Shared Spaces - Jews Interethnic Encounters in Central Asia Caucasus, 19th20th

This book explores a little-known but richly layered history of Jewish communities in one of the world's most diverse and dynamic regions. Spanning over a millennium, the Jewish presence in Central Asia and the Caucasus has often been overshadowed by broader imperial, colonial, and Soviet narratives.

List of contents

Introduction: Jews and their neighbours in Central Asia and Caucasus in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries 1. Native, but unique: Jews of Georgia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and their neighbours revealed through their twentieth century demographic profiles 2. Russian imperial borderlands, Georgian Jews, and the struggle for 'justice' and 'legality': blood libel in Kutaisi, 1878-80 3. Iranian, Afghan or Central Asian? Patterns of mobility among Persianate Jews in the 19th and early 20th centuries 4. 'Linguistic compatriots': on the relationship between Tajik and Judeo-Tajik language and literature 5. 'I became an Uzbek': Jewish-Uzbek encounters in World War Two evacuation 6. Interethnic relations in the Nazi-occupied North Caucasus: a case study of the Mountain Jewish communities in Bogdanovka and Nalchik 7. Local identity and intergroup relations: Jews and Muslims in Ferghana Valley in late Soviet Era 8. Georgian Jews and Georgian non-Jews: Soviet experience through the prism of nostalgia

About the author

Zeev Levin is a Historian of Central Asia and the Caucasus, focusing on Jewish communities in the Soviet periphery. He directs a research center at the Ben-Zvi Institute and has authored and edited several works, including studies on Soviet-era Jews in Central Asia and wartime displacement across the USSR.

Product details

• Authors: Zeev Levin
• Assisted by: Zeev Levin (Editor)
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 27.10.2025
• EAN: 9781041170648
• ISBN: 978-1-0-4117064-8
• No. of pages: 171
• Series: Central Asian Studies
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Geosciences > Geography; Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; Oral History, History: theory & methods, HISTORY / Jewish, HISTORY / Asia / Central Asia, Central Asia, Jewish Studies, Regional Studies, Regional / International studies, Former Soviet Union, USSR (Europe), Armed Conflict, Social groups: religious groups and communities, History: theory and methods, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Cultural & Ethnic Studies / Asian Studies