Chala (Uzbek: чала [tʃala]) is a Tajik term meaning "neither this nor that,"[1] referring to Bukharan Jews who were coerced into converting to Islam from the late eighteenth century onwards.
[2] In response, these Chala Jews outwardly practiced Islam, but secretly retained their Jewish traditions.
Often, it was not until two to three generations that Chala Jews would begin to intermarry with the local Muslim population and shed any remaining Jewish traditions.
As a result, many Chala Jews illegally immigrated into Russian-controlled areas, to escape the certain threat of death.
Because Muslim law was retained in Bukhara for a longer period than in surrounding cities, by the time communist Soviet rule arrived in Bukhara, many members of the local Chala no longer self-identified as Jewish, having by then become fully assimilated into the Muslim population.