Rituals in Flux: Courtship and Marriage among Bukharan Jews

Abstract

This article analyzes practices surrounding courtship and marriage among Bukharan Jews. It is based on historical research as well as ethnographic research carried out in the 1990s in Uzbekistan, and among immigrants (and the children of immigrants) in Israel and the United States. Rather than providing a description of wedding practices in catalogue form, the article show the ways in which such practices vary depending on historical and geographical context. Fieldwork in New York and Samarkand, for example, reveals great differences in the weddings in both locales: in the atmosphere, in the timing of the event, in who officiates, and in the sorts of people who are invited to attend. Despite these variables, ethnic entrepreneurs tend to portray Bukharan Jewish practices as static. Such depictions are part of a broader effort to capture and reify the culture of Jewish sub-groups (often referred to as ‘edot in Hebrew). Furthermore, the effort to freeze culture in the midst of post-Soviet demographic upheaval, offers a sense of belonging to an authentic, rooted culture.