History of the Jews in Tajikistan of Jews from neighboring Uzbekistan. Most Jews settled in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, where they opened the Dushanbe synagogue. During World War II, a second wave of Ashkenazic Jews migrated to Tajikistan. In the Soviet Union, including Tajikistan, beginning in the 1970s, Jews who were able, began to emigrate to Israel, as well as to the United States. By the late 1980s, many of Tajikistan's Jews had left. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Tajikistan gained independence and the country fell into a state of civil war between the government and Islamist forces. Continuous military conflict
Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic the Tajik SSR declared sovereignty in its borders. The republic was renamed to the Republic of Tajikistan on 31 August 1991 and declared its independence from the Soviet Union on 9 September 1991. Geographically, at , it was bordered by Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kirghizia to the north, and China to the east. Pakistan was to the south, separated by the narrow Wakhan Corridor. The name Tajik refers to the name of a pre-Islamic tribe that existed before the seventh century A.D. Based on the Library of Congress's 1997 Country Study of Tajikistan, it is difficult