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Jun 20 2019

The Jews of North Macedonia

By Dan | Jewish Travel, North Macedonia | No Comments

Skopje’s Jewish community survives despite near annihilation during the Holocaust

June 20, 2019

SKOPJE, North Macedonia – Like many countries in Eastern Europe, North Macedonia offers visitors wanting a glimpse of Jewish history and culture a bittersweet experience.

The Holocaust Memorial Center for the Jews of Macedonia

There are remnants and artifacts of a once-thriving community, which dates back to Roman times and ultimately reached a peak of nearly 12,000 Jews before World War II.

There are inspirational signs of survival and a modest rebirth, namely in the form of the newest synagogue in the Balkans, Beit Yaakov, a Sephardic-style synagogue with beautiful stained-glass windows designed by local artists.

There also is a deeply disturbing and moving museum chronicling the virtual destruction of Macedonia’s Jewish community during the Holocaust, when more than 7,000 Jews were transported to their deaths at the concentration camp in Treblinka, Poland.

I recently spent six weeks teaching at North Macedonia’s largest university and had an opportunity to learn more about the roller-coaster existence of the region’s Jewish community.

Macedonia, as the locals call it, was officially renamed the Republic of North Macedonia in early 2019 to resolve a decades-old dispute with neighboring Greece, which had long laid claim to the name of Macedonia. It’s believed the move will pave the way for the country to eventually join the European Union and the NATO military alliance.

Inside Skopje’s Beit Yaakov synagogue

Skopje, a city of a half-million people, is the capital of this landlocked country about the size of Vermont. Macedonia gained its independence when Yugoslavia imploded in the early 1990s. The country’s Macedonian majority is mostly Eastern Orthodox; however, ethnic Albanians – many of whom practice Islam — constitute about 25 percent of the country’s population.

Today, the country’s Jewish population has dwindled to about 200. Virtually all of them live in Skopje.

On my second day in the city, I visited the Holocaust Memorial Center for the Jews of Macedonia, a $23 million state-of-the-art and tastefully designed museum located in the heart of what once was the city’s Jewish quarter. It’s just a stone’s throw from two of Skopje’s most famous sites – the historic Stone Bridge that takes pedestrians across the Vardar River, and the old Turkish Bazaar.

Inaugurated in 2011, the Holocaust museum was built with money raised from a 2002 law providing for the return of heirless Jewish property to the Jewish community, a law that is widely recognized as one of the best in Europe.

The Holocaust museum chronicles the prosperous history of Jews in the region

Inside the museum, I learned that the first-known synagogue in Skopje dates back to 1366. Many Jews came to the region following the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions. The Jewish community was almost entirely Sephardic, and most spoke Ladino at home. When Macedonia was part of the Ottoman Empire, Jews prospered in the fields of trade, banking and medicine. They also enjoyed fairly good relations with the non-Jewish population. At one point, there were 14 working synagogues in the country, nine of them in Bitola, a city in southern Macedonia that is close to the Greek and Albanian borders.

The museum has a number of multimedia exhibits depicting Jewish life in Macedonia and the Balkans through the centuries, including historic Jewish religious and cultural artifacts. Most of the exhibits are in English.

In 1941, the Bulgarian army entered what is now Macedonia in an effort to reclaim the region, which it believed was part of its own homeland. During its occupation, the Bulgarians implemented anti-Semitic laws and began to force the Jews into ghettos and slave-labor camps. In 1943, under orders from Germany, Bulgarian troops deported most of Macedonia’s Jews to the Yugoslav border with Romania, where they ultimately were transported in cattle-cars by Germans to the death camp in Treblinka, Poland.

One of the original wagons used to transport Macedonia’s Jews to Treblinka

To Bulgaria’s credit, its government succumbed to public and political pressure and refused to hand over the Jews in its own territory to the Germans. Sadly, the Jews of Macedonia were not so fortunate. None of the more than 7,000 men, women and children survived the deportation to Treblinka.

The World Jewish Congress has noted that no Jewish community in Europe suffered a greater degree of destruction than the one from North Macedonia. Less than 2 percent of the country’s Jewish population survived the Holocaust.

Perhaps the Holocaust museum’s most haunting and impactful exhibit is a German cattle-car that transported the Jews to their deaths. Stepping inside the dark, wooden structure, one can only imagine the inhumane conditions and sheer horror the Jews endured before being murdered by the Nazis in the gas chambers.

Outside the museum stands a powerful and evocative statue of two young Jews, heads bowed in grief, next to packed suitcases and shoes. In the process of being uprooted from their home, they are seemingly on their way to a ghetto or concentration camp.

While few of the country’s Jews survived the Holocaust, the community somehow managed to endure. The rebirth culminated in the construction of a new synagogue in 2003, the only Jewish house of worship in North Macedonia.

A haunting monument remembering the Jewish victims outside the Holocaust museum in Skopje

A 15-minute walk from the museum, Beit Yaakov is located on the top floor of a non-descript three-story building that also houses the Jewish community’s administrative offices and rooms for a small religious school and community events.

During my visit to the synagogue, I met with Jana Nichota, the secretary general of the Jewish community. She told me that while Skopje’s Jews strongly embrace their history and culture, they aren’t particularly religious.

It’s a symptom of Jewry throughout Eastern Europe, where Jewish communities, decimated by the Holocaust, became less observant during Socialist times, mainly because religion — of any type — was largely frowned upon by ruling governments.

Indeed, the Skopje synagogue has no rabbi and rarely holds services. Normally, a rabbi is brought in from Belgrade or another location to lead High-Holiday services. But this past year, Jana said, there just wasn’t enough interest. However, the community did host a Passover Seder in April, with about 30 attendees.

North Macedonia has largely been spared from the wave of anti-Semitism that is creeping across Europe. The small population of Jews gets along well with its Christian and Muslim neighbors. The country’s president and prime minister — along with leaders of the Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim communities — attended the inauguration of the Holocaust museum.

“If you build it, they will come,” goes the line from the movie “Field of Dreams.” With a beautiful 21st-century synagogue and a Jewish museum that outshines exhibitions in much larger European cities, Skopje’s Jewish leaders hope their once dormant community will continue to regain its footing and attract visitors to learn more about Jewish life in a little-understood part of the world.

Jan 06 2019

Bagels on the Bayou

By Dan | Jewish Travel | No Comments

New Orleans is home to a unique and surprisingly vibrant Jewish community

Aish.com — January 6, 2019

NEW ORLEANS — A “po-boy shrimp” sandwich, chicken jambalaya, and red beans and rice with sausage aren’t items you’ll typically find on the menu at an authentic kosher delicatessen.

Jackson Square in the heart of New Orleans

But at the Kosher Cajun Deli and Grocery in Metairie, La., a suburb of New Orleans, these are popular dishes, along with more traditional deli staples like corned beef, chopped liver, potato knishes and bagels and lox.

Welcome to Jewish life in a city known as “The Big Easy,” where Jews have carved out their own colorful and unique traditions and thrived for centuries in the Deep South, a part of America where many other Jewish communities have struggled to maintain their religious and cultural identity.

Indeed, the New Orleans metropolitan area is home to nine working congregations and about 11,000 Jews, a number that has tripled since Hurricane Katrina decimated the city in 2005. I recently spent a weekend in this city of about 1.4 million people, before boarding the American Duchess, an old-fashioned paddlewheel boat for a week-long cruise on the Lower Mississippi River.

Before boarding the Duchess, I had a wonderful lunch at the Cajun Deli in Metairie with the restaurant’s founder and owner Joel Brown, walked from New Orleans’ famous French Quarter to visit the city’s oldest functioning synagogue, and spoke with Arnie Fielkow, the CEO and president of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans.

Anshe Sfard Synagogue, a National Historic Landmark

Fielkow, a former two-term New Orleans city councilman and executive vice president with the New Orleans Saints football team, assumed the reins of the Jewish Federation in 2017. Fielkow told me he is especially proud of the role the Federation has played in helping to rebuild the Jewish community since Katrina — one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history — ravaged the city more than 13 years ago.

