Behind the Headlines the Jews of the Pacific

Jews in the diaspora have always been a minority but never probably in all their history has this been more striking than this week in Hong Kong at the second conference of the Asia Pacific Jewish Association (APJA).

The 30 delegates at the Asian-Jewish Colloquium, jointly sponsored by the World Jewish Congress and the APJA, are representing approximately 100,000 Jews scattered in an area of teeming billions. Without Australia and New Zealand, where the Jews enjoy a special status, a legacy from the days of British rule, there are less than 7,000 Jews in the world’s most populous continent and separated in distances of thousands of miles.

Fiji, an island republic in the Pacific Ocean, is home to 15 Jews who are four hours flight away from the nearest other Jewish communities in New Caladonia with 80 Jews, Taiwan with 40 Jewish families, and Thailand with 85 Jews.

Practically all have sent one or two delegates to Hong Kong to try to establish a system of closer collaboration between communities which appear like specks of sand dotting Asia and Pacific areas. For three days the delegates have tried to work out a system of sharing a shuttling shohet, an itinerant mohel, a rabbi or even an occasional minyan.

Some of the people who were gathered in this city of five million inhabitants in which less than 1,000 Jews live are nearly as colorful as the communities they represent.

THE WOMAN FROM THAILAND

Sally Eubani, 38, comes from Bangkok, Thailand, where 85 Jewish families live, less than 240 people. Born in Beirut, Lebanon, she left for Thailand with her husband 22 years ago.

A small, elegant woman who still speaks English and French with her original Lebanese accent, she is a full-time community volunteer worker. She helps run the local community center, Beth Elisheva, where kosher meals are served Friday nights and Saturday, organizes Talmud Torah courses for the community’s 25 children and arranges for the regular social events.

In spite of the community’s small size there are two synagogues. A small Orthodox one in the city’s business center is mainly attended by the dozen members of Afghan and Iraqi origin. This community, whose members are generally diamond and precious stones merchants, opened their own synagogue a dozen years ago.

The main synagogue, more liberal, is in the city’s European residential area. It is housed in the community center built with the donation of a Thailandese woman, born in Bangkok of Dutch parents, Elisabeth Zerner, who died in 1970 and left all her fortune to the community.

Five families, including that of Eubani, are Thailandese citizens; the rest come from the United States, Britain, Germany, Israel and the Soviet Union.

“We never had a local wedding but we regularly have Bar Mitzvah ceremonies, three last year alone. For a Brith Mila we bring over a mohel from either Australia or Israel and, believe me, it is quite a celebration,” Eubani told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The local community has a volunteer shohet for poultry and imports frozen kosher meat from either Israel or the States.

“We lead a full Jewish life in spite of our reduced numbers and the distance from the nearest other Jewish community,” Eubani said. “Last year we had close to 180 people for the traditional seder and this year we expect even more, as tourists are traditionally highly welcome.”

FROM BOSTON TO TAIPEI

Edward Tucker comes from Taipei, Taiwan. He is the president, secretary general and volunteer worker of the community of 40 families, including 24 children. Tucker, who originally came from Boston, Mass., has lived in Taiwan for seven years. He is married to a Chinese woman who has remained a Buddhist but who is highly active in Jewish communal affairs.

“My wife has just not felt like changing her religion, but otherwise she feels and acts as Jewish as anyone else I know,” he said.

A businessman who works for a large American chemical firm, Tucker, who was also active in Jewish affairs in the U.S., spends several hours a day helping run the community. “We have a synagogue with a minyan at least once a week if not more. We have a sort of Sunday school run by an Israeli student and we have a communal seder every year.”

The community had three Bar Mitzvahs last year and a brith a year ago. The parents, who came from Latin America, flew over a mohel from Brazil. Tucker also wants closer cooperation with other Jewish communities lost in the huge Pacific expanse.

THE SINGAPORE JEWISH COMMUNITY

Rabbi Isaac Ben Zakin comes from Singapore, a relatively large and well organized community of 600 people, including 300 Israelis. Ben Zakin, 36, was born in Melilla, Spanish Morocco, and educated in Britain. He came to Singapore in 1975 and serves as hazan, shohet, rabbi and teacher.

There are two synagogues, a regular Talmud Torah, a communal center and even a small–seven people–old age home. The Singapore community, contrary to most other small Asian communities, consists of a large proportion of Singaporan-born Jews and not of a transient community.

“We have our poor, 32 people currently receive financial help and free medical treatment, and our young serve in the Singaporan army for three years compulsory service, like other Singaporans,” Ben Zakin said.

The community also has a certain amount of financial security thanks to the Singapore Jewish Charities Trust and the Meyer Trusts set up before the war when the community was 6,000 strong.

ONE OF THE LONESOMEST DELEGATES

One of the strangest and lonesomest delegates is Anne Ranasinghe who comes from Sri Lanka (Ceylon) where, as far as she knows, only three Jews still live. German-born, Ranasinghe married during World War II in London a Ceylonese Buddhist doctor. In spite of her late husband’s pleas, she adamantly refused to change her religion and brought up her two daughters, one of whom is married to an American diplomat, as Jews.

It was when she returned to Germany in 1983, for the first time after 44 years, that she was suddenly faced with the reality of her past–the Holocaust and Judaism. Today she writes poetry, books, documentaries, many on Jewish subjects. She came to the Hong Kong meetings in spite of the particularly small size of her community. “Actually, I might be wrong,” Ranasinghe said. “There is a fourth Jew in Sri Lanka–at least a former German Jew now a Buddhist monk but who, as far as we can tell, still feels Jewish at heart.”

The most unusual participant at the colloquium is, however, undoubtedly Prof. Sidney Shapiro, known in his adopted country, the People’s Republic of China, as Sha Boli. The 72-year-old New York-born Jew who attends the meetings with the authorization of the Chinese Academy arrived somewhat stiff in his blue cotton jacket.

It took him less than a couple of days to feel and act like a “real Jew.” He took to the meeting like a fish to water and his first outing in Hong Kong was to a local American deli “for a real thick pastrami sandwich like they make at home.”