Heart and Soul: The caretaker of Bukhara episode artwork

EPISODE · Feb 14, 2025 · 27 MIN

Heart and Soul: The caretaker of Bukhara

from The Documentary Podcast · host BBC World Service

Abram Iskhakov is the caretaker of the oldest synagogue in Bukhara, one of the sacred cities of Islam. He is keeper of a Torah inscribed on deer velum and kept safe for 1000 years, or so the story goes. Abram has a powerful voice and recites for us a very special prayer, the Haqqoni, recited at both Jewish and Muslim mourning services in Persian, the language of his city and of Central Asian Jews from Samarkand to the borders of China. What does Haqqoni tell us about the culture of Central Asia? And as the Bukharan Jewish population migrates across the world, what is becoming of the Haqqoni?

Episode metadata supplied by the publisher feed · Published Feb 14, 2025

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