Before the storm hit, about 10,000 Jews lived in New Orleans. Fielkow says that number shrunk dramatically – down to about 3,000 – 4,000 – in the years following Katrina. But now, thanks in part to several Federation initiatives, the Jewish population has actually swelled to about 11,000, higher than pre-Katrina levels.

“Since Katrina, we’ve added a lot of younger Jewish people that came to either help with the rebuilding process, or to enter one of the new fields that have grown since Katrina,” says Fielkow. “It’s very much a hybrid of new and old and it’s an exciting community to be a part of.”

Fielkow says one of his priorities has been to further enhance relations with the city’s large African-American population, which comprises about two-thirds of its residents. He says Jews have a “very close connection” with the city’s Black residents, dating back to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. He adds that due to the city’s rich diversity, Jews have encountered little anti-Semitism.

Arnie Fielkow, CEO and president of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans

“We’re not a traditional deep-South city,” he says. “New Orleans is unique in that it has a French and Spanish background to it. It has a Cajun and Creole connection to it. It’s very different from a Montgomery or a Birmingham (Alabama) or one of the more traditionally thought-of Southern cities. In our community, we have a great tolerance and a great diversity and get along very well together.”

The first Jews arrived here in 1757, only a few decades after the city was founded. The Jewish population started to grow after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, with most settlers arriving from the Alsace region of France. Jews became successful merchants and active in politics. In fact, Louisiana elected a Jewish lieutenant governor and attorney general in the 1850s. Most Jews in 19th century New Orleans, however, were not religious and intermarriage with the local Catholic population was commonplace.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, Jews opened successful retail stores in the downtown part of the city and synagogues were constructed to meet the religious needs of the growing community. One of the synagogues, Anshe Sfard, was founded by Hasidic Jews from Lithuania in the mid-1920s and still exists as a Modern Orthodox congregation. Located at 2230 Carondelet St., it’s the only synagogue within walking distance of downtown New Orleans. It took me about 45 minutes to walk to Anshe Sfard from the French Quarter to a section of the city known as the Garden District.

With a beautiful exterior marked with triple-arched Neo-Byzantine doors, Anshe Sfard has been designated a National Historic Landmark. While the synagogue was forced to close for several months after Katrina, its Torah Scrolls were saved. Visitors are welcome for Shabbat services Saturdays at 9:30 a.m.

Many of New Orleans’ Jews have recently moved to a western suburb called Metairie, which is home to a Jewish Community Center, two Jewish schools and several congregations. It’s also where Joel Brown, who was born and raised in New Orleans, decided 30 years ago to open a kosher grocery store, which has since expanded to a restaurant and Judaica shop.

Joel Brown, owner of the Kosher Cajun Deli & Grocery

At the time, there were no kosher restaurants in the city and Brown saw a business opportunity which has “grown beyond my wildest dreams.”

Today, the Kosher Cajun Deli and Grocery has become a central meeting place for the Jewish community and a popular attraction for out-of-town visitors – both Jews and non-Jews alike. Like any astute businessman, Brown was looking for a way to give his restaurant a unique twist. That’s why he decided to add to the menu kosher dishes called “New Orleans Favorites.”

“Visitors coming from all over the country would say, ‘We have great New York deli. We want something different. We want your specialty foods that New Orleans is known for,’” says Brown.

So Brown now serves such dishes as chicken and sausage jambalaya (made with kosher chicken and beef sausage), red beans and rice, and a popular local specialty called a “po-boy” sandwich.

“It is Alaskan pollock fish that is formed like shrimp,” he says. “We bread it with different seasonings, we fry it, put it on a toasted sub-roll with an excellent cocktail sauce. And it’s very, very popular.”

“New Orleans Favorites” served at the Kosher Cajun Deli

All of the meat Brown serves is Glatt Kosher under the supervision of a rabbi with the Louisiana Kashrut Committee. Brown has also carved out a niche as a leading supplier of kosher foods to conventions and the many cruise ships that depart out of New Orleans, including the ship I was on – the American Duchess.

“We’re a one-stop kosher food shop, restaurant, grocery, deli, Judaica shop, with (sports) memorabilia all over the walls,” says Brown. “We’ve become sort of a Jewish Chamber of Commerce.”

New Orleans has a reputation as a party town with a wild nightlife. But for Jewish visitors, it offers much more – a chance to experience a growing and vibrant Jewish community in a place many wouldn’t expect to find one.

Adds Fielkow, who moved with his family to New Orleans in 2000: “We were Yankees from the Midwest and immediately fell in love with everything about New Orleans – its food, its music, its architecture, but most importantly, its people. I think this is the greatest city in the world and I urge everyone to come down and enjoy the hospitality.”

Apr 25 2018

24 Hours in Shanghai

By Dan | China, Jewish Travel | No Comments

Exploring the city’s inspiring Jewish history during a brief visit

Aish.com/Arizona Jewish Life Magazine — April 2018

SHANGHAI — China’s largest city of 23 million people features one of the most dazzling skylines in the world, a booming economy and a compelling mixture of Eastern and Western cultures.

Shanghai’s dramatic skyline

But not many people are aware that Shanghai also offers visitors a fascinating glimpse into the history of one the most unique Jewish communities in the Far East. As a city that accepted about 20,000 Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust in Europe, Shanghai became known at the time as a “Noah’s Ark” for Jews who had no other place to go.

With only 24 hours to explore the city at the conclusion of a 14-day Asian cruise on the Holland America Volendam, I opted to take a half-day “Tour of Jewish Shanghai.” It was led by Dvir Bar-Gal, an Israeli-born journalist who has lived in Shanghai for the past 17 years.

With a style that was part history professor, part standup-comedian, Dvir taught our group of 15 tourists – mostly Americans – all about Shanghai’s Jewish past and took us to the sites that helped bring to life a Jewish community that once thrived here.

It took me just a 20-minute walk from where the Volendam was docked to join the tour. Appropriately, we met at the Fairmont Peace Hotel, which was built by Sephardic Jews from Bagdad, who were part of the first wave of Jewish immigrants to Shanghai in the late 19th century. This group included two prominent families – the Sassoons and Kadoories.

Dvir Bar-Gal leads a “Tour of Jewish Shanghai”

“People came here with nothing and created an economic empire in the Far East,” noted Dvir about the Baghdadi immigrants.

A second wave of Jews arrived in the 1920s, Ashkenazim fleeing pogroms and revolutions in Russia.

From the Fairmont, our group walked one block to The Bund, Shanghai’s pedestrian riverfront with a spectacular view across the Huangpu River to the city’s enormous skyscrapers. It was at The Bund where Dvir told us about the third – and most famous – wave of Jewish immigrants.

From 1933 to 1941, Shanghai accepted about 20,000 Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust. Most came from Germany and Austria, which had stripped Jews of their citizenship and encouraged exile before turning genocidal. Outside of the Dominican Republic, Shanghai was the only place that allowed Jews to enter as it did not require a visa. In fact, by 1939 more European Jews had taken refuge in Shanghai than in any other city in the world.

Monument at the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum

Why did China offer Jews a safe-haven from the Nazis when so many other countries turned their backs? Dvir says it wasn’t a conscious decision by the Chinese government. In fact, Shanghai at the time was an international city not completely under Chinese control. Several foreign powers, including the United States, France and the United Kingdom, claimed portions of the city and a visa was not required to enter Shanghai until August 1939.

Still, Dvir says once the Jews arrived, they were treated well by the Chinese, who have long been known for their lack of anti-Semitism. Dvir believes there are many reasons for this, including that the Chinese identify with Jewish suffering, relate to their status as an underdog and were “oppressed themselves by foreign powers.”

Jewish life in Shanghai prospered during the 1930s. At one time, there were six working synagogues and about 10 Jewish newspapers. Jews lived harmoniously with the Chinese in a section of town called the Hongkou District, which was dubbed “Little Vienna” because so many Austrian Jews lived there.

