A little-known Jewish world, which has spanned more than two millennia, will be revealed to American audiences when Facing West: Jews of Central Asia and the Caucasus opens at The Jewish Museum on Sunday, June 20. The first and only opportunity in the United States to see rare materials illuminating Jewish life in Bukhara, Samarkand and Tashkent in Central Asia, and Georgia and the areas of Dagestan and Azerbaijan in the Caucasus, the exhibition will run through October 10, 1999. Living side by side with Christians and Muslims for centuries, the Bukharan, Mountain and Georgian Jews of Central Asia and the Caucasus region have remained largely unknown. The exhibition will present over 200 objects, including magnificent costumes, jewelry, Jewish ceremonial art, and home artifacts. Drawn from the unique collections of the Russian Museum of Ethnography, in St. Petersburg, Russia, the objects will be enhanced by documentary photographs from archives in Central Asia, Russia and Israel. Facing West: Jews of Central Asia and the Caucasus was organized by the Russian Museum of Ethnography in St. Petersburg and the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam.

Exhibition highlights include a magnificent bridal costume from Akhaltsikh (Georgia), with rich fabrics produced in Ottoman Turkey, with which Jews of the town had commercial ties; and a Jewish male's costume collected in Samarkand in 1869. The combination of a striped silk upper gown, scarf belt and ornate velvet hat with fur trimming was rare at the time, unique to Jews living under the Turkestan government, and reflects the passage from Muslim to Russian rule. A Caucasian crib in which the infant was tightly wrapped and on its back for its first year; a pair of gold bracelets from Bukhara, c. 1900, made by a Bukharan Jewish goldsmith with an intricate cut-out design; and a late nineteenth-early twentieth century Bukharan breast ornament of gold, pearls and semiprecious stones will also be on view.

Recreations of a late nineteenth century Mountain Jewish home and a Central Asian sukkah; distinctive Jewish domestic objects; ritual clothing, striking headgear and jewelry; amulets used by both the local population and by Jews; unique ceremonial objects; and colorful textiles from the regions along the Silk Route will help visitors understand the rich history and culture of the Jews of Central Asia and the Caucasus.

The exhibition is organized into five sections: an introduction to how Jews settled in Central Asia and the Caucasus; a discussion of the ethnographic expeditions from the mid-nineteenth century through the twentieth century; a section focusing on interaction with the local culture, revealing that the similarities between Jews and their Muslim and Christian neighbors were greater than their differences; and a section exploring the significant role of textiles in Jewish life in this region. The final section and epilogue examines how the end of these communities' isolation after being conquered by the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century served both as a catalyst for the shaping of their identity and as the impetus for their emigration and abandonment of a traditional lifestyle.

In the late nineteenth century, Russian ethnographers surveying the newly conquered regions of Central Asia and the Caucasus encountered three Jewish communities that had lived in complete isolation for centuries: the Bukharan Jews of Uzbekistan, the Mountain Jews of Azerbaijan and Dagestan, and the Jews of Georgia, each developing their own languages, traditions and history. Scholars think that these communities may settled in the region as early as the sixth century BCE and are descended from Jews of the Babylonian exile who later migrated to Persia.

From the seventh and eighth centuries, both Mountain and Bukharan Jews lived under Muslim rule and were subject to numerous restrictions. They paid special taxes and were confined to separate neighborhoods. In Central Asia, regulations stipulated what clothing Jews could wear. Mountain Jews could not ride a horse in the presence of a Muslim and were forced to do demeaning jobs. Conversions to Islam were often imposed among both Bukharan and Mountain Jews. The Jews of Georgia lived under Christian rule and, along with most of the local population, became serfs during the Middle Ages. They could be used, therefore, as barter, and were often forced to convert to Orthodox Christianity.

In the nineteenth century, Central Asia and the Caucasus were incorporated into the Russian Empire. Georgian and Mountain Jews became Russian subjects early in the century, while the Jews of Central Asia remained under Muslim control until 1864-68, when nearly the entire region was integrated into Russian Turkestan. Jews welcomed Russian rule, which allowed them religious freedom, as well as the right to buy property and to trade on Russian soil. Restrictions survived, however, in the Bukharan Emirate, which remained an independent state under Russian protection until 1920.

Although the period between 1880 and 1980 saw massive Russian Jewish migration to Israel and the United States, many Bukharan, Georgian, and Mountain Jews remained in the regions where they had lived continuously for millennia. Statistics indicate that at the turn of the century there were some 20,000 Bukharan Jews, 21,000 Mountain Jews, and around 30,000 Georgian Jews living in Central Asia and the Caucasus. During World War II, the Germans never occupied the area of Jewish settlement in Central Asia; and although the Nazis did reach the Caucasus, the Georgian Jews and most of the Mountain Jews were spared the catastrophic fate of the Jews of Europe.

Despite recent emigration made possible by the collapse of the USSR, the Jews of Central Asia and the Caucasus represent a unique survival of ancient Jewish communities that have developed distinctive modes of dress, artifacts, family structure, religious practices, and folklore. Facing West: Jews of Central Asia and the Caucasus provides a rare glimpse into this fascinating culture, inviting viewers to consider its remarkable history and diversity.

Curators of the exhibition are Dr. Ludmila Uritskaya, Chief Curator, from the Russian Museum of Ethnography in St. Petersburg, and Hetty Berg, from the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam. Claudia Nahson, Assistant Curator of Judaica at The Jewish Museum in New York, is exhibition coordinator.

A 128-page catalogue of the exhibition, featuring 113 illustrations, with 41 in color, will be available in the Museum's Cooper Shop for $30.

The presentation at The Jewish Museum of Facing West: Jews of Central Asia and the Caucasus is made possible through the generous support of the Morris S. & Florence H. Bender Foundation. Additional support has been provided by the Joe and Emily Lowe Foundation and the Smart Family Foundation.