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Jewish Cemetery, Yangon (Rangoon), Myanmar (Burma)

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BACKGROUND

According to Ruth Fredman, author of Almost Englishmen: Baghdadi Jews in British Burma, the first Jew to settle in Burma was likely not part of the Baghdadi Jewish diaspora. Instead, she believes that it was a Bene Israeli Jew, indigenous to India, named Solomon Gabriol who served in the army of Burmese King Alaungpaya (1752-1760). In the early 1800s, two European Jews, Solomon Reinman (who traveled through Kolkata’s Jewish community) from Galicia and Mr. Goldberg from Romania, arrived in Burma as purveyors of key goods such as teak and bamboo to the British Army. After living in Rangoon in the 1840s, Reinman settled in Cochin, India, where an indigenous Jewish community had lived for centuries.[1]

Baghdadi Jewish traders from Kolkata would cross the Sea of Bengal and arrive in Burma’s Rangoon in the early 19th century when Rangoon became a pivotal port in the international opium trade that went through much of Southeast Asia. Baghdadi Jewish families from Baghdad, Basra, Syria, Egypt and other locales began to follow the traders and lay roots in Burma, establishing vibrant homes and Jewish institutions that included synagogues and mikvehs (ritual baths). Their massive network as Baghdadi Jewish traders afforded them an advantaged status in the eyes of the British as people who could tap into many different avenues of trade. Baghdadi Jews became integrated into Burmese society, working in shops and even as government officials and police officers; however, they did not, for the most part, consider themselves Burmese. They were Baghdadi-Jewish and, if anything else, British. In her book, Fredman quotes famous twentieth century Burmese-Baghdadi Jewish trader Ellis Sofaer, who wrote that it was “quite common in the early part of the nineteenth century for Jewish families in the Near East to be sprawled over the different Turkish dependencies like an outstretched net, and yet to remain cohesive.” The sites of Baghdadi Jews’ dispersion, wrote Sofaer, was most often strategic, not do with “sentiment.”[2] This goes to show the extent to which Baghdadi Jews in the diaspora identified with Baghdadi Jewry more so than the local communities of their host countries.

The first Baghdadi Jewish traveler to settle in Burma was likely Azariah Samuel, who traversed from the city of Bunshire on the Persian Gulf with his shochet (ritual slaughterer) to the port city of Akyab (now Sittwe) in 1841. Within a couple of decades Samuel became a prosperous purveyor of wine and general goods. He started a family and had five children. The Samuels were the only Jewish family in Akyab, so they in some sense felt less a part of Akyab than they did a part of the Kolkata Jewish, with whom they would often spend the holidays with. In 1931, the descendants of Azariah Samuel moved to Kolkata, and then to London and Sydney.[3]

While the Samuels set up shop in Akyab, other Baghdadi Jews settled elsewhere in Burma. In the early 19th century, brothers Judah and Abraham Raphael Ezekiel settled in Upper Burma’s Yadanabon (present day Mandalay). Later, David Hai Aaron also settled in Yadanabon, the royal city often dubbed the “City of Gems.” Mordecai Saul, the grandfather of Saul Ezra Saul, would come to make a fortune selling expensive perfumes in Mandalay. In 1878, a cruel King by the name of Thibaw took power, forcing the Ezekiel brothers to leave Upper Burma. After a falling out between Judah and Ezekiel, Judah settled in Rangoon and Abraham in Bassein. Some Jews, such as Mr. Jacob and Abraham ben Aharon Cohen, settled in the port city of Moulmein.[4]

Most Baghdadi Jews, however, settled in the city of Rangoon, a port city on the Rangoon River, a tributary of the larger Irrawaddy River. Rangoon was an ideal location for merchants and for Jews and other religious minorities looking to practice their religion freely (the British allowed freedom of religion in their colonies). In the late 1800s, some Ashkenazim from Europe such as Jacob Cohen joined the Baghdadi Jews in Rangoon. In 1872, there were 83 Jews in Rangoon out of a total population of 98,138; in 1881, 172 out of 134,176; 1891, 219 out of 180,324; and by 1901, 508 out of 248,060.[5] The following are a few of the most prominent Jewish merchants and businesses in Rangoon: Isaac A. Sofaer, Solomon & Co., David & Ezra Brothers, and Messrs A.V. Joseph & Co.[6]

With the advent of World War II and the invasion of Burma by the Japanese, the majority of Burmese Jews fled, with only about 200 returning after the war. Today, only about 20 Burmese Jews remain together with just over 100 Jewish expatriates. They are led by Sammy Samuels, the grandson Isaac Samuels, one of the first Jewish settlers of Burma.[7]

SITE

Little is known about the Jewish cemetery of Rangoon, but the quotations at the top of the page provide some insight into the story that the cemetery tells as well as both its decay and perseverance. According to the International Jewish Cemetery Project[10]  as well as a 2002 New York Times article by Seth Mydans, of the 600 tombs in the cemetery, the oldest is dated 1876 and the most recent 1985. Mydans describes the cemetery as follows, “The moss-covered tombstones in the Jewish cemetery here present a collective epitaph for a once-thriving population that has shrunk to just eight families and is now on the edge of extinction.

The oldest tomb is dated 1876, a time when Jewish merchants and traders in teak, cotton and rice were pouring into what was then Burma from Iraq, Iran, Europe and India.

The last is dated 1985, when most of a population that once numbered more than 2,500 had already departed, many fleeing the Japanese during World War II and others leaving when their businesses were nationalized in the 1960's.”[11] 

Mydans writes that the cemetery is at city-center, but “seems to be lost in a jungle.” During monsoon season, the older moss-covered tombstones are covered with vines and outgrowths.

In 1997, the government ordered that the Yangon Jewish cemetery be removed and moved elsewhere, which would further erase the vestiges of Yangon’s Jewish past. Luckily, the order never went into effect, and the Yangon cemetery is still standing, if “hidden on a hill” and overrun by stray dogs.[12] 

Yangon (Rangoon), Myanmar

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