The final group of Jewish refugees to arrive in Shanghai included about 300 Polish Jews from the famous Mir Yeshiva, which ultimately became the only European yeshiva to emerge from World War II intact. The Jews from Mir Yeshiva first escaped in 1939 from Poland to Lithuania, where they received transit visas from the Japanese consulate general in Kovno, Chiune Sugihara.

The renovated Ohel Moshe Synagogue

All told, Sugihara issued more than 3,500 visas to Jews, earning him the title “the Japanese Schindler.” With the help of several overseas Jewish organizations, the Mir Yeshiva students and rabbis and other Jews who had received visas from Sugihara made it safely to Kobe, Japan, before arriving in Shanghai in 1941.

During World War II, the Japanese occupied Shanghai, which ended the flow of foreign funds to the Jewish refugees, who were becoming increasingly impoverished. The Japanese also imposed restrictions on where Jews could live, creating a “Designated Area for Stateless Refugees,” better known as the Shanghai Ghetto.

Conditions in the ghetto were difficult but a vast majority of Shanghai’s Jews survived the Holocaust. Most emigrated to Israel, the United States, Australia and Hong Kong after the Communists took control of the government in 1949.

Dvir drove us by van to the city’s Hongkou District where we walked through narrow streets and parks lined with blooming cherry-blossom trees to explore the traces of what once had been bustling Jewish life in the area.

The highlight was a visit to the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum on Changyang Road, which contains exhibits, monuments and an exhibition hall in which more than 140 photos are displayed with a multi-screen projection system. Dvir served as an adviser to the Chinese government when it opened the museum in 2007.

A newspaper from 1941 on display at the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum

The museum also houses the former Ohel Moshe Synagogue, built by Russian Jews in the 1920s. It later became the hub of Jewish life when the community was ghettoized in the 1940s. After the war, the synagogue was confiscated by the Communists and converted into a psychiatric hospital. It reopened in the 1990s and was later restored to its original architectural style in 2007. The building has been inscribed on the list of architectural heritage treasures of Shanghai.

Ohel Moshe is not used for religious services and the city has only has only one other remaining synagogue – Ohel Rachel. The largest synagogue in the Far East, Ohel Rachel was built by the Sassoon family in 1920. But it currently does not host services on a regular basis and is not open to visitors.

With no functioning stand-alone synagogues, Shanghai’s current population of about 4,000 Jews have a choice of praying at one of three Chabad branches or in private venues.

A Chinese acrobat show

The tour also included a visit to a home where Jewish refugees once lived and the former site of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which provided immense financial support to Shanghai’s Jewish refugees during their years of hardship.

Dvir says about 3,000 tourists take his tour every year, a majority of whom are Americans. He adds that before their arrival, many had no idea about the city’s rich and inspiring Jewish history.

“Some people have some knowledge about Jewish life here, but it is vague,” he says. “It comes to life when they take this tour.”

For information about booking a Jewish tour on a trip to Shanghai, email: shanghaijews@hotmail.com. The cost for a half-day tour is about $70.

After the tour was over, I had a few hours left to enjoy Shanghai before I needed to return to the Volendam. I chose to see a Chinese acrobat performance at a downtown theater, where I watched an amazing array of gymnasts, jugglers and motorcyclists who speedily whirled their vehicles inside a cage.

Shanghai at night

Back on the ship at 10 p.m., I took one last look at the city’s wondrous skyline – lit up like a pinball machine – and reflected on what I had learned during my 24 hours in this crowded and frenetic city.

Perhaps an exhibit at the Jewish Refugees Museum best sums up what a Holocaust historian has called “the miracle of Shanghai.”

In 1993, Yitzhak Rabin, the former Israeli prime minister, visited the site and inscribed the following: “To the people of Shanghai for unique humanitarian act of saving thousands of Jews during the Second World War, thanks in the name of the government of Israel.”

Feb 21 2018

Kosher pad-thai?

By Dan | Jewish Travel, Thailand | No Comments

New Chabad facility in Phuket, Thailand opens its doors to throngs of Jewish travelers

Aish.com — February 2018

PHUKET, Thailand — It was a Thursday night last August when Rabbi Mendy Segal, the chief Jewish emissary, or shluchim, of this island off the southwestern coast of Thailand, received a phone call every rabbi dreads but must deal with on occasion.

Rabbi Mendy Segal on the rooftop of the new Chabad Phuket House

Two Israelis were in a Thai jail on drug charges and needed the rabbi’s help to bail them out.

The call came at the worst possible time. Chabad Phuket had a series of events planned that coming weekend in conjunction with the opening of a swanky new $4 million facility and people were coming from all over the world to celebrate. Rabbi Segal barely had a second to spare.

Still, he planned to go down to the police station the following morning to offer his assistance. When you’re the only rabbi in a popular tourist destination where there are so many Jewish visitors, it’s an unpleasant – but necessary — part of the job.

Then, he learned that the two men arrested were actually Arabs with Israeli passports.

Should he go, or should he stay and plan for busy weekend ahead? He sought counsel from the chief rabbi of Thailand in Bangkok, Rabbi Yosef Kantor.

“And he said, ‘Mendy, you go,’” recalls Rabbi Segal. “You have to be a mensch. God wants you to be there.”

There are several Israeli-owned businesses near the Phuket Chabad House

So Rabbi Segal went down to the jail Friday morning and helped get the two men released on bail. In the process, he met one of their friends, another Israeli named Vadim.

“I started to talk with him and learned his mother is Jewish. I was so happy. I found out the reason I came.”

Vadim, whose father was Arab, had never set foot in a synagogue before. He was afraid it would cause tension in the family back in Israel. But after some coaxing from Rabbi Segal, Vadim came to Chabad.

“He put tefillin on for the first time in his life,” says Rabbi Segal. “And then he came for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. We didn’t see a happy ending in this type of situation. But then we found out he was a Jew. This is the purpose of Chabad – to help another Jew without thinking about getting anything back.”

In Phuket on vacation, I recently wanted to learn about Jewish life on the island and check out the new Chabad campus, now one of the largest facilities of its kind in all of Asia.

The new six-story Phuket Chabad House is located on a quiet side-street

I walked 30 minutes from my condo down one of the main thoroughfares in Patong, Phuket’s busy tourist hub known for its white-sand beaches, water sports and bawdy nightlife. I had heard Patong was popular with Israelis but had no idea what awaited me as I got within a few blocks of Chabad.

There were several signs in Hebrew marking Israeli-owned businesses, including travel agencies, restaurants and car/motorbike rental outlets.

Miracle of miracles, in this island paradise in the Andaman Sea, I found myself strolling through a Jewish neighborhood.

Just two blocks from the beach, a “Chabad House Thailand” sign directed me down a side-street lined with parked motorbikes to the six-story building called the Dimenstein Family Campus.

But I had made the cardinal sin of forgetting my passport and the guard at the entrance understandably wanted to ascertain that I was telling the truth when I said I was an American Jew and not a potential security threat before letting me inside.

“Can you say the Kiddush?” he asked.

Fortunately, I rose to the occasion.

Although I rarely attend services as an adult, my post bar-mitzvah years as the oldest son reciting the blessing of the wine at our family Shabbat dinners back in Arizona came in handy and I quickly launched into the prayer to prove to the guard that I really was a Jew, albeit a mostly secular one.

Kosher pad-thai for lunch at the Chabad House restaurant

He stopped me well before I got to “borei p’ri hagafen,” smiled and nodded for me to go inside.

Upon entering, I was introduced to Rabbi Segal. The 40-year-old Israeli has been leading Chabad’s chapter here for nearly three years, along with his wife and co-director, Miriam.

Inaugurated this past August – the weekend when the two Israeli Arabs were arrested — the new Chabad Phuket building offers an array of facilities and amenities of which some larger and less transient Jewish communities would be envious.

