Paul Anderson, Co-Investigator: Among the Syrian Jewish diaspora in New York, Arabic melodies are used in religious services as well as celebrations, and since 1985, books of liturgy have been printed following a specifically Aleppine rite. At a Passover service at the Magen David synagogue in Bensonhurst, New York, in 2023, the congregation read from prayer books which specified the distinctively Aleppine aspects of the liturgy. One man recited a portion of the Torah in a way that gave full expression to the Arabic scales. As he took his seat again, he commented “Doing it the Aleppine way”, and asked had I heard the echoes of Quran recitation in his singing? Another Aleppine-born businessman in New York who had left Aleppo as a teenager in the 1980s still used Arabic in some of this commercial interactions within the community. Reflecting on the respect and social status that his father had enjoyed in Aleppo, but not in New York, said “I told my doctor yesterday that on my tombstone I want to put, “from Halab [Aleppo], Syria”, even though it is not my country”.
Vera Skvirskaja, Co-Investigator: The most visible and enduring emotional connection of Bukharan Jews to their cities of origin is represented by ancestral graves and Jewish cemeteries. Different hometown associations have been established in the diaspora (e.g. Fund ‘Tashkent’, Memorial Fund ‘Bukhara’, Fund ‘Kokand’, and so on) to raise funds in global Bukharan diapora for the reconstruction and maintenance of Bukharan Jewish cemeteries in Central Asia. Additionally, some synagogue-based fundraising initiatives are organized within the diaspora for specific Jewish cemeteries. These various fundraising efforts operate alongside the burgeoning individual and organized "cemetery tourism" or cemetery pilgrimage.
