8*9** Letter -- from

After decades of repressive military rule, Burma’s Jewish community has dwindled to about 20 members. Is there hope for its future? A rare look at life inside the isolated country.

Story by Jeremy Gillick Photos by Chris Daw

As the sun sets in Burma, now known as Myanmar, a small group of Jews descends on the Park Royal Hotel in down­ town , formerly Rangoon. I arrive unfashionably early, hoping to steal some private time with Sammy Samuels, the debonair Burmese-American host of the third annual Myan­ mar Jewish Community Dinner Reception. But apparently it is fashionable for Burmese Jews to arrive late, and Sammy is no­ where to be found. At 6:30, tuxedoed caterers begin distribut­ ing glasses of Israeli and French wines to guests socializing in the lobby. I chat briefly with Cho, the daughter of Myanmar’s foreign minister, who professes her love for , and then with an impeccably dressed British diplomat who is superb at making small talk. When I ask if I should be concerned about reporting from such a public location, he points to secret po­ lice lurking in the corners and suggests steering clear of dis­ cussing politics. “Once you’ve lived here a while, they’re easy to spot,” he says. At last, Sammy himself strides in. Short with a wide face, kind eyes and dark hair puffed up in the front, his relaxed de­ meanor belies the gravity of the task ahead of him. He is one of perhaps 20 Jews—many of them elderly or intermarried—left in the entire country. Back in 2002, The New York Times dubbed him the “last hope for the Jews of Myanmar,” reporting that he would soon set off for Yeshiva University (YU) in New York, where he hoped to find a Jewish wife who would return home with him. Although Sammy graduated from YU with honors in 2006, today, at 29, he is still single, childless and living in New York City. At his side is his father Moses, 60, who resides in central Yangon with his wife and two daughters. Moses is the patriarch of Yangon’s Jewish community: He has looked after the city’s sole synagogue since his father Isaac, Sammy’s grandfather, passed away in 1978.

JULY/AUGUST 2010 / MOMENT 39 The Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue was built in the mid-1890s and steadfastly maintains its Sephardic traditions.

Myanmar, the largest country in main­ the state. Army officers did everything. The junta is also known for its sup­ land Southeast Asia, is bordered by Normal government had withered away,” pression of a free press. Not even a story to the west and to the east. A Brit­ the grandson of , the third sec­ about the Jews, a near-extinct minority, ish colony until 1948, it has one of the retary-general of the , ar­ is beyond suspicion. An article about the world’s oldest military dictatorships— gues in his book. dinner reception I attended, co-written going on 50 years and ruling over 50 mil­ The State Peace and Development for the Myanmar Times by Gabrielle Pa- lion people. In 1989, the military regime Council (SPDC), as the junta renamed luch, one of the 10 or so Jewish expatri­ officially renamed Burma, the English itself in 1997, has one of the world’s ates in Burma, and Burmese reporter Pan colonial-era name, as Myanmar. When worst human rights records. Amnesty Eiswe Star was initially deemed unfit for Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu International and other groups con­ publication by the Myanmar Press Scru­ Kyi’s National League for Democracy demn it for committing widespread and tiny Board (PSB). “In Myanmar all the won the 1990 election, the military nul­ systematic human rights abuses against articles are scrutinized by the PSB. We lified the results, and the country’s ethnic minorities, includ­ cannot complain to them,” wrote Star in has been under house arrest for much ing destruction of villages, forced labor an email. Gmail and Yahoo are blocked, of the past 20 years. “It is not an army and sexual violence. The Muslim Roh- at least in theory, and the government’s regime sitting on top of an otherwise ingya people in the northern state of Ra- Orwellian newspaper, The New Light of civilian state,” writes Thant Myint-U, a khine (also called Arakan) were stripped Myanmar, routinely urges its readers to historian and former Burmese-Ameri- of their citizenship under a 1982 law, and “crush all internal and external destruc­ can U.N. official, in his 2006 book, The the junta’s military offensive against the tive elements as the common enemy.” River o f Lost Footsteps: A Personal History autonomy-seeking Karen in the south A popular local joke holds that George o f Burma. “By the 1990s the military was has been particularly brutal. Orwell, who served in Burma from 1922

