Shymkent and Jewish life in southern Kazakhstan in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries

Jewish life in southern Kazakhstan and its centres

Shymkent is closer to Tashkent and other cities of historical Central Asia than to Kazakhstan’s northern and eastern centres. Local Jewish history therefore developed at the intersection of several movements of people, including the Ashkenazi population of the Russian Empire and the USSR, Bukharan Jews of Central Asia, Soviet exiles and evacuees, and Polish refugees.

Jews were living in Chimkent by the nineteenth century

The Russian Jewish Encyclopedia dates the arrival of Jews in Chimkent to the middle of the nineteenth century and provides several historical population figures. According to its entry, by 1910 the city had three synagogues and a Jewish cemetery, and a Jewish school was operating in 1920.

The Soviet period broke institutional continuity

The same encyclopedic account records that Chimkent was a place of exile for Zionists in the 1920s and for Lubavitch Hasidim in the mid-1930s. During the Second World War, the city’s Jewish population grew as people arrived from the western USSR.

Adam Kahane’s biography connects Lenger and Chimkent

After his family fled Poland and he was imprisoned in the Soviet Union, Kahane was released as a Polish citizen. He travelled to Kazakhstan by train with relatives and settled on a collective farm about ten miles from Lenger-Ugol, now Lenger.

Kahane tried to join the Polish army being formed in the USSR. According to his biography, however, he was sent back the very next day because Jews were not being accepted at that time.

In September 1942, he and his relative Reggie enrolled in a nursing school in Chimkent. Both graduated with honours in the spring of 1945.

Kahane’s biography documents one Polish Jewish route through southern Kazakhstan; it does not describe the experience of all Polish Jews in the region.

The postwar urban community and Soviet sources

Demographic accounts record growth in Chimkent’s Jewish population during the Soviet decades. The Russian Jewish Encyclopedia gives figures of 1017 Jews in 1939, 2036 in 1959, 2389 in 1970 and 2152 in 1979; the 1970 figure explicitly includes 208 Bukharan Jews.

These demographic series do not describe the numbers of synagogues, rabbis or registered religious organisations for each decade of the late Soviet period.

1989 as a documented stage in community revival

The Mitsva Association’s archive reports that the Jewish Cultural Centre of Shymkent was registered by the justice department in 1989.

Its stated aims included reviving customs and traditions and studying Jewish history, language and culture. The centre had a Sunday school, Hebrew courses, a library and a youth club, and held a Day of Jewish Language and Culture.

A city publication from 2020 also dates the centre’s start to 1989 and reports that Dmitry Shchyotkin had led it since 2016. The published materials contain no information about its leadership in 2026.

A city profile for 2025 includes the Jewish cultural centre among Shymkent’s 19 national cultural centres. It confirms the centre’s presence in the city’s infrastructure but does not establish its legal continuity, leadership or programmes in relation to the institution registered in 1989.

The cultural centre, community centre, Hesed and religious community have different roles

Archived pages about southern Kazakhstan show that the Jewish Cultural Centre, Jewish Community Centre, Hesed Shimon and the religious community operated alongside one another.

Older publications describe joint celebrations, educational programmes, volunteering, support for older people and cultural events.

The cultural centre primarily undertakes ethnocultural and public activities. The community centre supports programmes and clubs. Hesed provides social welfare and charitable services. The religious community is responsible for legally registered religious activities.

The expression “Shymkent’s Jewish community” may refer either to the wider community of people or to a particular registered religious organisation.

Hesed Shimon began its social work in 1998

The Mitsva archive reports that the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, JDC or “the Joint”, began cooperating with Jewish organisations in southern Kazakhstan in 1997, and that Hesed Shimon began operating on 1 April 1998.

The historical account lists food programmes, home care, rehabilitation equipment, medical and winter assistance, SOS programmes, children’s initiatives and the mobile Hesed on Wheels programme.

Hesed on Wheels covered South Kazakhstan Region and Kyzylorda, rather than only Shymkent.

The archived catalogue describes programmes from the late 1990s to the early 2000s.

Individual sources confirm Hesed’s current work

On 9 March 2025, the Chaim volunteer centre at Hesed and Shymkent’s synagogue jointly held a Day of Kindness charity event, distributing food parcels to community members in need.

Another contemporary report describes a Passover fair at the synagogue, where older people and large families received food assistance. Hesed volunteers delivered parcels to those unable to attend in person.

In 2026, an international volunteer network continues to list Shymkent among its active Kazakhstan projects, while JDC includes the city in its current holiday and educational programme.

These publications do not establish legal continuity with the Hesed Shimon of 1998, its present name, leadership or full range of programmes.

The state confirms the current religious community

Reporting on the first 11 months of 2025, Shymkent’s Department of Religious Affairs recorded one registered Jewish religious association and one synagogue.

A separate city list explicitly names the Local Religious Organisation “Jewish Community of the City of Shymkent”, led by Zelik Murdukhaev.

