Jews in Vietnam - Jews living in Vietnam today, the Jewish history of Vietnam (since the 19th century) and Jewish cultural heritage, including Judaism in Vietnam.
Content
Current State
Only about 300 Jews live in the country (about 100 in Hanoi and about 200 in Ho Chi Minh ) [1] , mainly expats . The number of Vietnamese professing Judaism is small. At the same time, Vietnam is visited by a large number of Israeli and Jewish (from other countries, including the CIS) tourists. The country has an embassy of Israel, the center of Chabad, in 2013 the first mikvah appeared in Vietnam [2]
History
XIX century
Jews first came to Indochina and settled in Vietnam with the French colonialists. The years 1860-1870 were marked by the appearance in Vietnam of a small but stable Jewish presence. At the end of the XIX century, a shipowner named Jules Rueff, a merchant and a colonial figure, showed great activity in Vietnamese affairs, trade and the construction of infrastructure (in particular, railways). Jewish soldiers fought for France during the Tonkin campaign .
Before World War II
In 1902, a French school opened its doors in Hanoi. One of its founders is the Jew Sylvain Lévi.
By 1939, the Jewish population of Haiphong , Hanoi , Saigon and Turan totaled a thousand people [3] .
World War II
Since Vietnam was a colony of France, the power of the Vichyas extended to it. They enacted the discriminatory Jewish Statute. The latter were fired from work and were not accepted (over a quota of 2%) to schools. These measures were canceled after the liberation of the mother country from the Germans in the winter of 1945.
Independence
Before the French left Vietnam in 1954, the Jewish population of Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia) was about 1,500; most of them left the region forever with the French [4] . Israel has accepted several hundred refugees from Vietnam.
By 2005, all Jews living in Vietnam were visiting contract workers. In Ho Chi Minh, there is a Jewish school under HaBaDe, in which 15 children study (as of 2009) [5]
Vietnam and Israel
Diplomatic relations have been established at the embassy level (since 1993). The Israeli Embassy is engaged in medical charity in the country. After the establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel, Chabad began to operate in the country, economic ties developed (agriculture, dairy farming, water purification). The Jewish community grew and settled down.
In 1992, in the jungles of Vietnam and Laos , a new species of animal was discovered - saola . He became an example of a case when an animal, formally corresponding to all the signs of kosher , is not kosher because of the lack of tradition among Jews to eat it.
See also
- Religion in Vietnam
Notes
- ↑ Archived copy (inaccessible link) . Date of treatment April 16, 2010. Archived on June 7, 2011.
- ↑ Jewish Mikvah Appears in Vietnam - Jewish World - News - Israel7
- ↑ Statistics of Jews , American Jewish Committee, 1940.
- ↑ Elazar, Daniel J. People and Polity: The Organizational Dynamics of World Jewry. - Wayne State University Press, 1989. - ISBN 0-8143-1843-6 . - P. 472.
- ↑ הרב אליהו בירנבוים, יהודי וייטנאם, "מקור ראשון", 30 בינואר 2009