NEW YORK CITY - A little-known Jewish world, which has spanned more than two millennia, is be revealed to American audiences through "Facing West: Jews of Central Asia and the Caucasus." The first and only opportunity in the United States to see rare materials illuminating Jewish life in Bukhara, Samakand and Tashkent in Central Asia, and Georgia and the areas of Dagestan and Azerbaijan in the Caucasus, the exhibition will run through October 17.

Living side by side with Christians and Muslims for centuries, the Bukharan, Mountain and Georgian Jews of Central Asia and the Caucasus region have remained largely unknown.

The exhibition will present over 300 objects, including magnificent costumes, jewelry, Jewish ceremonial art, and home artifacts. Drawn from the unique collections of the Russian Museum of Ethnography in St Petersburg, Russia, the objects will be enhanced by documentary photographs from archives in Central Asia, Russia and Israel.

"Facing West: Jews of Central Asia and the Caucasus" was organized by the Russian Museum of Ethnography in St Petersburg and the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam.

Exhibition highlights include a magnificent bridal costume from Akhaltsikh (Georgia), with rich fabrics produced in Ottoman Turkey, with which Jews of the town had commercial ties; and a Jewish man's costume collected in Samarkand in 1869.

The combination of a striped silk upper gown, scarf belt and ornate velvet hat with fur trimming was rare at the time, unique to Jews living under the Turkestan government, and reflects the passage from Muslim to Russian rule.

A Caucasian crib in which the infant was tightly wrapped and on its back for its first year; a pair of gold bracelets from Bukhara, circa 1900, made by a Bukharan Jewish goldsmith with an intricate cut-out design; and a late Nineteenth-early Twentieth Century Bukharan breast ornament of gold, pearls and semiprecious stones will also be on view.

Recreations of a late Nineteenth Century Mountain Jewish home and a Central Asian sukkah; distinctive Jewish domestic objects; ritual clothing, striking headgear and jewelry; amulets used by both the local population and by Jews; unique ceremonial objects; and colorful textiles from the regions along the silk route will help visitors understand the rich history and culture of the Jews of Central Asia and the Caucasus.

The exhibition is organized into five sections: an introduction to how Jews settled in Central Asia and the Caucasus; a discussion of the ethnographic expeditions from the mid-Nineteenth Century through the Twentieth Century; a section focusing on interaction with the local culture, revealing that the similarities between Jews and their Muslim and Christian neighbors were greater than their differences; and a section exploring the significant role of textiles in Jewish life in this region.

The final section and epilogue examines how the end of these communities' isolation after being conquered by the Russian Empire in the Nineteenth Century served both as a catalyst for the shaping of their identity and as the impetus for their emigration and abandonment of a traditional lifestyle.

Curators of the exhibition are Dr Ludmila Uritskaya, chief curator, from the Russian Museum of Ethnography in St Petersburg; and Hetty Berg, from the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam. Claudia Nahson, assistant curator of Judaica at the Jewish Museum in New York, is exhibition coordinator.

The presentation at the Jewish Museum of "Facing West: Jews of Central Asia and the Caucasus" is made possible through the generous support of the Morris S. and Florence H. Bender Foundation. Additional support has been provided by the Joe and Emily Lowe Foundation and the Smart Family Foundation.

The Jewish Museum is located at 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street. Hours are: Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, 11 am to 5:45 pm; Tuesday, 11 am to 8 pm; closed Friday and Saturday. On Tuesday evenings from 5 to 8 pm admission is free for all. For information, 212/423-3200.