Sofia and Yatzek Kaikov - Jewish Bukharian tradition
There is a tradition among the Bukharian Jews that trace their ancestry to the Lost Tribes of Israel. These Jews claim to be descendants of the Issachar, Nephtali, and Ephraim Israelite tribes who failed to returned from the Babylonian captivity after exile in the 7th century BCE. The Bukharian Jews of Central Asia were essentially cut off from the rest of the Jewish world for more than 2,000 years and somehow managed to survive and preserve their Jewish identity and heritage in the face of obstacles. They are considered one of the oldest ethno-religious groups of Central Asia and over the years have developed their own distinct culture. Throughout the years, Jews from other Eastern countries such as Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Syria, and Morocco migrated into Central Asia (usually by taking the Silk Road), joining groups that would become the origin of the Bukharian Jewish community. In Central Asia, they survived for centuries, subject to many conquering influences.
Riham Hiadri - Muslim Palestinian tradition
Ali Qleibo, a Palestinian anthropologist, has critiqued Muslim historiography for assigning the beginning of Palestinian cultural identity to the advent of Islamin the seventh century. In describing the effect of such a historiography, he writes: "Pagan origins are disavowed. As such the peoples that populated Palestine throughout history have discursively rescinded their own history and religion as they adopted the religion,language, and culture of Islam".
That the peasant culture of the large fellahin class embodied strong elements of both pre-Arabic and pre-Israelitic traditions was a conclusion adopted by the many Western scholars and explorers who mapped and surveyed Palestine in great detail throughout the latter half of the 19th century, and this assumption was to influence later debates on Palestinian identity by local ethnographers.The contributions of the 'nativist' ethnographies produced by Tawfiq Canaan and other Palestinian writers and published in The Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society (1920-1948) were driven by the concern that the "native culture of Palestine", and in particular peasant society, was being undermined by the forces of modernity. Palestinian culture is most closely related to those of the nearby countries such as Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Cultural contributions to the fields of art, literature, music, costume and cuisine express the distinctiveness of the Palestinian experience, and survive and flourish. Palestinian music is well-known and respected throughout the Arab world, both through its performers and its style. |
