You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (August 2011)Click [show] for important translation instructions.
View a machine-translated version of the French article.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 5,937 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Histoire des Juifs en Birmanie]]; see its history for attribution.
You should also add the template {{Translated|fr|Histoire des Juifs en Birmanie}} to the talk page.
The history of Jews in Myanmar, (formerly Burma), begins primarily in the mid-19th century, when hundreds of Jews immigrated from Iraq during the British colonial period. Cochin Jews came from India and both groups were part of the development of the British Empire, becoming allied with the British in Burma (now Myanmar). At its height in 1940 the community of Jews in the country stood at 2,500 members.[1]
During and after the Second World War many Jews left the country, first under pressure from the Japanese occupation of Burma, and later because of repression under the newly independent nationalist Burmese government. One synagogue survives in Yangon, the capital, and in the 21st century, it attracts an increasing number of tourists.
History
The first recorded Jew in the country was Solomon Gabirol, who served as a commander in the army of King Alaungpaya in the 18th century.[2] But it was in the mid-19th century, during the British colonial period, that Jewish merchants from Iraq and India began establishing sizable communities in Rangoon and Mandalay. The Baghdadi Jews had emigrated from Iraq to escape persecution and being subject to pogroms; they comprised most of the immigrants.[3]Cochin Jews and the Bene Israel came from India. Under British rule, the local Jewish community prospered as merchants developed small businesses, and traders worked in cotton and rice.[4]
The Baghdadi Jews established Musmeah Yeshua synagogue in Rangoon; it is the only synagogue still standing in Yangon or the country.[3] It was first built in the 1850s as a small wooden structure, then rebuilt in 1896. The Jewish cemetery, containing 700 graves, is about six miles away. A Jewish school, for children up to middle-school age, had 200 students at its peak in 1910.[3] After that some parents sent their children to secular schools, especially as many Jewish men married Burmese or other ethnic women. In some cases, children were sent to India or Great Britain for higher education.
Jews were so established in their major communities that Rangoon and Pathein both elected Jewish mayors in the early 20th century. In this community, a number of the men "married out", to Burmese women. The Jewish community also established ties with British colonial officers and businessmen. A second synagogue, Beth El, was opened in 1932, reflecting the growth in population. By 1940 the community numbered its peak of 2500 persons. most were involved in business and industry, with "some owning ice factories and bottling plants, others dealing in textiles and timber. The rest were primarily customs officials and traders."[3]
In the early part of the twentieth century, various minority groups began to work toward establishing some autonomy, including the Karen people, who were indigenous to the territory. The Burmese were working toward nationalism; they had been later migrants from China in ancient times.
With the Japanese invasion in 1942, many Jews fled to India, as their British alliances made the Japanese hostile to them. Though the Japanese were allies of the Nazis, they did not have any particular antipathy towards the Jews. At the same time, they viewed the local Jews with suspicion as a pro-British and a "European" group.
In the drive for independence, the Burmese majority worked to dispossess and defeat the minority groups and strictly limited their rights in the new government.
Burma was the first Asian nation to recognize Israel, and it maintains diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. Israel opened its first Diplomatic mission in Yangon in 1953, and in 1957 it became an embassy. Both nations shared a Socialist outlook in their early years and held extensive contacts between their respective leaders.[5]
Following nationalization of businesses in 1964, the remaining Jewish community suffered further decline. Beth El closed. Most members moved to other countries.[6] The country's last rabbi left in 1969.
Since the late 20th century, some of the Mizo people, who are ethnically descended from Tibet and live in the north of Burma, on the Indian border, have identified as Jews. They have taken on the belief that they descend from the lost tribe of Manasseh, based on certain traditions that are similar to those of Judaism. Some have converted to Judaism and immigrated to Israel. Their settlers in Israel have embraced Orthodox Judaism (they had to convert to Orthodoxy to be considered citizens) and have been settled in Judea, Samaria, and Gush Katif. They are known as the Bnei Menashe.
