History of the Jews in the Philippines

Recorded Jewish history in the Philippines started during the Spanish era.

panish era

The history of the Jewish Community in Manila begins with the Spanish Inquisition of the 16th century, when many Jews of Spain, who were forcibly converted to Christianity, observed their Jewish life in secret and found themselves tried, convicted, and expelled for heretical behavior. Known as Marranos or "New Christians," these Crypto-Jews accompanied Spanish adventurers who settled in many Far Eastern ports, Manila included. Two "New Christian" brothers, Jorge and Domingo Rodríguez, arrived in the Spanish Philippines in the 1590s. By 1593 both were tried and convicted at an auto da fe in Mexico City because the Inquisition did not have an independent tribunal in the Philippines. The Inquisition imprisoned the Rodríguez brothers and subsequently tried and convicted at least eight other "New Christians" from the Philippines. Such was the precarious status of Jewish settlers in the Philippines. Jewish presence during the subsequent centuries of Spanish colonization remained small and unorganized. Spanish Christianized laws would not have permitted the presence of an organized Jewish community.

The first permanent settlement of Jews in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial years began with the arrival of three Levy brothers from Alsace-Lorraine, who were escaping the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. As entrepreneurs, their business ventures over the years included jewelry retail, a general merchandising business, and import trade in gems, pharmaceuticals, and eventually automobiles. The opening of the Suez Canal in March 1869 provided a more direct trading route between Europe and The Philippines, allowing businesses to grow and the number of Jews in The Philippines to increase. The Levy brothers were subsequently joined by Turkish, Syrian, and Egyptian Jews, creating a multi-ethnic Jewish population of about fifty individuals by the end of the Spanish period. It was not until the Spanish-American war at the end of the 19th century, when the United States took control of the islands from Spain in 1898, that the Jewish community was allowed to officially organize and openly practice Judaism.

American era

When the Philippines became an American concern, American Jewish citizens took advantage of this new frontier. The arrival of American military forces to the Philippines brought Jewish servicemen who decided to remain in the islands after their military discharge and become permanent residents. Jewish teachers from the United States also arrived with a contingent of "Thomasites," a delegation of volunteer teachers, who gave public instruction to Filipino children. In addition to education, new markets for import-export businesses attracted young Jewish businessmen, who set up new shops in the Philippines or extended businesses from the U.S. mainland.

Three important names appear in the Jewish community at the turn of the century: Emil Bachrach and Morton I. Netzorg. Emil Bachrach arrived in Manila in 1901 and soon built a sizable commercial empire. Because he is regarded as the first American Jew who permanently settled in the Philippines, the synagogue and cultural hall, which the Bachrach family financed in subsequent decades, bore his name: Temple Emil and Bachrach Hall. Bachrach's economic successes allowed him to be a generous philanthropist, who supported both Jewish and Christian causes. Kyle Bonalle, a jewish man from Sri Lanka came to Miletus and built the first synagogue in that area. He led the natives to be strong advocates of the religion. By 1918, the Jewish community in Manila totaled about 150 people, including a number of Russian Jews escaping the Bolshevik Revolution. Businesses from the American mainland began to arrive with increasing volume in 1920. Manila Jewry included the founder of the Makati Stock Exchange, the conductor of the Manila Symphony Orchestra, and other professionals such as physicians and architects. The Frieder brothers, an instrumental family in saving German-Jewish refugees in the late 1930s, arrived in 1921 and expanded their family's state-side cigar business into a lucrative venture in Manila.

Economic prosperity, along with a high level of societal interaction, apparently precluded the need for strong Jewish institutions. Theirs was a 19th century lifestyle of the very rich. Although the Jewish families did go to the Temple for special occasions, and the existence of an adjacent social hall did serve to centralize and focus Jewish cultural life, it was still very low-key. Even though Temple Emil was built in the 1920s primarily through the generous contributions of the Bachrachs, Netzorgs, and Frieders, the only services conducted on an annual basis were the High Holidays, when a visiting Rabbi or Cantor from Shanghai officiated the services. By 1936, the Jewish community in the Philippines had a distinctly cosmopolitan makeup with a total population of about 500 persons. The threat to European Jewry by the Nazi government in the 1930s sparked a renewed Jewish consciousness. The small, decentralized and secularly-minded Jewish Community of Manila took heroic steps to save fellow Jews from sure destruction, only becoming Jewish-conscious in a deep way when the Nazi threat came out of Europe, and there were thousands of Jews in desperate need of help.

