Paranja in the Traditional Dress of the Bukhara Jews

Abstract

The article discusses the origins and cultural specificities of paranja in the traditional female dress of the Bukhara Jews. The author compares representative materials from museum collections and visual sources with the ethnographic data that shed light on paranja’s functioning in the dress of the neighboring peoples, namely the Tajik of the plains and the settled Uzbek. The analysis conducted, the author argues, allows us to disclose the particularities of using paranja in ritual and everyday practices of the Bukhara Jews and offer an explanation of this phenomenon from the standpoint of cultural traditions of this ethnic/religious group of Central Asia.