In addition to a synagogue that can hold up to 300 worshippers, the 26,000-square-foot facility features a mikvah, rabbinical quarters, a social hall that can seat 400 people, and a busy Kosher restaurant that serves everything from hamburgers to Middle Eastern fare to Thai dishes. Kosher meat is imported from Argentina.

I tried the pad-thai, a local noodle dish that was a bit on the bland side. Rabbi Segal explained that Israelis, who make up about 70 percent of the clientele, tend not to like their food too spicy. And kashrut law puts limitations on the Israeli chef’s use of certain spices.

“Could be the regular pad-thai tastes better, but to make it Kosher, you have to make it in the right way,” says Rabbi Segal.

The synagogue can accommodate up to 300 worshippers

Phuket is not a large island. The population is less than 400,000 and it’s only about 200 square miles, which makes it less than half the geographic size of my hometown of Phoenix, Arizona.

But more than 5 million tourists visit each year, including a large contingent of Israelis, many of whom fly nonstop from Tel Aviv to Bangkok (Phuket is a 75-minute flight from Bangkok) and spend weeks or even months travelling around the country after completing their military service.

Rabbi Segal says it’s impossible to determine how many Jews live in Phuket year-round, although he guesses that it’s likely only “a few hundred.”

In 2004, Phuket was ravaged by an Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. While Indonesia was hit the hardest, Thailand also was in the path of destruction. The tsunami struck the west coast of Phuket, causing about 250 fatalities and extensive damage to the island’s hotels and beaches.

Many tourists, including young Israeli backpackers, were stranded without food, water or shelter. That was the genesis of Chabad Phuket. The group dispatched a group of emissaries that offered assistance.

The popular white-sand Patong Beach is just a five-minute walk from the Chabad House

“They helped not only Jews, but non-Jews” says Rabbi Segal. “They came here to give food, a place to sleep and to help find Jews who had passed away. The tsunami woke people up to let them know that this place needed a branch.”

Chabad quickly outgrew the small building in which it started. In August 2015 ground was broken for the new facility; it opened two years later. About $4 million was needed for construction. Thus far, about $3.25 million has been raised, thanks in part to a generous donation from a Swiss family, the Dimensteins. (To make a donation, visit JewishThailand.com and click on “donate” or email Rabbi Segal at phuket@chabadthailand.com).

When the additional funds are raised, there are plans to install a sukkah and chuppah on the building’s rooftop for weddings and other special events, a venue that would offer spectacular views of the Andaman Sea and surrounding mountains. Rabbi Segal, who works 15-16 hours a day, seven days a week, needs help and plans are underway to add living quarters for rabbinical students from Israel to help carry some of the load.

Already, the new building has brought a 50 percent increase in visitors. During the winter high season, Rabbi Segal says about 500 people typically come for Friday Shabbat dinner. Two seatings are needed to accommodate everyone. About 700 worshippers attended Rosh Hashanah services last September.

What’s it like to be a rabbi in an island paradise? Rabbi Segal says the demands of the job give him virtually no time to enjoy the weather, scenery and attractions that bring so many tourists to Phuket.

“When you’re in Chabad, you’re on a mission,” he says. “You’re not here to enjoy the beaches because the job is inside the Chabad House. This place is open from the morning to the night and we’re here all day, so we don’t have the time to go out and enjoy it. The rabbis of Chabad don’t really get to enjoy the beauty of the places they stay.”

Day cruises on the Andaman Sea near Phuket offer spectacular scenery

When the rabbi does get out into the community, he has found the Thai people warm and welcoming of Jews, with no hints of anti-Semitism.

“We respect them. They respect us,” he says. “It’s something you don’t see in different places in the world. They are really nice people.”

Even though I’m not particularly religious, whenever I travel, I make an effort to connect with the Jewish community – no matter how large or small. It greatly lessens the culture-shock of visiting places so far from home. There is a sense of comfort derived from being with other Jews, even if our religious views might be widely divergent.

While I don’t keep Kosher or wear a kippah outside of synagogue, I’m always looking for ways to intertwine my sense of Jewish identity with my travels.

When I told Rabbi Segal that my visit to the Phuket Chabad Center happened to coincide with my deceased father’s 94th birthday, he was kind enough to recite the Kel Maleh Rachamim, a remembrance prayer for the soul of the departed. After reading the prayer in Hebrew, he took the time to explain the meaning behind it in terms I could understand.

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Chabad now has about 3,500 chapters in more than 85 countries. The Hasidic group, which I’ve grown to appreciate over the years for its hospitality and acceptance of non-religious Jewish travelers like myself, has a presence in four different Thai locations – Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Koh Samui and Phuket.

All offer an oasis of Jewish values and relative tranquility in a country with a reputation for being one of Asia’s most boisterous party spots.

There is an old Hasidic saying: “Every descent is for the sake of a future ascent.”

Such is the case with Chabad Phuket. It was born 14 years ago following a deadly tsunami. It has now ascended to heights even few shluchim would have imagined possible.

__________________________

Editor’s postscript: On one of my final Friday evenings in Phuket, I accepted Rabbi Segal’s invitation to attend Shabbat services. The synagogue was packed; men and women were segregated by a wall. It was a very different service than what I’ve experienced in the past.

Afterward, I sat down to Shabbat dinner with about 500 people (there had to be two seatings as the social hall only has space for 400). The food was traditional Jewish fare — salads, fish and chicken — and plentiful. In between courses, there was a lot of clapping, singing, dancing and praying. Some people even stood on their chairs.

Rabbi Segal couldn’t have been more gracious. He made sure I had an English prayer book during the service and sat me next to a fellow American at dinner so I’d have someone with whom to converse. I emailed him a thank you note a couple of days letter.

His reply summed up Chabad’s overriding mission: “Thank you very much for coming,” he wrote. “It is our pleasure to make another Jew happy.”

Jul 28 2017

Moscow’s preeminant Jewish cultural site

By Dan | Jewish Travel, Russia | No Comments

Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center chronicles Jews’ up-and-down Russian history

Jewish News of Greater Phoenix — July 28, 2017

MOSCOW, Russia — It’s been open less than five years but the venue already has been labeled by some as the most important Jewish cultural site in all of Europe.

Entrance to the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, which is housed in a former bus garage

After spending a July afternoon inside Moscow’s tastefully designed, informative and high-tech Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, the moniker seems well-deserved.

The museum, housed inside a former bus garage built in the 1920s in a northwest Moscow neighborhood, opened in 2012 at an estimated cost of $50 million. It’s a must-see for Jewish visitors to Russia’s capital city who want to learn about their ancestors’ complex, up-and-down history in a part of the diaspora that once was home to the largest Jewish population in the world.

My visit to the museum was a highlight of a two-week Volga river cruise on the Scenic Tsar that began in Moscow and ended in St. Petersburg. On my first free afternoon in Moscow, I toured the facility and met with Anna Sokolova, the head of the museum’s research center.

She told me that the museum was built with the strong support of the Russian government. Even President Vladimir Putin personally donated one month of his salary – about $10,000 – for construction. Since the opening, Putin has visited the museum several times.

“It showed that it’s really important to the Russian government to fight anti-Semitism and that the Jewish community is a very important part of the country,” says Sokolova, who speaks five languages, including Hebrew.

The museum attracts about 300,000 visitors a year

Last year, the museum attracted 300,000 visitors, up a whopping 50 percent from the prior year. Even more growth is anticipated in the coming year. With the approval of Russia’s Ministry of Education, the museum is launching a program in September in which all middle-school children in Moscow will be required to visit the venue as part of a school fieldtrip. It’s a huge leap from an era in which Jewish history and culture was rarely discussed in public schools.

“It was mainly forbidden during Soviet times, so it’s really important to speak about it now,” says Sokolova.

Using panoramic films, interactive screens and numerous artifacts, the museum chronicles Jewish history dating back to the rule of Catherine the Great in the 18th century. There are exhibitions devoted to the origins of Russian Jewry, the role Jews played in the 1917 revolution, the Holocaust, and a section called “Perestroika to the Present.”

