http://mydigimag.rrd.com//display_article.php?id=1548613&id_issue=181545
Jewish Geography
Ben G. Frank
One sweltering day a few years ago in
that far-away, once secretive Asian land known as Burma, now officially known
as Myanmar, I gazed at the entrance of a two-story, blue-and-white stone
building. I had arrived at the synagogue in Yangon, the city formerly called
Rangoon
A
few moments later, Than Lwin, known to the 21 Jews in Myanmar as Moses Samuels,
appeared. He bears the burden of Burmese Jewish life on his shoulders. Every
day, this 62-year-old walks 45 minutes from his home to open the doors of
117-year-old Musmeah Yeshua, at 85 26th Street, to keep Judaism alive in
Myanmar, the land of the Golden Pagodas. He is fulfilling a promise to his late
father, Isaac, to never allow the house of worship to close.
Since that visit, the country that had long
isolated itself from the outside world has undergone a political metamorphosis.
Thus, in November 2012, President Obama traveled to Burma to visit Aung San Suu
Kyi, “the lady,” Nobel Peace Prize winner and former “prisoner of conscience,”
freed from 15 years of home detention in 2010, and now, suddenly, elected to
the lower house of the Burmese parliament.
Her courage helped force a 50-year-old,
repressive military regime to initiate political and electoral reforms,
including the release of thousands of prisoners. Those actions, however
tentative and precarious, gave 51 million citizens at least the hope for
complete freedom, and also augured well for the survival of a tiny Jewish
community with deep cultural roots.
With the opening, tourists began flocking to
this nation. With hotels booked up, tourism agencies were telling clients, “Now
is the time to visit, to experience Burma’s true authenticity before it
inevitably takes its place on the tourist map,” according to an advertisement
in the London Times on Oct. 18, 2012. Among the visitors are Jews interested in
finding Jewish sites. An Israeli backpacker told me his city map marked 26th Street
with a Jewish star, so he walked there and found Musmeah Yeshua.
To the extent that Burmese Jewry exists today
it is largely due to the dedication of Moses Samuels and his son, Sammy, 33,
descended from family members who came to Burma from India in the 1890s. Sammy,
whose Burmese name is Aung Soe Lwin, is a graduate of Yeshiva University in New
York City, where he lives. Until 2012, he normally spent three months in
Myanmar, but now that he has opened a business there (MS Global Consulting), he
stays longer.
This father-and-son team heads Myanmar Shalom
Travels, (www.myanmarshalom.com), which not only books tours for a “special
Jewish experience in Burma,” but with the lifting of most U.S. and EU sanctions
leveled at the country, works with American, Israeli and EU businesses
interested in investing in this fast-emerging market. Because of increased
tourism, Myanmar Shalom has expanded its office in Yangon and added branches in
Bagan and Mandalay.
Moses takes care of the synagogue. Nearby
stores, which occupy synagogue property, contribute a total of $59 a month for
its upkeep and repairs. Sammy gives part of the profits of his travel agency to
the congregation. A rabbi has not served here for more than 40 years.
Usually, Moses doesn’t get a minyan (a quorum
of 10 men) for daily services. Moses and Sammy note, however, that the number
of Jewish businesspersons, staff of non-governmental organizations and and
diplomats has increased, especially since the upgrading of the U.S. embassy’s
diplomatic status last year from a charges d’affaires to the appointment of a
new ambassador, Derek J. Mitchell. The arrival of more officials and tourists
has meant more Friday night services at the synagogue. If Sammy is in Yangon,
he conducts the Sephardic service that Burmese Jews brought from Iraq and
India. Moses, with his wife, Nelly, and two daughters,Dinah and Kaznar, greet
Jewish tourists.
For the last two years, Sammy has organized a
public Chanukah candlelighting ceremony with more than 120 invited guests,
including top Myanmar government officials; EU representatives; and Christian,
Muslim, Buddhist, Baha’i and Hindu religious leaders.
During last year’s holiday celebration,
Israeli Ambassador Hagay M. Behar stressed “the longlasting and good relations
between the Jewish community, the people of Israel and the Republic of the
Union of Myanmar.” In an e-mail, he added: “I think that the Myanmarian
government and civil society really appreciate the achievements of the State of
Israel,” includng those in agriculture, science, technology and health.
Sammy notes that both Israel and Burma were
born in 1948 from areas formerly ruled by the British, and strong ties were
forged early on between U Nu, the county’s first prime minister who led his
nation on and off for 14 years, and David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister
of Israel. After Burma recognized Israel in December 1949, U Nu became the
first foreign prime minister to visit the Jewish state. Ben-Gurion traveled to
Burma and spent two weeks there in 1961. Later, prominent Israeli visitors
included former Prime Minister Golda Meir, Israeli diplomat Abba Eban, military
leader Moshe Dayan and Shimon Peres, two-time former prime minster and
currently president of Israel. After the military coup in 1962, Burma isolated
itself from outside influences.
