have come to the Bukharian restaurant to honor the memory of prominent Jewish writer Lev Kandinov on the one-month anniversary of his death. Candles stand ready to be lit below his portrait, and long, rectangular tables are heaped with food: carrot, beet and mushroom salads; dishes of raisins, pickles and caraway wafers; non, a bialy-shaped bread topped with black sesame seeds; noni toqhi, matza-like in its flatness but baked into a curve against the dome of a tandoor; and bottles of seltzer, vodka and pots of green tea.

Soon, the rabbi chants minha, the afternoon service, in the Middle Eastern-inflected Bukharian style. The men stand and pray while the women remain seated and chat. While the speeches extolling the deceased begin in Bukhori, also called Judeo-Persian (Farsi mixed with Hebrew, Aramaic, Uzbek and Tajik), which is the native tongue of the Bukharian Jews, the guests sip and munch. Course after course is served: fried carp dipped in garliccilantro sauce; round meat pies (samboosak); dumlama, a wheel of baked cabbage, tomato, meat and pepper; and plov, rice spiced with cumin and crowned with julienned carrots, chick peas and meat.

The scene is repeated all through the year—with some variations—at two dozen or so restaurants that have sprung up to accommodate the thousands of Bukharian Jews who have settled in Queens since the early 1970s. Bukharian Jews are thriving here and elsewhere in the United States, modernizing yet trying to stay true to their heritage. Memorials that used to be conducted at home are held in res­taurants during shiva and at 30-day and 1-year anniversaries. The memorials represent one custom among the many traditions members of the community are dedicated to maintaining in their diaspora.

“Every day, every restaurant is full,” says Lana Levitin, a real estate broker and manager of Maqam, a Bukharian musical ensemble. “With 50,000 Jews, everyone has someone to remember.”

Sheva berakhot, bar mitzvas and birthday celebrations al­so fill the halls. When someone dies, “even if you’ve never heard of the person, you go to the funeral,” says David Ribacoff, an émigré from Bukhara who has lived in New York since 1963.

At the remembrance for Kandinov, Levitin em­phasizes the high intellectual and cultural level of the largely older crowd. There are former physics professors, physicians, dancers and other professionals fluent in a variety of Cen­tral Asian dialects. Because of their age and limited Eng­lish, it has been hard for them to find work in their fields.

Despite that, “we are not mourning the Old Country,” says Ezra Malakov, 70, a singer and cantor at the synagogue of the Beth Gavriel World Center for Buk­ha­r­ian Jews in Queens. “Practicing Judaism freely was not allowed there. There is a nostalgic feeling for the country where we were born but whatever we are doing here was absolutely impossible there.”

Legend traces the origins of the Bukharian Jews to the Israelites exiled to Babylonia in 586 B.C.E. According to another theory, they are descendants of fifth-century exiles from Persia. How they got to Central Asia is obscure, but they maintained their distinctive Eastern practices in relative isolation for thousands of years under Islamic and, later, Russian rule. Their name derives from the Uzbek city of Bukhara in south­eastern Russia. Their history and traditions differ both from the Caucasian, or Mountain, Jews, who hail from nearby Azerbaijan and Dagestan, and the Ashkenazic Russian Jews of northern cities such as Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kiev.

Yet all three groups experienced re­ligious persecution under the So­viets. The Bukhar­ians suppressed all evidence of religious practice but were allowed to ob­tain higher education and establish careers. Al­though some left as early as the 1960s (the first Bu­khar­ian synagogue in Queens was established in 1965), emigration in­creased with perestroika in 1985 and then again after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Many made their way first to Israel and then resettled in the United States. There are approximately 150,000 Bukh­arian Jews in Israel today, including a group of 100 who made aliya from New York in 2006 with their rabbi, Mi­chael Bo­ru­chov; 60,000 in North America; and smaller numbers in Europe. The community is centered in Queens and Brooklyn, but some groups have relocated to Miami, Denver, Phoenix, Toronto, Atlanta, Los Angeles and San Diego. About 2,000 remain in Central Asia.

Along the main shopping area of 108th Street in Forest Hills—called Bukharian Broadway or Queen­sistan-signs in Cyrillic advertiseaptekas (pharmacies), bakeries, fruit markets, dry cleaners and restaurants like Salute, Shalom and Chebur­ech­naya. The older generation has become entrepreneurs, shoemakers, hairdress­ers, barbers, cos­metologists, jewelers, real estate agents, photographers and caterers; the younger generation is made up largely of physicians, lawyers, accountants, computer specialists and financial advisers. Journals and newspapers, mostly in Russian, circulate weekly and three theater troupes perform regularly.

At least a dozen synagogues—all Orthodox-serve the community (two opened this year) along with three day schools, several yeshivot, youth groups and Jewish organizations.

According to the community’s chief rabbi, Itzhak Yehoshua, about 20 percent of the community is Orthodox; 60 percent is traditional but not necessarily observant; and 20 percent is unaffiliated. While some Bukharians are assimilating into secular life, others are be­coming ba’alei teshuva, often with an Ashkenazic Or­thodox twist.

