Bukhara Peace Agency asks the audience to consider what ingredients are needed to achieve peace. Based on a previous community-based project “Bukharan Peace Recipes” conducted by Lublina, the agency uses peace recipes from the community to construct a temporary structure. Designed with custom suzanis, kurpachas, willow branches, hanging fruit and herbs; the temporary structure is based on a traditional Bukharan sukkah (a temporary home built during Sukkot-- a Jewish holiday which commemorates the exodus of the Jews from Egypt and the end of the harvest). Inside the Sukkah-like tent, we are asked to write our own peace recipes and to think about shared histories between different ethnic and religious groups. The structure is accompanied by an audio story about Tufahon, a famous Jewish Sozanda (female ritual leader), and the legacy of Sozandas in Bukhara. Sozandas use song and dance that mix traditions from Islam, Zoroastrianism, and Judaism in their local rituals— embodying intercultural collaboration. The work offers a few ingredients towards making a life together without losing our differences.
September 5-November 20, 2025
Bukhara Biennale
“Recipes for a Broken Heart”
Images of traditional Bukharan Sukkahs
Much of my work is connected to the search for shared worlds, particularly shared Jewish worlds (which were all Jewish worlds before 1948). I wanted to come to Bukhara because it is an exemplary shared world. While I was there this spring, I learned a lot of things. I learned about Bukharan dances and songs and rituals that combine elements of Islam, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Iranian folk culture, and sprinkles of things that only exist in Bukhara. And I learned about the leaders of these rituals: Sozandas. Sozandas lead all major life cycle rituals (like weddings or circumcisions) as well as domestic, female-specific rituals around fertility, etc. These rituals usually include elements of the Quran, Persian poetry, Zoroastrian symbols, Shashmaqam (a shared Muslim and Jewish classical music form), dance, Mavrigi (a folk music form that comes from Iran), and other cultural forms that represent the different peoples of Bukhara. The most famous Sozanda of recent history was Tafahon: a Bukharan Jewish woman. I love that a Jewish woman was the most famous leader of rituals that were often Muslim or Zoroastrian at their core. I love that there was once a shared world in diaspora where Jews and Muslims sang each other’s prayers. As our world becomes more defined by borders, I want to celebrate Umida Boltaev’s words: “So, I want to say that Bukhara is the only city in the world where the word “nationalism” does not exist. We are Bukharans.”
One of the heartbreaks in Bukhara is the loss of the Jewish community. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Bukharan Jews (like most Soviet Jews, including my entire family) immigrated to either the US, Europe, or Israel. This was one of the last waves of migration to Israel-- one of the last waves of Jews leaving the lands and communities that they were indigenous to or embedded in for centuries-- which started with the Holocaust in Europe and swept through North Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East. How to heal from such a heartbreak? One thought is to breath new life into the textures of Jewish life that once vibrantly existed in Bukhara.
Every fall, Jews celebrate the high holidays: Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (the Jewish New Year and the Day of Repentance). Then, still high from the prayer, magic, and renewal comes a beautiful holiday about rejoicing in the New Year, commemorating the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, and the end of the harvest: Sukkot. Each year, Jews build a temporary house (like the tents they may have built in the desert after fleeing Egypt and also like the tents that farmers build in the fields during harvest time) where they invite the entire community to feast, learn, rest, and celebrate inside together. Importantly, Sukkot is a spiritual shift from the individual (we just lamented and cleansed ourselves during Yom Kippur) to the collective. It is about repair and renewal, tikkun olam, finding collective redemption. Each evening as you sleep in this fragile structure, the prayers ask God to: “spread upon us the sukkah of your peace.” Its fragility is a reminder of the impermanence of life and the interdependence of peace, shelter, and survival. There is the call to grieve for those who lack shelter due to war or the cruelty of Capitalism and the call to pray that all may have a shelter of peace.