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Dr. Chen Bram is the Schusterman Visiting
Professor at George Madison College for Public
Affairs, Michigan State University.

The article by Zeev Levin describes the
transformations and adaptations of the language
of Bukharan Jews from that of an ethnic group
to a national language of a minority group in
Soviet Central Asia, and back again, during the
twentieth century. The modernization process
was reinforced by the Soviet nationalities
policy, which prompted a major linguistic boom
during the 1920s and 1930s, and then brought
about the end of this cultural endeavor in the
late 1930s. This study contributes not only
to an understanding of linguistic and social
developments among Bukharan Jews but can also
be used to gain insight into many other minority
and Diaspora groups,Soviet nationalities policy in
practice, state control, and Soviet administration
throughout the Union.
Dr. Zeev Levin teaches in the Department of
Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem and is engaged in research
at the Ben-Zvi Institute.

Itzhak Bezalel presents the library of Rabbi
Matityahu Gargi from Herat, Afghanistan.
Rabbi Matityahu Gargi (1845-1917), scion of a
rabbinical dynasty, was born in Mashad, Iran, lived
in Herat, and emigrated to Jerusalem in 1908.
He was the most important figure in the Afghani
community and the only one who wrote a book
that was published, Oneg Shabbat, Jerusalem
1913. He also wrote a chronicle of the sufferings

In This Issue VII