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Most Jews long gone, historic synagogue remains
By Kerry Howley
THE only synagogue in Yangon is a quiet place enshrouded in layers
of tradition and narrative. Ask Moses Samuels, the trustee of the
synagogue and leader of the eight family congregation, about the
sacred building’s 150 year history, and he shrugs. “I only know
what other people have told me.”
Mr Samuels’ reaction is not apathy, but an acceptance of the
synagogue’s rich oral history and the uncertainty therein. He is a
human archive, a collector of stories, many of them second or third
hand to begin with. He knows that much of what he has been told
falls far short of the realm of verifiable truth.
“People have said to me, ‘My mother sat there, in that balcony,’”
Mr Samuels said.
“But did she? Didn’t she? I can’t know.”
One of 188 sites on the Yangon City Development Council’s list of
Heritage Buildings, the Musmeah Yeshua synagogue was constructed in
wood in 1854 and replaced with a larger structure in 1896. Although
little is known about the synagogue’s founders, it was built at a
time when Sephardic Jewish traders were streaming into Yangon from
the Middle East, Europe and India. The land on which it now stands
was granted by the British Colonial Government and, following
Myanmar’s independence, an extension was granted by the Myanmar
authorities.
According to Mr Samuels, the build-ing’s records were destroyed
in a fire. But some history, significantly, remains. Mr Samuels
claims he still has the records of births and deaths among the
congregation since its very beginning in the mid 1800s, and says the
sons and daughters of former Myanmar Jews have called him to verify
their families’ histories.
The gated building sits between 25 and 26 Street in downtown
Yangon, surrounded by a bustling Islamic neighborhood. There is no
glass in the windows, and sparrows flit about the ceiling’s wooden
rafters. The voices of shouting street vendors and blaring car horns
drift in, softened, it seems, by the building’s innate sense of
sanctuary.
Mr Samuels has a motley collection of stories about the place’s
past, but maintains that none of it is verifiable. He says that the
congregation once numbered over 2000, but following the second world
war and, later, the nationalisation of private businesses in the
1960s, numbers dwindled until eight families remain. Down from five
in the 1930s, only one synagogue trustee maintains the building, and
the congregation has been without a rabbi for over 30 years.
As in so much of Yangon, compromises have been made in the face
of circumstance. Normally, women wouldn’t be allowed on the ground
floor of an Orthodox Jewish synagogue, but would have to sit in the
balconies. In light of the tiny congregation and the influx of
curious tourists, many of whom are Reform or Conservative Jews and
do not follow that law, Mr Samuels allows women to roam throughout
the synagogue and participate in prayer services.
For the synagogue’s single trustee, the importance of such rules
pales in comparison to the importance of simply having a place to
worship. As if to calm fears that the synagogue will not always
stand where it does today, a sign near the building reads “A tree
may be alone in the field, a man alone in the world, but a Jew is
never alone on his holy days.” Whether the Jewish population can be
revived or not remains as open-ended as Mr Samuel’s vague history,
but the synagogue on 26 Street stands as a serene monument to a
storied past.
( Reference :
http://www.myanmar.gov.mm/myanmartimes/no203/MyanmarTimes11-203/025.htm
)
Secret Yangon II: The Lost Tribe
In the wild hills of western Burma,
along the border where Bangladesh and India meet, lives the Lost Tribe
of Menashe. Until a generation ago they were animists, placating (it
would be wrong to say worshipping) the spirits of their ancestors, with
whom they remained closely linked through their shamans. The shamans had
dreams and visions, and passed on to the people the wishes of the
ancestors. Then the shamans started having dreams and visions of a new
sort, and from these it emerged that the Kuki Chin were not, despite
appearances, a people of Tibeto-Burmese descent with origins somewhere
in southern China, but Jews, descendants of the tribe of Menashe, one of
the Ten Tribes of Israel carried off into captivity over two and a half
thousand years ago and lost ever since. For this the Kuki had the word
of the ancestors, and the ancestors should know. This makes them the
first of Myanmar's Jews, and the group about whom least is known, for
the hills of Chin State are wild and rugged and definitely out of bounds
to visitors.
The first recorded Jew in Myanmar
was Solomon Gabirol. He became Commissar to the army of King Alaungpaya
in the 18th century, and may have been present when his royal master
conquered Dagon, down in the delta of the Ayeyarwady, in 1755. Renamed
Yangon, meaning End of Strife, it was destined to become the main city
of Burma, and the centre of a thriving Jewish community.