On 17 September 2026, Shymkent’s Department of Religious Affairs reported that Z. Murdukhaev had attended an interfaith seminar on behalf of the Jewish Community of the City of Shymkent.

A commercial aggregator citing eGov and state databases also lists the organisation as active and confirms Zelik Murdukhaev as its head as of 21 September 2026.

The religious community’s registration dates differ

The published registry information is inconsistent; it supplies no primary document that would resolve the discrepancy.

Different mirrors of state records and aggregators give either 12 January 2000 or 25 April 2001 as the registration date of the organisation with the same business identification number.

The current Paragraph record explicitly marks this field as differing between sources.

Published sources give different community addresses

The city list gives the community’s address as 43 Beket Batyr Street. Current eGov data aggregated by Paragraph gives 46 Zhilkishiyev Street.

Chabad arrived much later than the cultural and social network

Chabad.org reports that Rabbi Mordechai Morozov and his wife Shoshana moved to the region in 2018 to establish Chabad-Lubavitch of Shymkent.

The Chabad Kazakhstan website dates the foundation of Chabad in Shymkent to 2019.

Shymkent’s synagogue resumed operating in 2019

A city publication from 2020 states that Shymkent had no synagogue for roughly two decades and that one began operating again in 2019.

The city’s record for the first 11 months of 2025 counts one synagogue. Chabad materials describe weekday and Sabbath prayers, Torah lessons and Jewish ceremonies.

The current community and synagogue belong to a new institutional period; the available sources do not confirm uninterrupted operation of a single synagogue since 1910.

The city’s first mikvah opened in 2024

On 9 July 2024, the community opened Mikvah Mei Elazar.

Chabad.org calls Mikvah Mei Elazar the first mikvah in the city’s history and reports that, before it opened, residents travelled to Tashkent or Almaty to use a mikvah.

Preparations for the project began in 2022. Its funding involved international private donors, including the Mashiev family and other benefactors; one contribution came from a donor in Israel. Kazakhstan’s chief rabbi, Yeshaya Cohen, representatives from Almaty and guests from other countries attended the ceremony.

The centre’s reach and the city’s population

Chabad.org reports that the centre works with more than 200 Jews in Shymkent and suggests that the number of people of Jewish ancestry may be higher. This is an estimate of the centre’s reach, not state demographic statistics.

Shymkent preserves burials from different periods

The Russian Jewish Encyclopedia records a Jewish cemetery in Chimkent by 1910.

In September 2024, the specialised Mitzvat Emet catalogue added Shymkent burials to its database. It now has a section for the city’s Old Christian Cemetery, which indexes numerous Jewish burials. The catalogue includes burials dating at least from the 1940s through the 1970s and from later periods.

The catalogue does not confirm that the Old Christian Cemetery and the separate Jewish cemetery mentioned for 1910 were the same place. Available municipal information does not confirm the continuity, area or boundaries of Jewish sections on Tolstoy and Dulati streets.

Shymkent as a centre of the southern community network

Hesed’s archived programmes extended across South Kazakhstan Region and to Kyzylorda. Adam Kahane’s biography connects Chimkent with Lenger. Contemporary Chabad accounts describe the difficulty of maintaining links with Almaty and the proximity of Tashkent as important aspects of the community’s everyday geography.

Following an administrative reform, Shymkent became a city of national significance and is not part of Turkistan Region. The grouping of Shymkent with South Kazakhstan Region in catalogues from the 1990s and 2000s reflects the former administrative structure.

In brief

• By the mid-nineteenth century. Sources document a Jewish population in Chimkent.
• By 1910. A reference source records three synagogues and a Jewish cemetery in the city.
• In 1920. A Jewish school is mentioned in Chimkent.
• In the 1920s and 1930s. The city was associated with the Soviet exile of Jews and religious activists.
• From 1942 to 1945. Adam Kahane attended nursing school in Chimkent after living near Lenger.
• In 1989. The Jewish Cultural Centre was registered.
• In 1997. JDC began cooperating with local Jewish organisations.
• On 1 April 1998. Hesed Shimon began operating.
• In the early 2000s. A registered religious community was active; mirrors of state records disagree on its exact registration date.
• In 2018. Mordechai and Shoshana Morozov arrived in the region to establish Chabad Shymkent.
• In 2019. The Chabad Kazakhstan website dates the centre’s foundation to this year. A city publication dates the synagogue’s reopening to the same year.
• On 9 July 2024. Mikvah Mei Elazar opened.
• In 2025. The official city record lists one Jewish association and one synagogue. A contemporary volunteer network documents joint social initiatives by Hesed and the synagogue.
• On 17 September 2026. Zelik Murdukhaev represented the Jewish Community of the City of Shymkent at a city interfaith seminar.
• As of 2026. Sources confirm the community, synagogue, Chabad and social programmes as active structures, but they are not a single legal organisation.