In a sign of warming relations between the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan and its once-large Jewish community, Jews from the Bukhara region have moved six Torah scrolls from Uzbekistan to North America. Jewish leaders say this is the first time the Uzbek government gave permission for such a move. The majority of the community left Uzbekistan in 1992 and 1993, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and new Bukharan synagogues are proliferating in North America and Israel, according to Boris Kandov, president of the newly formed Congress of Bukharan Jews in the United States and Canada and publisher of a bi-weekly Russian-language paper for Bukharan Jews.
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