In the 19th century the English
conquered Yangon and made it the commercial centre of Burma, attracting
Jews of the Baghdadi, Bene Israel, and Cochinese communities from
Calcutta, capital of the British Empire in the East and one of the great
commercial cities of the world at that time. From Calcutta the trade
routes stretched westward to Basra, Istanbul, Cairo, the Mediterranean
and Europe; to the east the Pax Britannica opened the way to all the
ports of the Orient from Singapore to Shanghai. In the early half of the
20th century the Jews of Rangoon (which is Yangon with a British accent)
numbered between two and three thousand, with 126 Sifrei Torah, a Talmud
Torah, and numerous charitable and communal organisations, as well as a
synagogue, a school, and a cemetery on 91st Street.
The Jews occupied a respected
position under the English, providing mayors to both Rangoon and to the
important city of Bassein. But this very closeness counted against them
when the next conquerors arrived in 1942. The Japanese regarded the Jews
as identical to the English, and most of Burma's Jews fled to Calcutta.
Only a few hundred came back after the war. The reduced community
enjoyed a late flowering in the early years of Burmese independence,
nurtured by the close personal friendship between Israeli Prime Minister
David Ben Gurion and his Burmese counterpart, U Nu. But in 1962 a
military coup brought Burma under the control of the xenophobic,
socialist regime of General Ne Win, which was to last until 1988. While
there was no persecution of Jews under Ne Win, life for everyone in
Burma became increasingly difficult, and their numbers rapidly dwindled.
A handful of Jews remain in Yangon
today. The Musmeah Yeshua synagogue still stands on 26th Street, near
the city's main market. I went there one hot and humid morning, asking
the Burmese merchants in their stalls if they knew where this place was.
"Ah yes," said a man puffing on a Chinese cigarette as he waited for
customers to express interest in his selection of sarongs and shirts. "I
know it. It's the Indian mosque, isn't it?" His neighbour, an older man
offering identical sarongs to an apparently uninterested public, set him
right. "No, these people are not looking for the Indian mosque. But, it
is near the mosque. Yes. Quite near."
It was indeed quite near, although
easily overlooked in the crowed streets. The gates were closed, but not
locked. A boy with a broom was sweeping the steps. He motioned me to
wait inside the small yard off the street. After half an hour Mr Moses
Samuels, caretaker of the synagogue and leader of today's Jewish
community in Yangon, arrived with the keys and welcomed me inside.
We looked over the beautifully kept
place of worship and its fascinating little museum, hung with sepia
photographs of classes from the Jewish school, street scenes from the
time when Rangoon streets featured kosher butchers and pukka sahibs wore
solar topees. Afterwards, we sat and drank tea in Moses Samuels's
office, and he explained to me the problems of the tiny community. It's
simply a question of numbers. A minyan (the quorum required for a
religious service) can only be obtained with assistance from the Israeli
Embassy and Jewish staff from other embassies, and it has been many
years since the last regular Shabbat service was held. The community is
dying out. The synagogue is located in a predominantly Muslim part of
the city, with a number of mosques nearby. These Muslims are of
Pakistani or Indian descent, and relations between them and the Jews of
Yangon are good. The synagogue receives a trickle of foreign visitors,
particularly American Jews visiting Myanmar. Their contributions, plus
the support of the Israeli Embassy and some Jewish groups abroad, serve
to ensure the continued existence of the little building. But I could
not help but feel that I just witnessed the last twilight of an age.
The Lost Tribe of Menashe, on the
other hand, are thriving. They want to go to Israel, and their cause has
supporters. Since 1993 the Gush Emunim Jewish settlements in the Gaza
Strip - Kiryat Arba, Ofra, Beit El, Elon Moreh - have sponsored their
arrival and placed them on the farms, where they replace Palestinians.
Efforts are being made in Israel to assist with the construction of
synagogues and instruction in correct Jewish practice. "It is written",
says the right-wing Rabbi, who stands behind this movement, " "He will
gather the dispersed of Israel and assemble the scattered of Judah" ".
Quite a trip for the ancestors.
(Reference
:
http://www.thingsasian.com/stories-photos/2912)
“A Tree may be alone in the field, a man alone in
the world but a Jew will never alone on his holydays.”
( Abstract from :
info@JewishTravelAgency.com
)
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No. 85, 26th St.,
Yangon
(Rangoon),
Myanmar
. Tel: 951 75062
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Yangon synagogue |
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View inside Musmeah Yeshua
synagogue in Yangon.
(Myanmar Times)
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Torah written
in Hebrew |
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Modest but beautiful are these
designs on the ceiling influenced by the Star of David |
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Temple gate |
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all
photos are kindly permitted by the
clickandrender.blogspot.com |
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