<BURMA, republic in
southeast Asia.
[[There is no indication about the natives in Burma in the
Encyclopaedia
Judaica]].
Jews from Calcutta, Cochin, and Persia may have settled in various
towns of Burma in the first half of the 19th century. A Jewish merchant
Goldenberg from Rumania [[Romanian]] engaged in trade of teakwood and
accumulated great wealth. Solomon Reineman of Galicia arrived in
Rangoon, the capital of Burma, in 1851 as a supplier for the British
army and opened stores in various places. His Masot Shelomo ("Solomon's
Travels", 1884) contains a long chapter on Burma, and is the first
Hebrew account of the country and its towns.
In 1857 the synagogue Mazmi'ah Yeshu'ah was built in Rangoon, and in
the early decades of the present century a prayerhall was founded in
Mandalay with the help of Ezra Shaul.
The Jewish community, scattered in several places in the country,
included members of the *Bene Israel group from Bombay, Arabic-speaking
Jews from Calcutta, and Jews from Cochin [[since 1996: Kochi]] and
other parts of the Oriental Diaspora. The number of Jews in Rangoon and
other places once reached several hundred.
With World War II and the Japanese invasion of Burma, community life
was disrupted and many Jews fled to India or Erez Israel. In 1968 the
number of Jewish inhabitants was negligible.
[W.J.F.]> (col. 1526)