As of 2002, 20 Jews remained in Yangon, the capital city. Many Burmese Jews have immigrated to Israel over the years, after India achieved independence.[6] The local Jews use the Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue, but it rarely draws the required quorum of men for a full religious service. Often, employees of the Israeli embassy help maintain regular services; Moses Samuels, a native-born descendant of Jewish immigrants from Iraq, took on his father's role as Trustee of the synagogue to keep it up, along with the cemetery. His son Sammy Samuels was also committed to the future of the synagogue.[6] The senior Samuels has given numerous tours to visitors. In 2011 the congregation had 45 Jews.[7]
In 2007 the US-ASEAN Council for Business and Technology, the US-ASEAN Business Council's 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, obtained a license from the United States Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to raise funds for a humanitarian project: the maintenance and restoration of the Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue in Yangon. (The license was needed to operate outside the US economic sanctions against the government of Myanmar because of its human rights abuses; sanctions were lifted in 2012.) The Council planned to provide for the synagogue's monthly expenses; complete restoration and maintenance of the synagogue; and assist the synagogue to purchase and establish a new cemetery.[8]
On December 8, 2013, an interfaith event attended by the Myanmar Presidential Minister U Aung Min, US Ambassador Derek Mitchell, Israeli Ambassador Hagay Moshe Behar, the Yangon Religious Council, and other guests celebrated the completion of the restoration and establishing the synagogue as self-supporting. They credited anthropologist Ruth Cernea, who wrote a history of the Jewish community in Rangoon; Laura Hudson of the Council, and Stuart Spencer, a member of the synagogue's diaspora, as three leaders of this project. The Yangon Heritage Trust has installed a blue plaque at the synagogue, marking its historical significance.[8]
On July 26, 2020, the MICCI Myanmar - Israel Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Innovation was launched in Musmea Yeshua Synagogue in Yangon by the Ambassador of Israel, Ronen Gilor, the head of the Jewish Community, Sammy Samuels, the President of UMFCCI together with Myanmar and Israeli Business and leaders. The MICCI was incorporated by the DICA of the Ministry of Investment and Foreign Relations of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar.
Representation in other media
Charmaine Craig's novel Miss Burma (2017) is inspired by the lives of her mother Louisa Charmaine Benson Craig and maternal grandparents, and their roles in Burmese history. Her grandmother Naw Chit Khin was a Karen woman and her grandfather Saw Benson (Moses Ben-Zion Koder) was Jewish. Her mother won "Miss Burma" as the first beauty queen in 1956.[9]
Related Research Articles
Messianic Judaism is a modernist and syncretic movement of Protestant Christianity that incorporates some elements of Judaism and other Jewish traditions into the Christian movement of evangelicalism.
The history of the Jews in India dates back to antiquity. Judaism was one of the first foreign religions to arrive in the Indian subcontinent in recorded history. Desi Jews are a small religious minority who have lived in the region since ancient times. They were able to survive for centuries despite persecution and antisemitic inquisitions.
The former communities of Jewish migrants and their descendants from Baghdad and elsewhere in the Middle East are traditionally called Baghdadi Jews or Iraqi Jews. They settled primarily in the ports and along the trade routes around the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.
The history of the Jews in Iraq is documented from the time of the Babylonian captivity c. 586 BCE. Iraqi Jews constitute one of the world's oldest and most historically significant Jewish communities.
Sir Manasseh Meyer was a Baghdadi Jew, opium trader, businessman, Zionist philanthropist, and activist who was both a leader and benefactor of the Jewish community in Singapore.
The Knesset Eliyahoo, also Knesset Eliyahu, is an Orthodox Jewish synagogue located in downtown Mumbai, India. It is the city's second oldest Sephardic synagogue. It was established in 1884 by Jacob Elias Sassoon, son of Eliyahoo David Sassoon and grandson of David Sassoon; the latter had immigrated from Baghdad to India in 1832 due to persecution and had settled in Mumbai, then known as Bombay. It is maintained by the Jacob Sassoon Trust. The building's significance is attributed to its Jewish traditions as well as Indian and English colonial influences.
