Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan: the Bukharan and Ashkenazi Jewish communities and their mass emigration to the Israeli state, an Israeli embassy since 1992, Israeli tourism and development training, and Uzbek references in the Epstein files
Uzbekistan has two Jewish communities, the Bukharan Jews and the Ashkenazim. The World Jewish Congress (WJC) puts the Jewish population at around 13,000, down from 94,900 in 1989; more than 80,000 Jews left during the mass emigration of the late 1980s and early 1990s, many of them to "Israel".[1] Uzbekistan established diplomatic relations with "Israel" on 21 February 1992, and "Israel" opened an embassy in Tashkent in May 1992.[2] Israeli tourism to Uzbekistan has grown since Israeli citizens were given visa-free entry in 2018.[2][3]
Jewish community and religious life
History and demography
According to the WJC, legend holds that Jews first settled in what is now Uzbekistan after the destruction of the First Temple; the first documented presence dates from the fourth century CE, and a large community in Samarkand is recorded in the 12th century. Bukharan Jews in the emirate of Bukhara were a minority with diminished rights, and some were forcibly converted to Islam. In the 1970s about 10,000 Jews emigrated to "Israel". In May 1990 nationalist riots damaged the Jewish quarter of Andijan. During the Second World War more than a million Jewish refugees passed through Uzbekistan.[1]
The WJC cites the demographer Sergio DellaPergola's 2018 estimate of 3,200 Jews, but gives a current figure of around 13,000, including about 3,000 Bukharan Jews, with 8,000 in Tashkent. These figures conflict. There are 12 synagogues, Jewish cultural centres in Tashkent and Bukhara, three Jewish day schools and a monthly Russian-Jewish publication, Shofar.[1]
Communal organisations
Tashkent Jewish Religious Community of European Jews. The WJC's text names its Uzbek affiliate as the Jewish Community of Uzbekistan, while its affiliate listing gives the Tashkent Jewish Religious Community of European Jews, whose president is Dimitriy Bakman.[1]
- How far is it Zionist? The community is affiliated to the WJC. No statement by it on Zionism was found.
Bukharan Jewish community. According to the WJC, the Gumbaz synagogue in Samarkand has a Bukharan rabbi affiliated to the Chabad movement.[1] The Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States lists Shlomo Babaev as rabbi of Uzbekistan and Shlomo Rabin as head rabbi of the Bukhara Jewish community.[4] It says that it follows the halachic guidelines of the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of "Israel".[4]
Chabad
- Main article: Chabad Lubavitch of Uzbekistan
Israeli state and commercial ties
Diplomacy
"Israel" recognised Uzbekistan's independence on 25 December 1991. Uzbekistan opened an embassy in "Israel" in March 1997, and President Islam Karimov made a state visit to "Israel" on 14–16 September 1998.[2] According to The Jerusalem Post, Shimon Peres visited Uzbekistan as foreign minister in 1994, and agreements on tourism, investment protection, double taxation, culture and trade followed in 1994–98. In 2022 the Israeli embassy inaugurated a monument in Tashkent's Victory Park to Uzbeks who sheltered Jewish refugees during the Second World War. The Knesset speaker, Amir Ohana, visited Uzbekistan in spring 2025.[3] The Israeli ambassador, Gideon Lustig, is also non-resident ambassador to Tajikistan.[3]
Tourism and development
The Israeli embassy states that Israeli tourism to Uzbekistan doubled after visa-free entry for Israelis began in February 2018, to around 10,000 a year.[2] Lustig told The Jerusalem Post that there were about 11,000 Israeli tourists in 2024, and praised Uzbek airlines for continuing direct flights to and from "Israel" during "the past two years of war".[3]
Arms and trade
SIPRI records no Israeli arms transfers to Uzbekistan.[5] The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics reports that "Israel" imported goods worth $25.1 million from Uzbekistan in 2025 (2024: $16.3 million) and exported goods worth $42.8 million to it (2024: $35.9 million).[6] The Jerusalem Post gives trade of $211 million in 2023, citing the Uzbek investment ministry, while Lustig gave figures of $25 million in 2022 and $54 million in 2024.[3] The figures conflict.
Migration and aliyah
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics counts immigrants born in Uzbekistan as follows:
- 15,968 in the 1990s;
- 9,865 in 2000–2020;
- 177 in 2021;
- 191 in 2022;
- 137 in 2023.[7]
Political interference
UN voting
Uzbekistan voted in favour of the September 2025 General Assembly resolution endorsing the New York Declaration on a two-state solution.[8]
Jeffrey Epstein
Documents released by the US Department of Justice in the Jeffrey Epstein files include the following references to Uzbekistan:
- In September 2016 Tom Pritzker told Epstein that he was "Going to Central Asia oct 6. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan."[9] On 12 October he wrote that he was "Now in Bukhara headed to Termez on Afghan border".[10] The next day he described "a bitch of a dispute with Uzbek border guards along the Oxus (border with Afghanistan)" while looking for an ancient ruin near Termez, until "four rather serious soldiers" turned his party back. Epstein replied: "no mans land sounds like a hillary quote".[11]
See also
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Tajikistan
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Kazakhstan
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Turkmenistan
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 World Jewish Congress, Community in Uzbekistan worldjewishcongress.org, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Embassy of Israel in Uzbekistan, Bilateral relations embassies.gov.il, last updated 29 August 2024.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Alex Winston, Stan's the name: Inside Israel's growing partnerships across Central Asia The Jerusalem Post, 12 December 2025.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, The Rabbis rabbisalliance.org, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Arms Transfers Database SIPRI, trade register for Israel as supplier, 1950–2025, data generated 20 October 2026.
- ↑ Central Bureau of Statistics (Israel), Foreign Trade Statistics Monthly, Table D1: Trade Countries – Imports and Exports CBS, December 2025 issue (library copy).
- ↑ Central Bureau of Statistics (Israel), Statistical Abstract of Israel 2024, Table 2.55: Immigrants, by period of immigration, country of birth and last country of residence CBS, 2024.
- ↑ United Nations General Assembly, Recorded vote on A/80/L.1/Rev.1: Endorsement of the New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, 12 September 2025 (copy hosted by Al-Quds Al-Arabi).
- ↑ Email from Tom Pritzker to Jeffrey Epstein, "Re:", 22 September 2016, EFTA00817699, US Department of Justice, Epstein Files release, Data Set 9, copy at tommycarstensen.com/epstein, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Email from Tom Pritzker to Jeffrey Epstein, "Re:", 12 October 2016, EFTA00815417, US Department of Justice, Epstein Files release, Data Set 9, copy at tommycarstensen.com/epstein, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Email thread between Tom Pritzker and Jeffrey Epstein, "Re:", 13 October 2016, EFTA00815438, US Department of Justice, Epstein Files release, Data Set 9, copy at tommycarstensen.com/epstein, accessed 21 October 2026.