Alanna E. Cooper combines ethnographic research with an extensive historical review of information on a little-studied Jewish community. The Bukharan community exemplifies Prof. Haym Soloveitchik’s notion of a mimetic, non-textual tradition in Jewish life and the dynamics of its cultural continuity and discontinuity have implications for other communities. Isolated from much of the mainstream Jewish tradition during portions of its history but reinvigorated by Rabbinic leaders from abroad in the nineteenth century, Bukharans have retained their commitment to Jewish tradition despite this isolation and in spite of efforts by the Soviets. Cooper has collected a rich data set ranging from classroom observations in a Queens school to numerous conversations in the longstanding Bukharan community in Jerusalem. The book offers interesting insights on the maintenance of tradition under adverse conditions and its continuation in a global context.
Nonfiction
Bukharan Jews and the Dynamics of Global Judaism
- Review
By
– November 30, 2012
Susan M. Chambré, Professor Emerita of Sociology at Baruch College, studies Jewish philanthropy, social and cultural influences on volunteering, and health advocacy organizations. She is the author of Fighting for Our Lives: New York’s AIDS Community and the Politics of Disease and edited Patients, Consumers and Civil Society.
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