There are many synagogues in India, although many no longer function as such and today vary in their levels of preservation. These buildings dating from the mid-sixteenth through the mid-20th century once served the country's three distinct Jewish groups—the ancient Cochin Jews, and Bene Israel communities as well as the more recent Baghdadi Jews.
Jews were among the first settlers after Hong Kong became a British colony in 1841. The first Jews arrived in Hong Kong from various parts of the British Empire as merchants and colonial officials. Among the first wave, the Baghdadi Jews stood out especially, including representatives of the influential families of Sassoon and Kadoorie. The construction of the Ohel Leah Synagogue in 1901 marked the beginning of a fully fledged religious life for the city's local Jews.
Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue is the last remaining Jewish house of worship in Downtown Yangon and Burma's only synagogue. The synagogue stands between Indian paint shops and Muslim traders on a small street near the city centre. A plaque at the entrance of the building states that the present stone building, which was built between 1893 – 1896, replaced an earlier, smaller wooden structure that was erected in 1854. It is one of 188 sites on the Yangon City Development Council’s list of Heritage Buildings. It serves the few remaining Jews of the country, mostly descendants of Baghdadi Jews from Iraq.
The Maha Bandula Park or Maha Bandula Garden is a public park, located in downtown Yangon, Burma. The park is bounded by Maha Bandula Garden Street in the east, Sule Pagoda Road in the west, Konthe Road in the south and Maha Bandula Road in the north, and is surrounded by some of the important buildings in the area such as the Sule Pagoda, the Yangon City Hall and the High Court. The park is named after General Maha Bandula who fought against the British in the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–1826).
Jews have a long history in Singapore, dating back to the 19th century, and are currently a significant minority population in the country.
The history of the Jews in Mumbai, India, began when Jews started settling in Bombay during the first century, due to its economic opportunities. The Jewish community of Bombay consisted of the remnants of three distinct communities: the Bene Israeli Jews of Konkan, the Baghdadi Jews of Iraq, and the Cochin Jews of Malabar.
Louisa Charmaine Benson Craig was a Burmese-born two-time beauty pageant winner and Karen rebel leader of Jewish and Karen ancestry.
Ohel David Synagogue, also called Laal Deval or Laal Deul is a synagogue in Pune, India.
The history of the Jews in Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta, in India, began in the late eighteenth century when adventurous Baghdadi Jewish merchants originally from Aleppo and Baghdad chose to establish themselves permanently in the emerging capital of the British Raj. The community they founded became the hub of the Judeo-Arabic-speaking Baghdadi Jewish trading diaspora in Asia.
Ruth Fredman Cernea was an American cultural anthropologist, who dedicated virtually all her field research and writings to the analysis of Jewish culture and symbols, in various settings.
Emanuel Raphael Belilios, was a banker, opium dealer, philanthropist, and businessman, born in Calcutta, British India and active in Hong Kong. His father, Raphael Emanuel Belilios, was a member of a Jewish Venetian family. Belilios married Simha Ezra in 1855, and in 1862 he settled in Hong Kong and engaged in trade. His success saw him described in the British press at the time as "one of the merchant princes of the colony."
Israel–Myanmar relations refers to the bilateral relations between Israel and Myanmar, established in 1953. Myanmar was one of the first countries in Asia to recognize Israel's independence and establish diplomatic ties with the state. Today, the countries cooperate in the fields of agriculture, health and education. Israel has an embassy in Yangon, and Myanmar has an embassy in Tel Aviv. Myanmar joins Singapore as one of two Southeast Asian States that do not recognize the State of Palestine.
Ezekiel Judah, or Yehezkel Yehuda or Yahuda or Ezekiel Judah Jacob Sliman was a Jewish communal leader, indigo, muslin and silk trader, philanthropist and talmudist of Baghdad, who migrated to India, leading the Baghdadi Jewish community of Kolkata in his lifetime and establishing the city's first synagogues.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
