Uzbekistan’s Jews are not worried for their future after the death of the country’s longtime president Islam Karimov, the country’s chief rabbi says.
The Uzbek strongman, who had ruled the Central Asian Muslim nation with an iron fist before he died at the age of 78 last week, “prepared the country well and its security forces are drilled in a case where he would no longer be around to rule,” Rabbi Baruch Abramzaiov tells JTA.
“The president had excellent relations with the Jewish community, in part because he went to school with many of its members and had many friends from its ranks, and this situation is expected to continue,” says Abramzaiov.
Abramzaiov says he is the only rabbi in the country and among very few spiritual leaders catering to the needs of a dwindling community of 13,000 Jews in a country that had 95,000 Jews in 1989.
In this file photo taken on Friday, July 10, 2015, Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov gestures at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Ufa, Russia. (AP/Ivan Sekretarev)
— JTA
Help us report truthfully on social media
As a multimedia journalist, my job is to take the quality, fact-based journalism produced by The Times of Israel newsroom and make it accessible across every platform — from Instagram posts to podcasts to short-form videos.
This is how many, especially young people, consume news these days. But misinformation is rampant on social media. Our team at ToI produces accurate, responsible short-form reporting on Israel and the Jewish world.
If you believe in the importance of factual social media journalism, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to sustain responsible multimedia reporting.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
From the Liveblog of
Sunday, September 4, 2016
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on Google
