The Bukharian Story: Periods of Isolation Punctuated by Reunion

Chai Podcast

It was my absolute honor to speak with Dr. Alanna Cooper, who was my first non-Bukharian guest who undoubtedly knows more about the roots, dynamics, and origins of the Bukharian culture than most of us these days! I stumbled on a YouTube video of a lecture that Dr. Cooper was giving and was immediately curious to know more about her, since it isn’t often that you hear about someone in the academic world studying the Bukharian Jews of Central Asia, especially in the framework of Global Judaism. By perusing through her various publications and her book Bukharan Jews and the Dynamics of Global Judaism, I was enamored by her work but, more so, her ability to connect with the experiences of Bukharian Jews from an out-of-bubble perspective.

Alanna E. Cooper holds the Abba Hillel Silver Chair in Jewish Studies at Case Western Reserve University, housed in the department of religious studies. Prior to this position, she served as director of Jewish Studies at CWRU's Lifelong Learning program. She holds a PhD in cultural anthropology (from Boston University, 2000) and has held teaching and research positions at Harvard University, Boston University, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, University of Michigan and University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Dr. Cooper is currently working on a second book, Preserving and Disposing of the Sacred: American Jewish Congregations. We talked about what prompted her interest in the Bukharian Jewish community, her travels to Tashkent, Samarkand, and Bukhara during the time of mass migration in the 1990s, and the way that her anthropological research influenced her relationship with her Judaism.

To learn more about Dr. Cooper's work and her career, visit http://www.kikayon.com/

Access information on her book Bukharan Jews and the Dynamics of Global Judaism on http://www.bukharanjews.com/