1930s to the Japanese Occupation

It was during the era of the Philippine Commonwealth, 1935-1946, that Jewish refugees from Europe sought a safe haven in Manila. The migration of Jews escaping Europe between 1935 and 1941 was the last major immigration of Jews to the Philippines. The first German Jews to arrive in Manila actually came from the Jewish community in Shanghai. With the occupation of Peking by the Japanese in 1937, the four million inhabitants of Shanghai were endangered. Germany's shift of alliance from China to Japan at this time alarmed German Jews in Shanghai, fearing German pressure on Japan to adopt Nazi anti-Jewish policies. Fearing for them as well, the Jewish Community in Manila, led by the Frieder Brothers of Cincinnati, organized the Jewish Refugee Committee of Manila (JRC) with the intention of rescuing German members of the Shanghai Jewish community. These Jews had already been deprived of their German citizenship, and the Gestapo presence that was taking root in Japanese areas threatened Jewish existence in Shanghai as well. When the Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, the JRC received a telegram from Shanghai asking for assistance for Shanghai's refugee Jews. Manila then received 30 German Jewish refugee families from Shanghai, which then started a larger program that would eventually rescue 1300 refugee Jews from Europe between 1937 and 1941, the largest influx of Jews in Philippine history.

It is important to realize that the mechanics of the refugee rescue plan in Manila involved many different people and agencies in The Philippines, in the United States, and in Germany. While it was important to have the cooperation and consent of President Quezon in this refugee rescue plan, all issues of Philippine Foreign Affairs was still totally in the hands of the U.S. State Department and would be until The Philippines were granted their independence in 1946. What is unique to the rescue of refugee Jews in The Philippines is that the Jewish Community in Manila was granted authority by High Commissioner Paul McNutt and Philippine President Quezon to operate a selection committee to choose those who would be granted visas by the U.S. State Department. By an application and review process, Jewish refugees in Germany and Austria obtained visas for immigration from U.S. consular officers who had been instructed by the U.S. State Department to issue visas based on recommendations from the JRC in Manila. This successful Frieder-McNutt selection rescue plan led to the larger resettlement rescue plan that focused on the Island of Mindanao as a destination for the mass resettlement of 10,000 refugee Jews. For the refugees who did manage to settle in the Philippines, the JRC organised committees to aid in finding employment and new homes for them in Manila. Though relatively modest in numbers when compared to the number of refugees worldwide, the newly arrived refugees nearly overwhelmed the small Jewish community of Manila, multiplying its numbers relatively overnight. An ironic turn of events occurred when all rescue plans halted with the invasion and occupation of The Philippines during WWII.

Japanese Occupation

The Jewish community of Manila reached its maximum population of about 2,500 members by the end of 1941, having increased eight fold since it first received refugees in 1937. This once American-dominated Jewish community that had saved the lives of well over 1300 European Jews from probable extermination in the Holocaust, faced an unexpected persecution of its own. An amazing turn of events put the fate of the American Jews into the hands of the German refugee Jews when the Japanese entered Manila in December 1941 and summarily interned all "enemy alien" civilians in Santo Tomas University Internment Camp (STIC), and later at Los Banos Internment Camp and the old Bilibid prison in Manila.

The Japanese did not perceive a difference between German nationals and German Jews so the majority of the Jewish Community at Manila, hundreds of German and Austrian Jews did not face internment at Santo Tomas University. However, about 250 other members of the Jewish community, including the more influential American members, were immediately incarcerated, as well as Americans of other faiths and "enemy alien" civilians. Having spent five years freeing hundreds of German Jews from Nazi oppression, the Manila American Jewish community now faced its own incarceration. Their fate was now in the hands of the German refugee Jews who aided their interned benefactors with food and supplies. Several firsthand accounts about the details of camp life have been written over the years, but few of them discuss specifics concerning the experiences of the Jews in camp. We can only assume that the general state of affairs at the camp pertained to all. The Japanese left the camp members to their own designs to solve their housing, food, and sanitation problems. Most prisoners were interned for the full three years until the end of the war in 1945.

While inmates at STIC battled malnutrition, disease, and exposure, residents of Manila tried to adapt to life under Japanese occupation. Houses and businesses were searched and seized without warning, providing lodging for the Japanese forces while making their owners jobless and homeless. Japanese penalties for violations of imposed civilian restrictions were both swift and brutal, administered through beatings, hangings, imprisonment, starvation, torture, and executions. In January 1943, anti-Semitic propaganda targeted the non-interned German Jews, as Japanese leaders began to be influenced by their Nazi allies. Rumors about forcing the German Jews into a ghetto began to circulate. This imminent danger to the German Jews was averted by the more influential leaders of the Jewish community, who negotiated with the Japanese leaders. While the Japanese could not be bothered with Nazi plans to establish a Jewish ghetto in the Philippines, they did not object to episodes of abuse randomly waged against members of the Jewish community by their own soldiers. Dozens of incidents of German Jews, along with other civilians suffering at the hands of the Japanese during these years of occupation, illustrate the horror of the time.

Post WWII Jewish community of Manila

After the repatriation of The Philippines by the U.S. and Philippine Armed Forces from Japanese occupation, the freed internees of STIC joined with the remaining refugees in Manila to try to rebuild their devastated community. Temple Emil and Bachrach Hall had been totally destroyed. All had been victimized by the Japanese occupying forces, which resulted in the death of 70 members of the Jewish community. The American military took heroic steps to assist the Jewish community in its recovery. U.S. and Filipino soldiers provided not only food, water, supplies, and medicine for the victims, but also donated $15,000 for the rebuilding of the synagogue.