I especially enjoyed strolling through a recreated shtetl from the 19th century, which included a small synagogue, Shabbat table, Jewish school and marketplace. It’s one of the museum’s most popular exhibits.

Exhibits are high-tech and interactive

“The shtetl became the heart of Judaism and it helped people to keep their traditions alive,” says Sokolova.

The shtetl even included an exhibit in which visitors could have their photos taken and then digitally integrated with the costume of a profession of their choice, such as a tailor, matchmaker, musician, teacher or blacksmith. I chose to digitally don the garb of a 19th century rabbi.

Indeed, the museum was designed to keep visitors as engaged as possible with most exhibits featuring some type of interactivity.

“The idea was to create something in the form of ‘edutainment’ – education and entertainment together,” says Sokolova. “The format is designed to be very interesting for every age.”

In a partnership with the Russian State Library, the museum also houses the “Schneerson Collection,” which includes significant and once inaccessible works of the Lubavitcher rebbes dating back to the late 18th century. The collection was nationalized by the Russian government during the Communist period; it was moved to the Jewish Museum in 2013.

In addition to its permanent collection, the museum houses about a half-dozen temporary exhibits a year, some of which are on non-Jewish topics. Exhibits are mostly in Russian, although some also contain English descriptions. The venue is open every day except Saturdays and Jewish holidays. For more information, visit the museum’s website: www.jewish-museum.ru/en.

Accounts vary about the current size of Russia’s Jewish population as many people with Jewish roots don’t practice their faith and have intermarried. But it’s estimated that about 200,000 Jews remain in the country, making it the third-largest Jewish community in Europe. Most Jews live in Moscow and its surrounding communities, where there are about 20 working synagogues.

The Grand Choral Synagogue in St. Petersburg, the second-largest synagogue in Europe

“We are seeing since the 1990s many people are coming back to Jewish traditions and to their roots, which were almost killed in the Soviet Union,” says Sokolova.

Two weeks later, at the end of the Volga River cruise on the Scenic Tsar, I had the chance to visit St. Petersburg’s stunning Grand Choral Synagogue. It’s the second-largest synagogue in Europe (Budapest is home to the largest).

Consecrated in 1893, the Moorish-styled building is a registered national landmark. It can accommodate up to 1,200 worshippers at one time; the complex also houses a kosher restaurant and supermarket.

My grandparents immigrated from Russia, so the Jewish sights in Moscow and St. Petersburg held special meaning. Despite the challenges my ancestors and other Jews faced in Russia, it was especially heartwarming to learn that Jewish life in the country has not only endured over the centuries, but now even seems to be enjoying a modest revival.

“We can see that the Jews managed to keep their traditions despite all the pogroms and despite state politics, which was quite often pretty anti-Semitic,” says Sokolova. “The situation in Russia has changed drastically. The Jewish community feels free now.”

Sep 01 2016

India’s Jews: Curry and Kreplach

By Dan | India, Jewish Travel | No Comments

Contributions of country’s Jewish community far outweigh its size

Arizona Jewish Life Magazine — September, 2016

MUMBAI, India — Numbering only about 5,000 in a country of more than 1.2 billion people, Jews constitute a minuscule fraction – 0.0004 percent — of the inhabitants in the world’s second-most populous country known far more for curry and cricket than kreplach and kippot.

The Gateway of India greets visitors to Mumbai

Yet the unique historical legacy and important contributions of India’s Jews have far surpassed their size ever since they first began arriving in this south Asian country more than 2,000 years ago.

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to visit five functioning synagogues in India and learn more about the Jewish presence in a country that historically has experienced little anti-Semitism and in which Jews continue to practice their faith; where raditional Judaic roots are entwined with colorful facets of Indian culture.

My trip to India was part of an 18-day Asian cruise on the 650-passenger Oceania Nautica that began in Hong Kong and included stops in Cochin and Mumbai, where the cruise concluded. In both Cochin and Mumbai, I took tours arranged through the ship that included visits to Jewish-related sites.

Perhaps the country’s most famous Jewish attraction is found in Cochin, a port city on the Arabian Sea located on India’s southwestern coast. Jewish traders from Judea first arrived in Cochin in 562 BCE, making it India’s oldest Jewish community.

Even though only a handful of Jews now live there, an older section of Cochin is still commonly referred to as “Jew Town.” Its centerpiece is the oldest functioning Jewish house of worship in the former British Commonwealth – the Paradesi Synagogue.

The historic Paradesi Synagogue in Cochin

Built in 1568 by Spanish and Dutch Sephardic Jews, Paradesi (which translates to “foreigners” in several Indian languages) remains an enduring symbol of what was once a thriving Jewish community that had seven working synagogues. For much of its early history, the synagogue served a community of foreign-born Jewish spice dealers. In 1968, the 400th anniversary of the synagogue was celebrated in a ceremony attended by Indira Gandhi, the Indian prime minister.

Since there aren’t enough male Jews living in Cochin to form a minyan, Paradesi only has services when enough foreigners join with locals to celebrate a Jewish holiday. In accordance with Hindu tradition, visitors are required to enter the synagogue barefoot. Other facets of Paradesi that are the result of Hindu influence include the wearing of brightly colored clothing and the distribution of grape-soaked myrtle leaves during various festivals. Unfortunately, our ship was in Cochin on a Saturday, when the interior of the synagogue was closed.

But we were able to admire the synagogue’s exterior in a courtyard at the end of Jew Street, which includes a 45-foot tall clock tower that was added to the complex in 1761 and was restored a decade ago with funding from the World Monuments Fund.

Busy street in the “Jew Town” section of Cochin

“Jew Town” remains a popular tourist attraction in Cochin and the busy street on which the synagogue is located is full of shops selling everything from Judaica to t-shirts to Indian spices.

Two days later, the Nautica docked in Mumbai, the 13th largest city in the world with a population of about 18 million. Known as Bombay until 1995, the city is home to most of the country’s Jews and has eight active synagogues.

I was fascinated to learn about a historic community of Indian Jews called Bene Israel (“Sons of Israel”), who arrived in India several hundred years ago and comprise a majority of Mumbai’s Jews to this day.

Some believe that the Bene Israel are one of the disputed lost tribes and migrated to India after centuries of travel through western Asia from Israel. The 12th-century Jewish philosopher Maimonides mentioned in a letter that there was a Jewish community living in India; historians think he may have been referring to the Bene Israel.

Mumbai’s oldest synagogue, Shaar Harahamim, built in 1796

Under British colonial rule, many Bene Israel rose to prominence in India. Later, they became leaders in the country’s new film industry.

At its peak in the late 1940s, the Jewish population of Bombay reached nearly 30,000. But it has since dwindled to about 4,000, as most Indian Jews have immigrated to Israel.

I was one of 16 passengers on the Nautica who signed up for a half-day tour in Mumbai called “Jewish Chronicles of India.” The excursion was led by Yael Jhirad, a Bene-Israel who has been conducting tours of Jewish sites in Mumbai for more than 20 years. Jhirad, whose husband, Ralphy Jhirad, is a prominent leader of the Indian-Jewish community, says Jewish tourists are often surprised to learn about the very existence of Jewish life in the country.

“Jewish visitors are most fascinated by the presence of Jews in India for the past two millennia,” she says, adding that what makes the community especially unique is “its survival in spite of being disconnected with the rest of the Jewish world for centuries.”

Jhirad took us to four synagogues in Mumbai, including the oldest – Shaar Harahamim (“The Gate of Mercy”), built in 1796 by a Bene Israel, Samuel Ezekiel Divekar. The street on which it is located is named Samuel Street in his honor. We later visited Magen David, a tall blue Orthodox synagogue that was built in 1864 by David Sassoon, an Iraqi Jew who became the leader of the Mumbai Jewish community.

