Yangon’s Synagogue

Tibor Krausz

For the purposes of a mere 20 Jews -- the last remnants of thousands who once inhabited this city's vibrant ethno-religious scene -- it may seem extravagant: a lavish two-storey synagogue with a 500-seat capacity. Yet for Moses Samuels, the trustee of this well-kept light-blue building in downtown Yangon within easy walking distance of the landmark Sule Pagoda, it's still very much an institution with a living history.

"This synagogue is the last thing we Burmese Jews have left," says Samuels, who is a dead ringer for Al Pacino both in looks and mannerisms, except for his checkered longyi (ankle-length traditional Burmese sarong). The 52-year-old adds with emphasis: "It's not a museum."

Occupying a unique niche among the city's architectural pageantry of soaring pagodas, crenellated Chinese temples, flamboyant Hindu shrines, domed Muslim mosques, and spired Catholic churches, the Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue is Myanmar's sole Jewish prayer house, listed as one of the city's Heritage Buildings. Arguably, it's also the most imposing and best preserved old synagogue built in the Sephardic (or Middle Eastern) style in Southeast Asia.

Constructed in 1854 as a smaller wooden affair to be replaced four decades later by the current structure, the spacious vestibular building invites visitors with its well-maintained pews, its centerpiece of a scroll-reading platform with carved railings, its ornate brass chandeliers and candelabras, and its lavish ark housing exquisite silver-cased Torah scrolls.

These days the synagogue's airy second-floor balconies double as an aviary, housing in their rafters families of chirpy sparrows and cooing pigeons. The birds flit around you and over your head with bouncy leaps and swoops -- and never a less auspicious welcome to a building in Burma. According to a local belief, it's a blessing on an abode if resident birds, having decided to favor it with their presence, feel content and at home there.

No less than the birds Samuels too feels content and at home in the synagogue. A faithful keeper of this communal heirloom, he inherited its trusteeship from his father, Isaac, and hopes one day to bequeath it to his 22-year-old son, Sammy. Samuels Senior keeps the prayer house open seven days a week for foreign visitors; he also makes sure that no observant Jewish caller on Yangon is without services (complete with kosher wine) during High Holidays. He laments, though, that Shabbat services rarely bring together the required quorum of at least 10 men for a proper service.

Not surprisingly, you hear the sonorous chant of the muezzin around the Jewish prayer house far more often than the sound of Hebrew. The building stands deep in the heart of Yangon's bustling Muslim neighborhood, surrounded by mosques and minarets. In a fine example of inter-religious coexistence, the Samuels live amicably side by side with their neighbors. During power outages, Samuels says, the Muslims feed electricity to the synagogue from their private generators; he returns the favor by supplying them with extra water from the building's reserve tank.

His Jewish forebears started to settle down in Burma from the mid-19th century as the northeast expansion of the British Raj brought extensive trade to Burma -- and with it Indian, Chinese and Jewish traders. Most of the Jews immigrated from Baghdad, Tehran, and India, and by the mid-20th century a vibrant community of around 2,500 souls was enriching Rangoon's vivacious multiethnic milieu. The city once boasted several kosher restaurants, a Jewish day school, and even a Jewish mayor.

Sadly, this patrician past is now buried in a nearby cemetery, where some 600 weather-beaten headstones stand as the only testaments to the movers and shakers of this once-influential community's erstwhile glories. Those not buried there started to leave Rangoon en mass starting with the Japanese occupation of Burma during the Second World War -- until fewer than two dozen coreligionists have remained to preserve the faith. 

Yet Last Mohicans like the Samuels pledge to stay put for keeps, with an eye to perpetuating Yangon's rich religious diversity as well as to keeping the synagogue in shape for posterity. "If we'd left like the others," Samuels says emphatically, "who would have taken care of the synagogue?"

"We love this building," agrees his son, Sammy, who is next in line for trusteeship in the caretaker dynasty. "We love being Jewish in this building. And I promise we're never going to leave this building."