It is said that Jews first came to Central Asia during the Second Temple period as merchants began to follow the Silk Road. By the 12th century, there were already as many Jews in Samarkand as in Melbourne today, and a small number of Jews is still present today in Uzbekistan: Samarkand, Bukhara and Tashkent. Mark Ellison will look at the geographical and historical context and show how the community reinvented itself every hundred years, oscillating between isolation and integration with the global Jewish world. This talk is included in the World Jewry Series Pass.