40 JULY/AUGUST 2010 The synagogue, the only Jewish place of worship in Myanmar, is located in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood in Yangon. to 1927 as a British imperial policeman bought a ticket home and, according to M.V. Worcestershire, a passenger ferry wrote two books about the country: Bur­ the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, smuggled docked in Rangoon. She remembers mese Days and 1984. a suitcase full of water purification tablets little of the journey, except for the last With the exception of Aung San Suu and medicine into the country. night. “The sun never came up, and I Kyi’s confinement, Burma’s affairs rarely This year’s Jewish dinner reception in thought to myself: what kind of a place make the front page of Western newspa­ the Park Royal’s Grand Ballroom came is this?” recalls the 62-year-old Los pers. But the bloody crackdown on or­ on the heels of 7 7-year-old dictator Than Angeles resident, a genial woman with ange-robed Buddhist monks who rose up Shwe’s announcement that in 2010, Bur­ graying hair and remnants of a British in protest in 2007, followed by the devas­ ma would hold its first elections in 20 accent. The family had arrived in Eng­ tating 2008 Cyclone Nargis, which flat­ years. Many observers believe the elec­ land, along with other Burmese expa­ tened the delta region and left 150,000 tions will be neither free nor fair, if held triates fleeing the waves of xenophobia dead, has kept the country in the news. A at all, and most Burmese I met were re­ and socialism sweeping Burma. particular source of international outrage luctant to even broach the subject. But as Joseph’s family eventually moved to was the junta’s delaying and blocking of the wine flowed and chatter filled the air, I the , and she never planned aid in the aftermath of the cyclone. Israel sensed that there was still a kernel of hope to return to the country where she was was one of the few countries allowed to at the gathering, a sense that change, for born. But a few years ago, she learned offer direct aid, through MASHAVJ the Burma—and its Jews—could be coming. from Moses Samuels’ cousin, who lives in country’s equivalent of the United States and is one of her closest friends, Agency for International Development. One May day in 1960, 11-year-old that Yangon’s municipal authorities were Sammy, who was then working for the Sally Joseph, her mother Florence, and threatening to move the cemetery where American Jewish Congress in New York, her two younger sisters boarded the her father and nearly 700 other Jews are