Tour guide Yael Jhirad shows visitors the interior of Shaar Harahamim

Jhirad says Jews have encountered little anti-Semitism in India and get along well with the majority Hindu population as well as Mumbai’s large Moslem community. However, there was a terrorist attack in 2008 by a militant Islamic Pakistani group in which several Mumbai sites were targeted, including the Chabad House. The rabbi and his wife were among the more than 160 people killed in the attacks. Chabad reopened the facility in 2014. Despite the attacks, Jhirad says relations between Jews and Moslems in Mumbai remain on solid footing.

To arrange a tour with Jhirad of the Jewish-related sites in Mumbai and other attractions in the area, including the famous Gateway to India that was built to welcome King George and Queen Mary during their visit in 1911, send her an email at: yaeljhirad@hotmail.com.

India is not an easy place to visit, especially for inexperienced travelers. Mumbai is congested, loud and just crossing the street can be a dangerous challenge as cars and motorbikes rarely stop for pedestrians. What you’ve likely heard about the country’s wretched poverty is not an exaggeration and difficult to witness firsthand. The food, while tasty, is often substandard in terms of sanitary conditions. In short, for many Western visitors, the place epitomizes the term “culture shock.”

Perhaps that’s why seeing the Jewish sites in India was so comforting and enriching. In a sea of crowded chaos and confusion, walking through Cochin’s “Jew Town” and visiting Mumbai’s splendid surviving synagogues brought much-needed solace and a meaningful connection with a little-known, resilient and historically remarkable Jewish community on the other side of the world.

Jul 03 2016

All Shook Up in Mississippi

By Dan | Jewish Travel, Mississippi | No Comments

Tracing Elvis Presley’s little-known Jewish roots in Tupelo

Aish.com/Arizona Jewish Life Magazine — July 2018

TUPELO, Miss. — Inside a museum next to the modest two-room house where Elvis Presley was born in 1935, visitors will find all the things you’d expect to see in a shrine celebrating the early years of a boy who would grow up to become the King of Rock ‘N’ Roll.

The menorah on display at the Elvis Presley Birthplace Museum in Tupelo

There are guitars, childhood photographs, old record albums, performance costumes and other memorabilia from Elvis’ illustrious career.

But amidst all the artifacts inside the Elvis Presley Museum, there’s something else that one wouldn’t expect to find – a gold-colored chrome menorah with nine Hanukkah candles.

Could it be that perhaps the greatest American cultural icon of the 20th century was a member of the tribe?

Well, sort of.

Turns out, Elvis’ maternal great-great grandmother, Nancy Burdine, was believed to be Jewish. Her daughter gave birth to Doll Mansell, who gave birth to Elvis’ mother, Gladys Smith. That, according to a Jewish law called halakha, which confers Jewish lineage by way of the mother, makes Elvis technically a Jew.

While Presley was aware – and even proud — of his Jewish pedigree, there is no evidence he ever practiced the faith.

I recently went to Tupelo, Miss., to learn more about Elvis’ upbringing and his Jewish roots. In the process, I gained a new appreciation for Judaism in the Bible Belt and the resoluteness of a small – but close-knit — Jewish congregation in the hills of northeast Mississippi that has survived for more than 70 years.

The modest two-room house where Elvis was born

As for the menorah, it was originally owned by the family of George Copen, who moved to Tupelo from New York in 1953. I met Copen, now 75, at Friday night Shabbat services at Temple B’Nai Israel, a small Reform synagogue located in a quiet residential neighborhood about a 10-minute drive from Elvis’ birthplace.

Copen told me that his childhood best friend in Tupelo was a boy who lived across the street named Jim Hill. Jim’s mother, Janelle McComb, was a close family friend of the Presleys. She first met Elvis when he was just a two-year-old, beginning a friendship that would last until Presley died in 1977 at his Graceland mansion in Memphis.

According to Copen, Janelle once asked to borrow his family’s menorah and show it to some friends. Apparently, Elvis was one of those friends. At any rate, the menorah was never returned to the Copen family. George speculates that Janelle gave the menorah to Elvis; he later became aware of a photo of Elvis with the menorah. Perhaps The King viewed it as a “good luck charm,” the name of one of his biggest hits.

“I was pretty upset with Janelle when I realized she might have given it to Elvis,” says Copen. “Even after the funeral (McComb died in 2005) I looked throughout her house, but no menorah. Gone.”

A statue of Elvis in downtown Tupelo

But later, George heard that the family menorah had been found and was on display at the Elvis Presley Birthplace Museum. Indeed, much of the museum’s collection consists of gifts and mementos that Elvis had given Janelle over the years, which she donated to the museum.

So that’s where the Copen family menorah sits today, on display for the museum’s 50,000-100,000 annual visitors to view.

Copen says he’s honored that so many people have the chance to see a family heirloom, which he believes sends an important message of tolerance that Elvis embraced.

“Janelle wanted to show that Elvis liked all faiths,” says Copen. “I would rather people see the menorah there at the museum than at my house. Maybe this will help everybody appreciate each other and say, ‘I’m not just a Christian, or Jewish, or a Buddhist. We are all one people.’”

Elvis was 13 when he and his parents left Tupelo for Memphis. There, the Presleys lived downstairs from the family of Rabbi Alfred Fruchter of Beth El Emeth Congregation. The rabbi’s son, Harold, now 65 and living in Maryland, told me the two families became good friends; Harold’s mother would often have coffee with Elvis’ mother Gladys.

Elvis (far right) with two of the Fruchter children in Memphis in the early 1950s (photo courtesy of Harold Fruchter)

In 1954, Elvis recorded his first hit record, “That’s All Right,” at Memphis’ Sun Record Company. But the Presleys didn’t own a record-player. Harold says Elvis borrowed the Fruchter’s record-player so he could play the song for his parents.

At one point, Elvis worked off-and-on for Rabbi Fruchter as a “Shabbos Goy,” meaning he would perform certain types of work that religious law prohibits Jews from doing on the Sabbath, like turning lights on and off.

“My parents never had even an inkling that Elvis may have been Jewish,” says Harold. “If they would, they would never have considered asking him to be a ‘Shabbos goy.’”

When Elvis’ mother Gladys died in 1958, he made sure to put a Star of David on her headstone at a Memphis cemetery, in honor of his Jewish heritage. After Elvis died, Gladys was reinterred at Graceland. Her new gravestone, lacking Elvis’ attention, didn’t get a star.

Tupelo’s Temple B’Nai Israel

Toward the end of his career, there are photos of Elvis wearing a chai pendant during concert performances. In fact, he was reportedly wearing both a chai and a cross the night he died. In Memphis, he belonged to the Jewish Community Center and gave money to several Jewish organizations, including $150,000 to the Memphis Hebrew Academy.

“He was very close to the Jewish people, especially in Memphis,” says Copen. “He always treated them very nicely and they treated him very nicely.”

It’s believed that “Colonel” Tom Parker, Elvis’ Dutch-born manager, didn’t want his client’s Jewish roots to become public knowledge, thinking it might be seen as a negative by some of the hordes of Elvis fans in the Bible Belt back in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

Following Shabbat services at Tupelo’s B’Nai Israel, I sat down with Marc Perler, 73, the synagogue’s lay leader (the temple doesn’t have a full-time rabbi), to learn more about Jewish life in the Deep South. B’Nai Israel has a membership of only about 20 families, a number that has steadily declined over the years.

“We’re ageing out,” says Perler. “We don’t have that many young people. It’s the same in small towns everywhere.”

Still, Perler says the town of 38,000 people has been hospitable to its Jewish residents. When the congregation’s first permanent structure was built in 1957, Perler says a number of Tupelo’s non-Jews donated money because they “thought it was important that Tupelo had a broad cross-section of people living here.”

Marc Perler leads Shabbat services at Tupelo’s Temple B’Nai Israel

And when a tornado destroyed a nearby Methodist church in 2014, Perler says B’Nai Israel – without hesitation — loaned out their facility so that their Christian neighbors would have a place to hold Sunday school.

“It was the right thing to do,” he says. “I’d like to think they would do the same for us.” He adds that despite the congregation’s attrition, “we’ve had no trouble being Jewish in small-town Mississippi.”