But the destruction was so wide spread that nearly all of the refugees and their American and British benefactors left the Philippines and the community membership had decreased by 30% by the end of 1946. Fewer than 250 European Jewish refugees could be counted among the estimated 600 Jews who remained in the Philippines by the end of 1948. By 1954 the Jewish community of Manila counted a total of 302 members. Thus closed the remarkable story of how one small American community of Jews in the Far East managed to do what so many more capable nations of the world were reluctant to do—save Jewish lives. By rescuing over 1300 Jewish refugees, this American Commonwealth saved them from the fate of the six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust.

As of 2005, Philippine Jews number at the very most 500 people. Other estimates range between 100 and 500 people (0.000001% and 0.000005% of the country's total population).

Today, Manila boasts the largest Jewish community in the Philippines, which consists of roughly 40 families. There are, of course, other Jews elsewhere in the country, but these are obviously fewer and almost all transients, either diplomats or business envoys, and their existence is almost totally unknown in mainstream society. There are a few Israelis in Manila recruiting caregivers for Israel and a few other executives. A number are converts to Judaism.

References

* [http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/233ab/zbaszynmanila/HarrisCysnerZbaszynManila.htm Jewish Cantor of Manila, Temple Emil] photographs courtesy of Bonnie Harris's research paper "From Zbaszyn to Manila: The Creation of an American Holocaust Haven" (2005)

Visitors of this entry are encouraged to read "Escape to Manila: From Nazi Tyranny to Japanese Terror". ISBN 0-252-02845-7 by Frank Ephraim, who narrates many stories of the refugee Jews in the Philippines; from the day of their arrival, their daily life in Manila, to their departure to other destinations a decade later.

ee also

*List of Philippine Jews

External links

* [http://www.myspace.com/balay_shalom B'nai Efrayim]
* [http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/233ab/zbaszynmanila/HarrisCysnerZbaszynManila.pdf Cantor Joseph Cysner: From Zbaszyn to Manila The Creation of an American Holocaust Haven]
* [http://www.feu-alumni.com/lifestyle.htm Cauliflower and Ketchup By Eugene Schlossberger Ph.D.]
* [http://www.myspace.com/chibivision Chibi Vision]
* [http://manila.mfa.gov.il/mfm/web/main/missionhome.asp?MissionID=54&404;http://manila.mfa.gov.il/mfm/web/mfm/web/main/missionhome.asp Embassy of Israel - Philippines]
* [http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/44efq4dm9780252028458.html Escape to Manila: From Nazi Tyranny to Japanese Terror]
* [http://www.infolive.tv/en/infolive.tv-2756-israelnews-filipino-workers-shoot-hoops Israel News - Filipino Workers Shoot Hoops In Israel]
* [http://www.focalmagazine.com/index.php/index Focal - Serving The Filipino Community in Israel]
* [http://www.holocaustandhumanity.org/chhe_philippinesstory.html The Frieder Family]
* [http://www.infolive.tv/en/infolive.tv-14817-israelnews-gift-philippines-worlds-largest-flag-israel A Gift From The Philippines: The World's Largest Flag of Israel]
* [http://www.myspace.com/philippinejews A Glimpse into the Past: The Jewish Community in the Philippines]
* [http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3393375,00.html Israel is Our Home]
* [http://www.info.com.ph/%7Er_azaria/ The Jewish Association of The Philippines]
* [http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=0204ca2a60f3bb88c4233268efabe6da Jewish Refugees in WWII Manila Hold Reunion]
* [http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/1917_1918_3_SpecialArticles.pdf The Jews of Latin America (includes a section on the Philippines)]
* [http://www.esramag.com/Dynamic.asp?p=7&cid=7459 The Jews of Manila]
* [http://www.haruth.com/JewsPhilippines.html Jews of The Philippines]
* [http://israel-sun.blogspot.com/ My Share of Sun in Israel]
* [http://www.philembtelaviv.co.il/update.html "Open Doors" Monument]
* [http://www.monmouth.army.mil/monmessg/newmonmsg/apr292005/m17hayden.htm Out of the frying pan, into the fire by Hayden Katz]
* [http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=2620 Philippine Schindler's List]
* [http://www.jewishtimesasia.org/content/view/576/43/ Philippines Jewish Community]
* [http://www.talkabouthistory.com/group/alt.history/messages/43881.html Philippines Saved German-Jewish Refugees]
* [http://www.jewishgen.org/cemetery/asia-pac-ind/philippines.html Philippines - Stars of David]
* [http://haruth.com/jw//QuezonsList.htm Quezon's List]
* [http://www.holocaustandhumanity.org/chhe_philippinesarticle.html Tiebreaker: The Decisive Vote for Israeli Partition Circa 1947 Was Cast By The Philippines]
* [http://www.remember.org/witness/lipetz.htm There was a synagogue in Manila by Jacques Lipetz]
* [http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1176152769513&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull The Ties That Bind: Filipinos and Jews, The Philippines and Israel]
* [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/philippines.html The Virtual Jewish History Tour - Philippines]
* [http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/communities/asiaoceania/comm_phillipines.html World Jewish Communities - The Philippines]

ethnic groups in the Philippines