JULY/AUGUST 2010 / MOMENT 41 buried. “I felt compelled to visit my fa­ the synagogue, trading in coffee, alcohol, cial mobility were frustrated by the Brit­ ther’s grave before that happened,” she timber, teak and other goods, and serving ish who barred them, and the Burmese, tells me. This past January, as part of a as customs officials. Arabic, Judeo-Arabic from social clubs. But the Baghdadis also tour organized by Myanmar Shalom (Arabic written in Hebrew characters) replicated the British system of discrim­ Travels & Tours, Joseph went to Burma and English were the primary languages, ination by treating the Bene Israel, their for the first time since she fled 50 years though it was not uncommon for Jews poorer brethren from India, with dis­ ago. While many large commercial en­ to learn Hindi or Burmese. Hebrew was dain. “The Baghdadis,” writes Cernea, terprises have been nationalized, small generally reserved for the synagogue. “measured themselves against the Brit­ private businesses such as Myanmar Life was good for most Jews, writes ish at one pole and against ‘lower class/ Shalom, founded in 2005 by Sammy and Cemea, with the rich supporting the caste’ Jews at the other. To be identified Moses, are allowed to operate. Moses is poor through the charitable funds of the with these less sophisticated populations the nominal director, but Sammy is the Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue, which re­ seemed to threaten their acceptance as real force behind the company’s dual placed the original synagogue in the mid- British.” Intermarriage was frowned mission: to preserve Myanmar’s Jewish upon, and Baghdadi brides were often legacy and to help open up the insular imported from elsewhere in Southeast country through tourism. By the turn of the century, Asia. In 1913, the Baghdadi Jews even I meet Joseph at the reception at the forbade Bene Israel from having aliyot Park Royal, where she reports that she more than 500 Baghdadi in the synagogue and from serving on has located her father’s grave. She has Jews had settled in Burma, its board of trustees. The Bene Israel also found the house where she and her took the matter all the way to Rangoon’s mostly in Rangoon. They family once lived. “I am happy to be High Court, where, in 1935, according back amongst the Burmese people,” she lived primarily near the to Cernea, a British justice declared that tells me. “Their kindness and generosity synagogue, trading in the “defendants are not entitled to ex­ are as I remember them, and I admire clude from the lists...a Jew merely be­ their resilience so much.” coffee, alcohol, timber, cause he is a Bene Israel.” Both the Joseph and Samuels families teak and other goods, and Internal social tensions were over­ are descendants of Baghdadi merchants serving as customs officials. shadowed by the outbreak of World War who migrated to India and across South­ II. Most of the approximately 2,500Jews east Asia in the 19th century. Although living in Burma fled after the Japanese some Bene Israel and Cochini Jews from began bombing Rangoon on Decem­ India made it to Burma in the early 1800s, 1890s. Some Jews became notable public ber 24, 1941. Among them was Stuart serious Jewish settlement didn’t begin figures: Judah Ezekiel, an employee of Spencer’s mother, who never returned, until after the British conquered Ran­ the British East India Company and phi­ and Sally Joseph’s father, Abraham Ezra goon in 1852. It was then that a wealthy lanthropist, had a street named for him, Joseph, who trekked alongside hundreds Baghdad-born merchant, David Sas­ and David Sophaer was Rangoon’s mayor of thousands of other Burmese refugees soon, set up trading empires in Bombay, in the 1930s. through the mountains and across the Shanghai and and sent a mis­ Descendants of the Burmese Jews Indian border to Calcutta. sion to Burma in search of teak. Accord­ look back fondly on their families’ years Abraham was one of 500 or so Jews ing to the late Ruth Fredman Cernea, an here. “My mom talked about Burma all to return to Burma once the war ended. anthropologist and author oiAlmost Eng­ of the time,” says Stuart Spencer, a U.S. He married Florence, and Sally was born lishmen: Baghdadi Jews in British Burma, expatriate living in Hong Kong, where on July 18, 1948, shortly after Burma— the Sassoons probably underwrote Ran­ he serves as senior vice president of the and Israel—achieved independence from goon’s first small synagogue. Built in the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies. the British. Abraham passed away unex­ 1850s, it stood near the Sule Pagoda, an “The Jews flourished under British rule. pectedly in 1957 at the age of 46, before ancient temple that is said to contain a She said those were the glory days. It a short-lived but ominous coup made strand of the Buddha’s hair. was safe, the community was tight, there it clear that Baghdadi Jews who chose By the turn of the century, more than were good interreligious and ethnic re­ to keep their British citizenship were 500 Baghdadi Jews had settled in Burma, lations, and there was freedom.” not welcome. “Things really started to mostly in Rangoon. They lived primar­ Life was far from problem-free. change in 1959 when it became more so­ ily on Dalhousie and Mogul streets, near Wealthy Baghdadis seeking upward so­ cialist,” says Joseph. The exodus began. “I

42 JULY/AUGUST 2010 always asked my mom why she wouldn’t go back to Rangoon,” says Spencer, “and she would say ‘there’s nothing to go back to.’ Everything was expropriated, her property was all stolen.”