As for Tupelo’s favorite son, Perler recounts the story when he once met Elvis in Nashville at a recording studio in the early 1960s. He says he was surprised when he later learned of Presley’s Jewish background.

“I thought it was cool,” he says. “It was like, ‘welcome to the club.’”

May 11 2016

Myanmar’s Miraculous Musmeah Yeshua

By Dan | Jewish Travel, Myanmar | No Comments

The historic and beautifully maintained synagogue in Yangon survives thanks to one family

Jewish News of Greater Phoenix — May 13, 2016

YANGON, Myanmar — At first glance, there is nothing extraordinary about the two-story synagogue nestled between paint and fabric shops on 26th Street in bustling downtown Yangon. It’s certainly not the oldest, largest or most architecturally ornate synagogue you’ll see overseas.

Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue, Myanmar’s only Jewish house of worship

Yet in its own way, Musmeah Yeshua is one of the most remarkable Jewish houses of worship in the world. The fact that is still survives – and functions – is a testament to a determined Jewish-Burmese family that has almost single-handedly sustained Judaism in a country in which a once-thriving Jewish population has dwindled to only about 20 people.

During a recent trip to Myanmar, a country in Southeast Asia formerly known as Burma, I visited Musmeah Yeshua and met with Sammy Samuels, the leader and voice of the country’s tiny Jewish community. My three-day trip to Yangon was the highlight of an 18-day Asian cruise on the luxurious Oceania Nautica that began in Hong Kong, with stops in Myanmar, Vietnam, Singapore and Thailand, before ending in Mumbai, India.

The Samuels family has been the caretakers of the synagogue for generations. Even though there aren’t enough Jews living in the country to sustain a synagogue, the family felt it was important to preserve the spirit of the Jewish community and give foreigners a place to pray.

“It started with my great-grandfather,” says Samuels. “He had a strong attachment to the synagogue. He also was the head of the community at that time, so if he had left, the synagogue would have been closed. Before he passed away, he made my father promise to keep the synagogue alive. I made a similar promise to my father as well.”

It was a promise Sammy willingly kept when his father, Moses, died last year. Sammy, 35, was honored to continue his father’s duties as overseer of the synagogue, which was built in 1896 for the increasing population of Iraqi and Indian Jews who immigrated to Yangon (then known as Rangoon) when it was a British colony.

Built in the Sephardic tradition with the bimah located in the center of the sanctuary and a women’s balcony upstairs, the interior has been beautifully maintained.

Sammy Samuels, the leader of Myanmar’s tiny Jewish community

In the early 20th century, the Jewish community peaked at about 2,500 people. Many Jews left the country during the Japanese occupation of Burma during World War II, and more followed after the Burmese army assumed power in 1962. But the military government is now loosening its grip on power and democracy is coming to Myanmar.

“Last November, I voted for the very first time in my life,” says Samuels. “It was very emotional.”

But Samuels warns that change will come slowly in a country in which the military has controlled virtually all walks of life for more than a half-century.

“A lot of people have high hopes,” he says. “They hope the country will change tomorrow. And I’ve been telling them it will take time.”

Samuels, who has a degree in international business from Yeshiva University in New York, owns a travel agency called Myanmar Shalom Travels that has 32 employees, with offices in New York and Yangon. His company offers tours to Myanmar for both Jewish and non-Jewish tourists.

The beautifully maintained interior of Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue

The synagogue is financially sustained from proceeds generated by the travel agency as well as donations from visitors. Samuels says 40-50 tourists visit the synagogue each day, which is open 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. daily except Sundays. Most of the visitors are non-Jewish.

“My father believed that if anyone was interested, they could come,” he says. “We don’t ask whether you are Jewish, Muslim or Christian. He welcomed everyone and treated them the same way.”

The synagogue doesn’t have a rabbi and it’s been more than 50 years since regular services were held. Lay-led Shabbat services take place a couple of times a month during December and January, the high season for tourism in Myanmar. A rabbi – usually from the United States — is brought in to conduct services during the High Holidays. But if Samuels knows a group of Jewish visitors will be in town during the Sabbath, he makes sure they are aware they have a place to pray and enjoy the fellowship of other Jews.

“I see so many American visitors who come here to Yangon, and the highlight for them is lighting the Shabbat candles and drinking the Kiddush wine together with the community,” he says. “They never thought they would do something like that in a country like Burma.”

Yangon’s famed Shwedagon Pagoda

Musmeah Yeshua is located just down the street from a mosque and many of the businesses on the block are owned by Moslems. Samuels says the two groups have peacefully coexisted for decades.

“They are very nice people,” he says of his Moslem neighbors. “The relationship has been wonderful. We respect them and they respect us and we hope to continue that way.”

Yangon, a city of more than five-million people, is full of wondrous Buddhist temples – including the famed 2,500-year-old Shwedagon Pagoda — and stately British colonial buildings.

During my cruise on the Nautica, I also visited synagogues in Singapore and India. But the one in Yangon made the most lasting impression. Other tourists apparently agree that Musmeah Yeshua is worth visiting. In 2013, the synagogue was voted the third-highest ranking attraction out of 41 sites in Yangon, according to TripAdvisor.

Samuels summed up Musmeah Yeshua’s importance to both foreigners as well as the local Jewish community: “Who would think that in a country like Myanmar where there are so many Buddhist temples that a synagogue would exist? So it’s a very unique place.

“We have all these visitors coming in and we have a connection. Because of this, we have never felt alone. It’s a feeling that we love.”

May 03 2016

Preserving Jewish Life in Taiwan

By Dan | Jewish Travel, Taiwan | No Comments

Taipei’s Jewish Center meets the needs of locals and foreigners alike

Jewish News of Greater Phoenix — May 5, 2017

TAIPEI, Taiwan — When you’re the only full-time rabbi in a relatively small and isolated Jewish community – like that found on the Asian island of Taiwan — you’re expected to do much more than lead religious services.

Rabbi Shlomi Tabib in the sanctuary of the Taipei Jewish Center

Among the many duties performed by Rabbi Shlomi Tabib, director of the Taipei Jewish Center, are hand-delivering Kosher food to visiting Israeli Knesset members, leading a weekly discussion group on Jewish-related topics, and working with the Taiwan Minister of Education to develop Holocaust education in the local schools.

And, while it’s not his favorite part of the job, the rabbi will occasionally even slaughter a chicken in accordance with strict kashrut law.

Such is the busy life of the Chabad rabbi, who moved to Taiwan in 2011 from Israel with his wife Racheli to open the Taipei Jewish Center, the only synagogue on this island of about 24 million people that is just over 100 miles east of mainland China. At 13,855 square miles, Taiwan is slightly bigger than the state of Maryland.

Tabib estimates the Jewish population in Taiwan to be about 1,000, 85 percent of whom live in Taipei, the capital and largest city. Taipei, which features the eighth-tallest building in the world, Taipei 101 (so-named because it has 101 stories), is a densely populated metropolitan area with about 7 million residents.

Unlike China, where the Jewish community can trace its roots back to the 10th century, significant numbers of Jews didn’t arrive in Taiwan until the 1950s. Many of the first wave of newcomers were American soldiers.

The Taipei Jewish Center is located in the Daan District in downtown Taipei

In subsequent decades, American troops left Taiwan but Jews in other fields arrived. Some work in the country’s thriving high-tech industry, while others are employed as diplomats, in the diamond business, banking and education. Additionally, there are numerous Jewish tourists who visit the island.

Regardless of their age, occupation or level of religious observance, Jews wanting a chance to connect with other Jews and celebrate Shabbat and other holidays are always welcome to visit the Taipei Jewish Center. Tabib says Friday night services and dinner typically attract 30-40 people, most of them visiting tourists and business people. However, getting a minyan for Saturday services can often be a challenge.

“There are not many observant people residing here,” lamented the rabbi, who added that “a large percentage” of Jews living in Taiwan have intermarried.