“We love Burma so much and want to keep
the Jewish spirit alive,” Sammy Samuels said. “Being in the synagogue gives us
our tie to Judaism.”
Musmeah Yeshua, which means, “Brings
Forth Salvation,” has beautiful stained glass windows similar in style to the grand
Magen David Synagogue in Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta), India. At one
time, this house of worship possessed 126 Torahs resting on shelves mounted on
the wall of a small, round room. In Burma, it was customary and a great honor
for a family to donate a Torah. Moses showed me the last two remaining Torahs,
which are in round wooden, cases covered with silver and designed in the style
of the Torah scrolls familiar to Babylonian Jews. The other 124 Torah scrolls
were taken out of the country when Jewish families began departing Burma
beginning in the 1940s and carried to their new homes in the Diaspora and
Israel.
The nearby old Jewish cemetery on 91st Street,
where pebbles rest on tombstones, stands as another memory of a vibrant Jewish
community and a rich heritage.
The first Jew in Burma was Solomon Gabirol,
who served as a commissar in the army of King Alaungpaya (1752-1760). Then, in
the early part of the 19th century, two European Jews moved to Burma from
Galicia and Rumania, both as suppliers to the British Army.
While a minority of Jews came from India and
were known as the Bene Israel, most who arrived in the mid-19th century were
originally “Baghdadi Jews,” from Iraq. Famous commercial families set up
trading networks in Southeast Asia, and business leaders helped bring
commercial expansion to Burma. “In Burma,” wrote the late Ruth Fredman Cernea,
in her book, “Almost Englishmen: Baghdadi Jews in British Burma,” Jews from the
Oriental Diaspora discovered “a wide-open land of opportunity for commercial
enterprise, especially once the British extended their empire in India east
into Burma in the latter half of the 19th century.”
In the 1930s, about 1,500 Jews called
Burma home. Burmese Jews lived a very comfortable life, so much so that Cernea
entitled one of her book chapters, “Beautiful Burmese Days.” Jews mixed with
Christians, Burmese, Hindus, Muslims and Chinese, but almost all of it on a
social basis, with minimal intermarriage. Two Jews served as mayors: one in
Rangoon, another in Bassein. And, the Sofaer family donated the iron gates at
the entrance to the Rangoon Zoo. Mordecai Isaac Cohen built the cast-iron
bandstand in Bandula Square. Both are still standing today.
“It was a very good life,” recalled
Simon Saul of Upland, Calif., who was born in Rangoon to a leading commercial
family, adding, “Many worked for British companies.”
The Sauls had arrived in Burma from
India in the early 20th century. Simon lived with his parents, two brothers and
a sister close to the railway station. The children attended the Jewish English
School. “We celebrated the holidays in our beautiful synagogue.” The Saul
family left Burma twice, the first time to return to India after the brutal
Japanese bombing of Rangoon in December 1941, then after World War II in 1945.
They moved to the United States in 1949 to be with a daughter who married an
American GI.
To 90-year old Joseph Hyam Sassoon of Los
Angeles, whose family arrived in Burma in the 1880s, “We had everything,”
including rickshaws, carriages and motorcars. After the Japanese attacked Burma
in December 1941, the family left for India, as did many other Burmese Jews.
Following the war, they returned briefly for a visit but, otherwise, left Burma
for good for India. The Sassoons immigrated to the United States in 1951.
After World War II, several hundred Jews
returned to Burma. But, the community “was devastated and never recovered,”
wrote Cernea. Many emigrated to Israel in 1948, others to British Commonwealth
nations and the United States. When the Burmese military seized control in 1962
and set up a harsh and repressive dictatorship, nationalized industry and
isolated Burma, nearly all the Jews departed. (These military rulers renamed
their country Myanmar in 1989.)
More than 50 years later, Myanmar appears to
be on the road, however winding, to democratic government, even as it deals
with internal ethnic and religious conflicts. With talk of American foreign
policy pivoting to Asia, Burma—strategically located between China and India—is
critical to meeting the challenges of the new global power, China. But a
large-scale return of Jews seems unlikely.
Simon Saul, who went back to visit in the
1990s, doesn’t believe Burmese Jews will return permanently. “The younger
generation is very settled in the Diaspora and Israel,” he says.
The realists say the future of Burmese Jewry
is tenuous. Still, says Sammy Samuels, “With American and British Jews and
Israelis investing in Myanmar, our community could actually grow.”
To which Rabbi Marvin Tokayer, author,
scholar and expert on the Oriental Diaspora, adds, “Hopefully, this won’t be
the last page of the history of Burmese Jews but the beginning of a new
chapter.”
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