While the Burmese Jewish immigrants began new lives in the United States and Britain, a friendship bloomed be­ tween Israel and Burma, both young, socialist and, in an increasingly polar­ ized world, nonaligned. Standing over six feet, Ambassador Yaron Mayer, a veteran of the Israeli foreign service, is one of the tallest men in Burma. Mayer’s short speech at the banquet is heavy on diplomatic cliches such as “friendly relations” and “poten­ tial for cooperation.” Embassy staff had set up a photo exhibit around the Grand Ballroom’s perimeter depicting the early history of Israeli-Burmese relations— “in honor of their 55 th anniversary,” Mayer tells me. There was a photograph of throngs of Israelis greeting Burmese Prime Minister U Nu as he arrived in Tel Aviv in 1955—against the wishes of Arab leaders—to jump start agricultural cooperation between the two arid na­ tions, the first visit to Israel by a foreign head of state. But there was no mention that Burma had voted “no” on Israeli membership at the UN in 1949, a moot point because in December of that year, Burma became one of the first nations to recognize Israel’s independence. The (Top) Moses Samuels, 60, at Yangon's Jewish cemetery, and (bottom) Sammy, 29, in New York. Israeli embassy in Burma, established in 1957, was a boon for the remaining

believed in was Israel,” wrote Peres. -o Jews, offering them protection and an that the Israeli legend “wowed his hosts 1 o by showing up attired like a potbellied On Friday evening, the day after the o avenue to emigration. o

pixy in Burma’s traditional gaungbaung banquet, I meet Ambassador Mayer > Prime Ministers David Ben-Gurion 2 s at the Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue, a < and U Nu developed a close personal headgear and silk sarong.” Other Israeli C/5 beautiful, open-air building with blue s> friendship. U Nu purportedly taught politicians, too, befriended their Bur­ m GO mese counterparts. In Shimon Peres’ and white pillars and green stained glass 2 Ben-Gurion to stand on his head; in > windows. Although its roof was torn off 32 1961, the 7 5-year-old Ben-Gurion, who 1995 book, Battling for Peace: A Memoir, E he recalls being rowed around Manda­ by Cyclone Nargis in 2008, it now looks sO had once ridiculed U Nu—“the man CD > as good as new. Donations for its repair TO knows nothing about ”— lay in a small boat with then IDF chief P Z -< of staff Moshe Dayan and their host, and preservation came from the US- o spent several days meditating and > studying the religion with U Nu, then soon-to-be Burmese dictator General ASEAN Business Council—which has § a devout Buddhist monk. Time reported . “He said the only country he secured an exemption for the project CO

