Some 50,000 Jews live in Soviet Bokhara, Rabbi Yechiel Maximoff, Chief Rabbi of the fabled city of Samarkand and recent immigrant to Israel, said today. Rabbi Maximoff visited Dr. Zorach Wahrhaftig, Deputy Minister for Religions, today and gave him an account of Jewish life in Soviet Bokhara.
The Samarkand rabbi said that the 50,000 Jews include a large number of Ashkenazi Jews who came to Soviet Asia after the war and who, he said, maintain their own synagogues with Ashkenazi rites. There are about 30,000 Jews in the cities of Tashkent, Samarkand and Stalinabad, Rabbi Maximoff estimated.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