Nevertheless, the Jewish Center is busy catering to the needs of both locals and visitors alike. It houses the sole Kosher kitchen on the island, importing most of its food from Israel and the United States. Aside from serving food at the facility, an average of 10-15 meals per week are delivered to hotels, businesses and convention centers.

View of Taiwan’s capital city from the 89th floor of Taipei 101

The Jewish Center also offers a Sunday Hebrew school, coordinated by Racheli, with assistance from two volunteers from Israel. About 25 children are currently enrolled, aged 3-10.

Tabib said being an isolated community with a small staff has both its pros and cons.

“It’s kind of challenging being far away from everything — any other synagogue or any other rabbi,” he said. “It gives a lot of responsibility on our shoulders being here, and with that, we also have a lot of satisfaction when things go well.”

The 33-year-old Tabib, who spent three years in Hong Kong as a rabbi, said the Taiwanese people have – for the most part – been quite welcoming.

“Overall, their approach is very positive,” he said. “The Taiwanese people are known to be very generous to foreigners. It is embedded in their culture that the Jewish people are smart and successful and I think most of them look to us in a positive way. That said, many people here don’t know much about Judaism.”

Unfortunately, there was an incident in December involving a high school parade in which students dressed as Nazi soldiers and carried swastika banners. As a result, the principal of the school resigned. A few years earlier, a restaurant with a concentration camp theme opened but soon closed due to controversy.

The rabbi attributed the incidents more to ignorance than blatant anti-Semitism.

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“People don’t really know about the Nazis,” he said. “I’m not saying this is an excuse, but these people have no intention to go against the Jewish people or the state of Israel.”

Still, the rabbi is working with the Taiwanese government to enhance Holocaust education in the schools.

“We are working on a plan where people will have more education to learn what happened during World War II,” he said. “Once they are given the facts, they will back off and say ‘this isn’t something we stand for. This isn’t something we want to endorse.’”

The Jewish Center is located in a building on a side street in a commercial district of Taipei called Daan, not far from the city center. Tabib said visitors are welcome to contact him for information about services, other events and obtaining Kosher food: rabbi@jewish.tw.

Ultimately, he would like to see a permanent synagogue erected, the first in Taiwanese history.

“The problem is we want to buy land, but land here is really expensive,” he said. “You wait for a big donor. You wait for a lot of things for something like this to be possible.”

In the meantime, Rabbi Tabib goes about his daily business – doing whatever needs to be done to preserve Jewish life in Taiwan – even if that means slaughtering a chicken every now and then.

“There are many challenges for us, so we need to do a lot of things on our own,” he said. “I think telling our story and showing that we have a thriving community here demonstrates that there is a future for the Jews in Taiwan. If there is anybody who is thinking of moving here because of business reasons, they should know that they will be in safe hands.”

Jan 06 2016

Boise’s Surprising — and Splendid — Historic Synagogue

By Dan | Idaho, Jewish Travel | No Comments

Idaho’s capital home to the oldest temple west of the Mississippi

Jewish News Service/Jewish Week of New York — December 2017

BOISE, Idaho — Sometimes you’ll find the most splendid synagogues in the places you least expect.

Boise’s Ahavath Beth Israel, the oldest continuously in-use synagogue west of the Mississippi

Such was the case during my recent three-day trip to Boise, Idaho, a popular gateway for skiing, river rafting and hiking that isn’t exactly known for being a hotbed of Jewish life.

Yet, there at 11 N. Latah St., just a five-minute drive from downtown, sits the oldest continuously in-use synagogue west of the Mississippi River.

And it’s far more than just a beautiful wood building. As I learned, Congregation Ahavath Beth Israel is the centerpiece of a surprisingly robust Jewish community with a fascinating history.

I was able to meet Nina Spiro, the synagogue’s director, who was kind enough to show me around the building on the busy day before Yom Kippur eve.

“People love this building,” she said. “We can’t believe how blessed we are. It’s cozy, it’s homey and the acoustics are great.”

Boise, a city of about 200,000 residents at the base of the Rocky-Mountain foothills in southwestern Idaho, is the state’s capital and largest city. Rooted in the potato industry, the area has recently emerged as a budding high-tech center and growing destination for tourists. The locals pronounce it Boy-see, not Boy-zee.

Nina Spiro, the synagogue’s director

Before my visit, I had read about Ahavath Beth Israel and knew a little about its history. It was built in 1895, when there were only about 25 Jewish families in Boise. Many had emigrated to the U.S. from Germany and worked as merchants, farmers and ranchers.

One of the original members of Beth Israel – as it was known at the time — was Moses Alexander, who became the mayor of Boise and later was the first elected practicing Jewish governor in the entire country. He served two terms, from 1915-1919. There is a display at a museum inside the Idaho State Capitol in downtown Boise trumpeting that historical distinction. To this day, Alexander remains the only Jewish governor in Idaho history.

Today, more than 120 years later, Moses’ grandson, Nathan Alexander, is still a member of the congregation.

For several decades, Boise actually had two synagogues. After World War II, with the arrival of more Jewish families in the area, Congregation Ahavath Israel was built. The two congregations merged in 1987 to become the present-day Congregation Ahavath Beth Israel. Both buildings continued to be used; one as an education center, the other for religious services.

Ahavath Beth Israel stained-glass windows

An original stained-glass window inside Ahavath Beth Israel

But by the end of the 20th century, the congregation had grown to more than 200 families and needed to expand. Because of the lack of land available where the existing buildings were located, the congregation decided that the original synagogue would need to be moved to a different site.

So, in the middle of a cold October night in 2003, members of the congregation were joined by some 500 people from the Boise community to walk alongside the synagogue while it was slowly moved by truck about three miles to its new location on Latah Street.

Today, the synagogue sits on a beautifully landscaped campus that also includes a 100-student religious school that meets weekly, a social hall, library and administrative offices for the synagogue’s full-time rabbi and other staff.

The interior of the synagogue still features the original wood columns and stained-glass windows. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Because the community is so diverse in its religious orientation and the ages of its members – from retirees to young families — Spiro describes Ahavath Beth Israel as “reconservadox.” While it tries to meet the needs of both religious and not-so-religious members, the congregation is affiliated with the Union for Reform Judaism and emphasizes music in its services and events.

In fact, the synagogue has its own klezmer band called “The Moody Jews,” a popular group that performs monthly at a temple event called “Shabbat Unplugged” and at community interfaith events.

Unfortunately, Idaho has a reputation for being a haven of extremist hate groups. Indeed, about 10 years ago, the Aryan Nation leafletted some Boise neighborhoods with anti-Semitic and racist literature. Spiro’s home was among those that received the offensive literature.

The Anne Frank Memorial near downtown Boise

“It was pretty shocking,” she recalls. “Since then, a lot of work has been done.”

To demonstrate its tolerance, Boiseans have erected the Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial, which occupies a prominent place adjacent to the 25-mile Boise River Greenbelt, a tree-lined paved pathway that follows the Boise River through the heart of the city.

The memorial first came to Boise in 1995 as a traveling exhibit but the response was so overwhelming by Idahoans, community leaders decided to build a more permanent tribute. In 2002, the Anne Frank Memorial opened to the public. Featuring a life-sized bronze statue of Anne Frank, it’s an inspirational and contemplative site in a beautiful setting.

Despite the small pockets of anti-Semitism in Idaho, Spiro describes Boiseans as “welcoming” and interested in learning more about their Jewish neighbors.

“We’re constantly hosting tour groups and church groups,” she said. “They want to visit the synagogue. They want to know about Jewish history. They want to learn about Judaism.”

Spiro says visitors to Boise are welcome to attend Shabbat services, which are held Friday evenings and Saturday mornings, and other temple events as well. For information, visit the congregation’s website: cabi-boise.org.

Even if you’re not able to attend services, just driving by and marveling at this magnificent, historic structure would undoubtedly mark a highlight of any Jewish traveler’s visit to Boise.