JULY/AUGUST 2010 / MOMENT 4 3 from U.S. sanctions against Myanmar— economy into the ground and by the day,” says Mayer. Another embassy offi­ as well as the American Jewish Joint 1970s, the officially Buddhist country was cial, Eliran Avitan, who oversees security Distribution Committee and some indi­ almost entirely isolated from the world. is equally dismissive. “Everyone knows vidual donors. Like the mosques that dot In 1988, shortly after the Burmese regime that Israel sells weapons to Myanmar, the surrounding neighborhood, the syn­ brutally suppressed a popular, democrat­ except for us,” he tells me. agogue’s cool interior makes it a blissful ic uprising, an internal coup ensued. The The allegation can be traced back to respite from Yangon’s oppressive heat. new and less politically ideological mili­ a 2000 article entitled “Myanmar and On this night, a cheerful Moses Samu­ tary junta—the State Peace and Devel­ Israel Develop Military Ties,” published els shuffles outside to greet us. Burmese opment Council (SPDC)—took charge in Jane's Intelligence Review, a monthly men are masterful shufflers, and Moses, and has survived in part through limited British journal. The piece is attributed an older, bespectacled version of his son, exports of natural gas, timber and other to William Ashton, a pseudonym for for­ shuffles with the best of them. The am­ resources. It is the SPDC that prevented mer Australian diplomat Andrew Selth. bassador lights the Shabbat candles, and Aung San Suu Kyi from taking power “It is now clear that all three arms of the we join him in reciting the blessings in [Armed Forces] are receiv­ Hebrew, while Moses, whose grandfa­ ing direct help from Israeli companies. ther was among the community mem­ Ne Win seized power in Given its sensitive nature, it is difficult bers who provided donations for the to see how this assistance could be given synagogue’s construction, and two be- a 1962 military coup and to Myanmar without the active involve­ leaguered-looking Jewish businessmen proceeded to implement his ment, or at least the full knowledge and visiting from Singapore bow their heads support, of the Israeli government,” in silence. Then, after we bid Moses and . wrote Selth, an expert on Myanmar’s the businessmen goodnight, Mayer’s He succeeded in running military who is a research fellow at the chauffeur whisks us away to an upscale the economy into the Australian Research Council. Chinese restaurant on the outskirts of I ask Mayer for his impressions of Yangon, near the Generals’ residences. ground and by the 1970s , who by now has ruled Bur­ Yaron Mayer grew up on Ein HaShofet almost entirely isolated the ma with an iron fist for nearly 20 years. (“Spring of the Judge” in Hebrew), a kib­ country from the world. But the ambassador demurs, remarking butz near Haifa that is named for Louis only that Israel maintains a healthy rela­ Brandeis. “It was the first American kib­ tionship with Myanmar, although it has butz,” he explains, pausing to order Myan­ on occasion urged “restraint,” for ex­ mar beer. I ask him about early diplomatic and keeps her under house arrest. ample, during the crackdown on protes­ relations. “Burma was an important coun­ Toward the end of the meal, I broach tors in 2007. Unlike the U.S. and many try then and also an important part of the the subject of Israeli military aid to European countries, Israel has never nonaligned movement,” Mayer says. “Isra­ Myanmar. Military relations between slapped sanctions on the junta. el wanted good relations with Asia, and we the two countries were established back We also discuss a mysterious and thought they could help us be accepted.” in 1954, when there was nothing prob­ once powerful figure in Burmese poli­ As we pass around dishes of duck and lematic about two young, democratic tics—David Abel, Burma’s economics mutton over and vegetables, Mayer nations exchanging strategy and arms. czar from the 1988 coup through the laments the ascent of Ne Win, who seized But Israel also has a history of supplying 1990s. Abel, who is of Jewish heritage, power in a 1962 military coup d’etat to weapons and military training to unsa­ is rumored to have been a close associ­ become chairman of the Revolutionary vory regimes—from apartheid South ate of Than Shwe. A 2001 Jerusalem Re­ Council and prime minister and pro­ Africa to pre-revolutionary Iran and nu­ port article asserted that Abel’s mother ceeded to implement his Burmese way merous right-wing dictatorships in Lat­ was born Jewish and his father was, too, to socialism. “Ne Win sort of cut ties in America—and for decades, there have according to his Israeli cousin, Esther with the outside world,” says Mayer. been rumors that the Burmese junta, Daniels-Philips. But Abel, a 75-year-old “He nationalized property, including too, is a beneficiary. Mayer insists that ex-military man, told the Israeli maga­ Jewish property and Israeli firms. Some Israel’s primary assistance to Burma has zine that his father was an Indian Cath­ say he didn’t want to be too close to Is­ always come in the form of agricultural olic. “I would not walk around and say rael. Still, he kept the embassy.” training. “Our military attache left in the I was Jewish. But if asked, I say I have Ne Win succeeded in running the 1980s, and we have no military ties to­ some Jewish blood.” In the same inter­