In less affluent areas such as Lefrak City alongside the Long Island Ex­pressway in the Corona section of Queens, Bukharians live in government-subsidized apart­ments, but in Forest Hills, contemporary colonials have been rebuilt with a Middle East­ern flavor, their large kitchens and formal dining rooms vit­al for accommodating extended family gatherings. Chil­dren live with their parents until they marry, and the elderly are rarely placed in nursing homes.

The five-story Bukharian Jewish Community Center in Forest Hills hosts numerous classes, events and youth ac­tiv­ities; it also houses a synagogue and offices of the Bukharian Jewish Con­gress, an umbrella organization that runs about 30 outreach centers across North America. The BJCC was completed in 2005 with the help of Buk­harian billionaire, Chabad devotee and philanthropist Lev Leviev.

Though Le­viev lives in London, his spirit—and funds—are widespread, most notably at the Queens Gymnasia, which he founded in 2002. Today, he provides free tuition (estimated at $15,000 apiece) for each of its 800 students (pre-K through 11th grade), who would otherwise have attended public school. A portrait of the Lubavitcher rebbe hangs in the entrance.

Stella Mallayeva, who works in the Gymnasia office, has a fifth-grader in the school. “Culture and tradition are im­­portant,” says the Samarkand na­­tive. “That is what holds the family together….”

Devorah Tamarova, 16, whose family emigrated from Tajikistan in 1992, distinguishes between Bukharians and “regular Jewish people.”

“Bukharians are people you’d want to get close to because we have customs others wouldn’t think of,” she says. Her mother works as a housekeeper and her father has a dry cleaning business. “My parents brought Bukharian Judaism with them. It ex­pres­ses them.” And though they were not religious, she says, “we became re­li­gious from the school…. I keep Shabbos but it is hard to do when you don’t know what you are do­ing.” She traces her pronunciation—(Shabbos instead of Shabbat)—to some of her Ashkenazic teachers.

Most of the students don’t speak Bukharian fluently but understand it. They learn to pray according to Se­far­dic custom. And if they take the elevator to the sixth floor of the Gym­nasia, it is as if they have traveled back to the Old Country. The Bukharian Jewish Mu­­­­­seum, founded by teacher and trans­­­lator Aron Aron­ov with the support of Leviev and busi­ness­man Dan­iel Rose, beckons visitors into an­other world, one in which the epicenter of life was the courtyard of the house, where fruit trees canopied large wooden beds used for eating, sleeping and socializing and samo­vars perched on tables. Aronov waves a wicker fan—a bodbezanin a circular mo­tion and explains that a bunch of dry grass that hangs on a wall was burned to protect against the evil eye. Rooms feature benches covered with vivid woven rugs; gold-embroidered wall hangings; robes of silk, magenta and gold called jomas; and glittering kippot donned for special occasions. A 400-year-old Torah scroll written on deerskin and hand-copied siddurim passed from grandfather to grandson evoke the religious life of the community.

“Whatever belongs to my people, I brought here,” says Aronov, who has been gathering artifacts, books and mus­ic for over 40 years and travels to Samarkand and Bukhara each year with the museum’s president, Yuriy Sadykov, to expand the col­lection. Aro­n­ov also teaches Bukharian customs and cook­ing at the Teen Lounge of the Jewish Child Care Association.

Another room in the museum is dedicated to the Russian and Muslim environment. A red velvet banner em­­broidered with Cyrillic words declares: “The proletariat of all the countries of the world, unite!”

“In my hands there should have been a Sefer Torah but the Soviets took it and gave me this banner,” says Aronov. “Our fathers almost gave up. They were afraid that keeping the Jewish tradition would bring trouble to the family…. But our mothers continued the tradition. If there was no kosher meat, we ate no meat. On Yom Kippur, they urged us to fast. On our fathers’ yorzeits, they told us to go to the synagogue and say Kaddish.”

Malakov, who left Tashkent in 1992, credits his mother for passing on the Bukharian musical heritage; she listened in when her father taught her brothers and recorded the oral tradition before she died in 1985. With funding from Leviev, Malakov recently published a notated songbook with seven CDs titled Musical Treasures of the Bukharian Jewish Community. He teaches the melodies to students at Beth Gavriel and to his 16 grandchildren when they gather on Shabbat.

The Bukharians are proud of their music, especially the classical folk style called shashmaqam (“six volumes”) they were instrumental in developing. At the home of Ilyas Malayev, Maqam’s musical director who passed away last May, traditional Bukharian hand-held drums and stringed instruments adorned the living room wall: violin, oud, tamboura, sitar, tar, sato, saaz, doi­ra. The ensemble performs worldwide, even playing Carnegie Hall with Yo-Yo Ma, and is planning a ser­ies of concerts in Malayev’s memory.

Alongside the nostalgia and at­tempts at preservation, the community is exercising newfound American savvy to raise its profile. Last October, a group of 70 Bukharian leaders met with senators and congressmen on Cap­itol Hill. “The senators said, ‘Stay what you are and be good Americans,’” recalls Yehoshua. “Every immigrant has the dream to melt into society. Just to talk about religion per se is not enough. To maintain our identity, it’s important to enhance self-esteem and give people pride in who they are.”

