Uzbekistan’s long-persecuted Bukhara Jews - Al Jazeera English
▻http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/04/uzbekistan-long-persecuted-bukhara-jews-150428083657675.html
Bukhara, Uzbekistan - The body was wrapped in a worn-out carpet instead of a prayer shawl. Not a single relative entered the cemetery through its gate under an azure cupola topped with the Star of David.
But the 75-year-old woman who died in early April, two days before Passover, was buried and mourned in accordance with Jewish rites in Bukhara, an ancient city in central Uzbekistan that lies some 2,800km northeast of Jerusalem.
Bukhara was once a focal point on the Great Silk Road, a powerhouse of Islamic learning. It was also the capital of one of the world’s oldest and most isolated Jewish communities that barely survived centuries of persecution and is now facing extinction because of an exodus to Israel and the United States.
A dozen men carried the body and put it to rest among the graves, which now outnumber the entire Jewish population of Bukhara.