14 JULY/AUGUST 2010 view he spoke disparagingly of Aung in Burma as Jews was never threatened,” thorities have come to every community San Suu Kyi and repeatedly compared says Sally Joseph. “Everyone co-existed in Rangoon and offered plots of land Burma’s political regime and situation peacefully.” And Mayer claims in his outside the city to build new cemeter­ to Israel’s. He expressed tremendous ad­ speech at the Park Royal that “the term ies,” explains Spencer, who is working miration for politicians like Ehud Barak, anti-Semitism is unknown here.” with Moses and Sammy to raise funds with their military backgrounds, as well Relations are cordial with Yangon’s for the new cemetery. as for Israel. Abel is said to have been Muslim community, which makes up Over mohinga, a spicy fish soup, at the purged from the government following five percent of Myanmar’s population. luxurious Strand Hotel, Spencer—who a dispute over economic policies with There is no security at the synagogue, is related to Sally Joseph—tells me that Than Shwe, but Mayer, who has hosted which sits peacefully in a predominantly he also wants to renovate the mikveh, him for Passover Seder, says he retired Muslim neighborhood and is surround­ which is just outside the synagogue. because of old age. David Steinberg, a ed by mosques and Muslim-owned “Moses showed it to me yesterday, and professor at Georgetown’s School of shops, many of whose proprietors rent when the light came on, I saw it was de­ Foreign Service and an expert on Bur­ crepit,” he says. “It was a dark, wet hole.” ma, who also knows Abel, insists that he He worries that if the Burmese Jews and their descendents don’t take action “was never a part of the inner circle.” To this day, Burmese Jews Whatever Abel’s influence, the Jewish quickly, the task of preservation will fall community “had good relations with and their descendants to outsiders. “Chabad came here, as well him when he was in power,” according zealously protect Burma’s as a few other groups, and wanted to put to Sammy Samuels, who adds that “all a picture of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in Burma considers him a good and very reputation, stressing that the synagogue, but Sammy said no way.” wise person.” any wrongs done to the WTien I ask Sammy about this, he re­ plies, “Whatever changes, I want to pray After dinner, we drive to Prime Min­ country’s Jews were either ister U Nu’s pagoda. It is common prac­ the way we pray. It is a Sephardic syna­ tice in Burma for politicians to build pa­ perpetrated by the Japanese gogue, and we will keep our tradition.” godas to atone for their sins and to win or stemmed from the Jews’ Later Sammy and I meet at the west- ern-style Cafe 365 beside the Park Royal favors in the next life. We remove our perceived Britishness. shoes and slowly walk clockwise around Hotel. He will be traveling back to New the huge structure, silently at first. Then York soon but explains that his work for the ambassador lectures me on the mer­ Myanmar Shalom allows him to stay its of Vipassana meditation. He tells me from Moses Samuels. Hundreds of connected to Burma while he remains in that when his stint is up he will be sad Muslims attended Sammy Samuels’ bar the U.S. “I want to do tourism,” Sammy to leave Burma, a country that he sees as mitzvah, conducted by then-Israeli Am­ tells me. He thinks that Myanmar will one of Israel’s few, true friends. bassador Ori Noy almost 17 years ago, begin to open up in four or five years. and Mayer, tagging along with the elder “With my education and being Burmese For most of their history in the country, Samuels, says he recently attended—and I think I am in a good position to help Burma has been, as Ruth Cernea once felt welcomed at—a Shi’ite festival. bring that change.” wrote, “a tolerant home for the Jews.” For the time being, the most pressing Sammy has stayed remarkably calm To this day, Burmese Jews and their issue for the descendants of the Bagh­ under tremendous social pressure to descendants zealously protect Burma’s dadi Jews of Burma—and one that has personally repopulate the Jewish com­ reputation, stressing that any wrongs helped bring the Jewish diaspora back munity. He stays mum about his private done to the country’s Jews were either together—is the fate of the cemetery. life but assures me that Burma is his perpetrated by the Japanese or stemmed The city of Yangon first attempted to re­ home. “I’m definitely planning to come from the Jews’ perceived Britishness. locate the Jewish cemetery back in 1997, back to Burma after I get my M.A.,” in For the most part, anti-Semitism has when it moved to prohibit most burials business. Whether or not he has off­ been absent here. Even the looters who inside the city limits. Up north in Man­ spring, he believes there can be a Jewish targeted the synagogue and other Jewish dalay, the Muslim and Jewish cemeteries revival in Myanmar. “When the coun­ sites during World War II and then again have both been bulldozed, according to try opens up, many businesses and Jews in the aftermath of Israel’s Suez War of Cernea. But there is hope that the Yan­ might settle here, and our community 1956 seem to have been forgiven. “Life gon cemetery will be moved. “The au­ could actually grow.” O

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