Tashkent is one of the oldest cities in Central Asia. Known since the 2nd century BC. A special ethnolinguistic group was formed on the territory of Uzbekistan, which was named Bukharian Jews.

The first mention of Jews in the city of Tashkent itself dates back to the first half of the 19th century. Then the city, which was part of the Kokand Khanate, became a major regional center of trade. In 1865, the Russian Empire captured Tashkent. Since that time, Ashkenazi Jews have appeared in the city. Initially as employees of the occupation forces, and then as civilians.

Officially, the city was outside the Pale of Settlement. Therefore, the authorities limited the residence of Jews in it. Only merchants of the first guild, retired soldiers, artisans and medical workers could settle here. However, until the 1890s, the authorities turned a blind eye to restrictions.

Several groups of the Jewish population lived in the city at once:

• Bukharian Jews

Initially, they were the only Jews living in Tashkent. According to data from the middle of the 19th century, this group consisted of 27 families and numbered a little more than a hundred people. Since the 1880s, the authorities have divided the Jewish population into categories. Bukharian Jews were classified as the so-called "native" Jews. Those were recognized as persons whose ancestors lived in the region before the conquest by Russia. “Native Jews” could freely acquire real estate and engage in distillation.

• Foreign Jews

Representatives of Bukharian Jews who could not prove their local origin were considered as such. They were considered subjects of another state - the Bukhara Khanate (emirate). In the 1890s, the authorities tried to register them. Many of the foreign Jews requested Russian citizenship. Since 1910, foreign Jews have been evicted from the city.

• Ashkenazi Jews

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the governor general of the region by the name of A. Samsonov tried to expel this group from the village. In the twentieth century, Ashkenazi arrived in Tashkent in two waves. In the early 1920s, Ukrainian and Belarusian Jews fleeing the horrors of pogroms and the city doubled the Jewish population of Tashkent. In the early 1940s, Jews fleeing the war again increased the population of Tashkent. At that time, about 200 thousand Jews lived in the city.

After the end of World War II, some of them left the city. If in 1959 Jews accounted for 5.2% of the population of Tashkent, then in 30 years only 2.7%. In 1989, 56.8 thousand Jews lived here. 80% of these were Ashkenazi.