In 2001, my family came to the United States from Uzbekistan for a better life, religious freedom, and prosperity. As Bukharian Jews, our Jewish identity was at the top of how we see ourselves and we wanted to live freely as Jews. 

This change in location also meant a change in language and the concepts that are attached to it.  In each language we use different terminologies to create umbrella terms and ask people to subscribe to them, ultimately forcing people to try to categorize themselves in ways that don’t necessarily fit. 

One of these terms is “nationality.” During my college years,  I went on a trip with Repair the World to Nicaragua. At the airport in Nicaragua I was asked to fill out a form and for the question “What is your nationality?” I wrote Jewish. The trip leader did a double take. She was confused by my answer. As an American Jew, she may never have thought to write Jewish as a nationality. She might have written American and expected that I would put Uzbeki because I was traveling under an Uzbekistan passport. 

Manashe Khaimov in front of the logo for his organization, SAMi( Sephardi American Mizrahi Initiative)

But Bukharian Jews do not identify with the nations of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, or any other “Stans’” we come from. We identify as Bukharian—because we have lived through the formation of the Bukharian Jewish ethnos that was formed in the Bukharan Emirate, consisting of the current days of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tadjikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and a small part of Afghanistan. I was born in the Uzbekistan city Samarkand, where my ancestors have lived since the destruction of the first Jewish Temple in 586 BCE. 

So, as you can see, the place changes the meaning of the words we use. In the United States, people see my nationality as American, and Jewish as my religion. Personally, I prefer to express my nationality as Jewish. In Central Asia, my nationality was Jewish. Although it was for negative reasons, this is how Jewish people were identified in the Soviet Union.

At my core, I am today the same person I was growing up,  but the words used to describe me have changed with the context of the American classifications of terms.

Another challenging term for me is the recently popular term “Jews of Color.”  Jews of Color is often used as a catch-all for any Jew that is not part of the Ashkenazi, light-skinned, or white-presenting Jewish majority. I am often included in this category. 

I understand the experiences that other Jews of Color are going through–always having to explain themselves and who they are as Jews, what is their story, and where did they come from. Although I feel deep solidarity with the JOC community, I still do not feel that this language represents me as a Bukharian Jew nor the Sephardic and Mizrahi community in general. 

Growing up in America challenged my identity. During my college days, I would walk into any mainstream Jewish institution and feel that I had to check core parts of my identity at the door in order to fit in. As a Bukharian Jew who has navigated many mainstream Jewish spaces—I have often been made to feel like a minority in those settings where the majority of Jews and dominant culture are Ashkenazi. 

Manashe with students who are a part of SAMi.

Bukharian Jews lived in the outskirts of the world in Central Asia for over 2000 years. We were never identified by or persecuted because of the color of our skin. We were persecuted simply because we were Jewish. We were connected to the larger Sephardic Jewish community worldwide. Even when we are marginalized in American Jewish life, we have no doubt about our place as part of Jewish peoplehood.

When we talk about the Jewish community from the American racial justice lens it makes it harder for my community, that for centuries did not identify by race, to start subscribing themselves to this context. In theory, the term “ JOC” was created to try to be inclusive. However, in practice, many times umbrella terms like this end up excluding individuals. 

The terms and words we use have power. It is one approach to use the term “Jews of Color” as a movement to tell others that multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural Jews exist. However, from my perspective, it is important to make a distinction between various types of Jews that fall under the “Jews of Color” umbrella, both for purposes of identity and accuracy. For example, Bukharian Jews do not have the same experiences as Black Jews, Spanish speaking Jews, or many of the other Jewish people who we might put under the JOC umbrella. 

As I grapple with the terms “nationality” and “Jews of Color,” I also try to define “Peoplehood.” The first words that come to mind when I think of “peoplehood”  are network, bond, relationship, family, and unity without uniformity. It is a moment that hurts even when it is a thousand miles away. It is a moment of belonging to a larger family and caring for one another. 

We as a community must consider the words we use to describe ourselves. I would like people to describe peoplehood not only by the color of their skin or by the terms of Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi. I would like to encourage those of us with ties to other places to say, “I am a Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Iranian, Syrian, Turkish, Bukharian Jew, etc.” When you speak to a non-Jew and say that you are from (or descended from) Hungarian or Moroccan Jews, I can almost guarantee you they will reply saying: “Wow, I never knew that there were Jews there!”