While the Bukharians often present a united front, internal power strug­gles have spawned charges of corruption. Cynthia Zalisky, executive director of the Queens Jewish Community Council, says the Bu­kha­r­ians’ insularity and Soviet-bred distrust of government make it a chal­lenge to integrate them into the larger communal structure. But, Bu­khar­ians are the future of Queens and a major com­ponent for Jewish continuity. “How many Ash­ke­na­zic synagog­ues are merg­ing be­cause of attrition?” she asks. “The Bu­khar­ians are building new ones.”

Like many immigrant communities, Bukharians face difficulties straddling the old and new. Most prefer not to talk publicly about the problems of acculturation: assimilation, intermarriage, divorce, domestic violence, alcoholism and drug abuse. “There are two distinct financial populations: the extremely wealthy and the extremely poor,” says Zalisky. “There is no middle class yet.” Her agency provides legal and social services, including assistance with medical insurance, a ko­sher food pan­try, afterschool programs for at-risk youth and counseling.

Close-knit as they are, familial tensions do arise, Zalisky says. “The kids want to be American and chuck the whole Old World identity, and the grandparents want to hold onto it strongly. The parents are working hard and are caught in the middle.”

Some men, frustrated with their inability to replicate careers here, turn to alcoholism, even abuse. Marriage and parenting work­shops and couples’ evenings focus on breaking the cycle of domestic violence, says Zalisky.

Within the community, an arm of the Bukharian Jew­ish Congress called Esther Hamalkah works to promote women’s health, says its president, Dr. Zoya Maksumova, 60, a ra­di­ologist and editorinchief of the Russian-language Ladies World magazine.

“In Bukharian families, the man is the main person, but in this country, the woman integrates better,” she says. “She goes to work, starts to support her family and husband…and finds it easier to start a new life. Unfortunately, in some families men cannot stand it, get de­pressed and there are problems.” Still, she notes that Bukharian divorce and abuse rates are the same as those in most communities in the United States.

Maksumova had to overcome im­mense odds. When she emigrated from Tajik­istan in 1990, she began studying for medical recertification. Her husband passed away after a year, leaving her with two children to raise and no job (she remarried four years ago). Neither her daughter, who has a master’s degree in art and textile design, nor her son, who is in business administration, is married. “I want them to mar­ry only Bukharian,” she says, pointing out that several groups and informal networks are dedicated to Bu­kharian matchmaking.

Levitin, a self-described free spirit who urges equality between men and women, lives outside the community—in Great Neck, Long Island—and belongs to a non-Bukharian Conservative synagogue where she recently became an adult bat mitzva. Yet she is still connected to the Bukharian community. She founded World of Women Immigrants, which offers workshops on health and self-improvement. She also delivers groceries from the Queens Jewish Community Coun­cil to 30 to 50 Bukharian families every month.

“I can see changes in the younger generation,” she says. “How much they want to stay linked to the community depends on what kind of family background they come from, their religious and academic orientation and where they live.” Levitin’s younger daughter, Arlene, 24, lives at home and is studying law. Her older daughter, Anya Barak, 27, is a child psychologist who helps with her mother’s organization.

“Within the broader Jewish context, my Bukharian identity gives me a specificity,” says Barak, noting that she considers herself both Bukharian and American. At her wedding to Ashkenazic Danie Barak in 2003, their traditions merged. He wore a kittel and a Bukharian kippa, and American and Bukharian music played alternately. Levitin gave Danie and his father jomas as gifts and brought others that were passed around and worn during the ethnic dancing. “My in-laws got a huge kick out of it,” Barak says. “The Bukharian families were like, ‘same old, same old.’ But they were happy to see how well American Jews took to our traditions.” Though she did not have a poitach, a women’s get-together with feasting, dancing, singing, tell­ing jokes—usually about mothers-in-law—one of her sheva berakhot was in a Bukharian catering hall.

Barak says she is not typical because she did not grow up in the Queens community and was educated in the Conservative movement. To the next generation, she would like to pass on “customs and foods–—like bakhsh, our version of cholent—Friday night meals, our music and dancing,” she says. “That will give my children a sense of who their mother’s family is.”

The Bukharian Jewish global portal, www.BJews.com, hopes to perpetuate that continuity while helping its members and visitors integrate into American life. The site, begun in 1998, has expanded into a veritable encyclopedia with history, culture, dating forums and more. It has also branched out into a leadership organization, the Association of Bukharian Jewish Youth (Achdut, or Unity), with about 100 members ages 16 through 35, according to Imanuel Rybakov, its president. Rybakov, 24, emigrated from Tashkent in 1999. He now lives with his family in Rego Park, Queens, while studying finance and economy at Queens College, teaches Bukhori at the BJCC and assists Aronov at the museum.

“I cannot forsake the Bukharian culture,” he explains. “My great-grand­­parents and ancestors were leaders of the community…. The Soviet system wanted to deprive us of our culture. We immigrated here to keep our traditions and religion.”