Going places: Global Mystery Tour Turns Into Personal Odyssey Following Route of Jewish Diaspora (Part 1: Vietnam-Athens)

Karen Rubin
Channels cut in the siq leading into Petra, Jordan, provided water to the desert city, an important stop for camel caravans carrying goods to the Mediterranean, through Judea, the Phoenician coast, and across the Syrian desert. The chasm was named Wadi Musa – Valley of Moses © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

by Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com

The news that Morocco had just established full diplomatic relations with Israel was especially interesting to me because it brought me back to my visit to Morocco as part of a Global Scavenger Hunt mystery tour around the world in 2019, when I learned that Morocco has a long-standing tradition, going back centuries of welcoming Jews, harboring Jews and even today, protecting the cemeteries and the few remaining synagogues (GreatEscape Adventures Inc., GlobalScavengerHunt.com, 310-281-7809). Each destination was a surprise (we only learn where we are next going when we are told to get to the airport), but most surprising was to find myself on an odyssey of the Jewish Diaspora. It wasn’t my intention or my mission but everywhere we went, I found myself tracing a route set by trade (and permitted occupations), exile and refuge.

It started in Vietnam and then just about every place we touched down: in Yangon, Myanmar, where I visited the last synagogue in that country (it’s a historic landmark and still serves a handful of congregants); in Athens, where I discovered evidence of a synagogue that served a Jewish community that had existed in Athens at least since the 3rd century BCE and possibly as early as 6th century BCE (probably dating from the Babylonian Exile in 598 BCE), near where the world’s first “parliament” would have been; in Petra, Jordan, I discovered a connection to Moses and the Exodus (the first Diaspora?).

On to Morocco, in Marrakech and Fez, where I learned that the king invited Jews expelled by the Spanish during the Inquisition to settle, and 100 years later, the monarch defied the Nazis during the Holocaust; in Gibraltar, a British territory of just 36,000 inhabitants, Jews make up 2% of the population and there are four active synagogues dating back hundreds of years; then on to Seville, Spain and Porto, Portugal, where Jews after living in Iberia for hundreds of years, were expelled in the Inquisition.

And finally, coincidentally this around-the-world mystery tour concluded in New York City, where many of the descendents of Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal ultimately settled, and where you can still visit the synagogue of America’s oldest congregation, Congregation Shearith Israel, founded in 1654.

This Global Scavenger Hunt around-the-world mystery tour turned out to be an unexpected journey following in the footsteps of the Jewish Diaspora in unexpected places. Come along with me:

Vietnam

I learn that, though Jews have been in Vietnam and Judaism practiced in Vietnam since the late 19th century during French colonization, there are only about 300 Jews left in Vietnam, most of whom are expatriates (or descendants), with virtually no native Vietnamese converts. By 1939, there would have been about 1,000 Jews in Vietnam, but under the rule of Vichy France, in 1940, “Statute of Jews” law was implemented by the French Governor, restricting Jews to professions, dismissing government employees and workers in other professions, expelling Jews from schools. After the war and French expulsion, these restrictions were overturned, and Jewish population increased to 1,500. In 2006, Chabad opened a center in Ho Chi Minh City and in 2014, in Hanoi.

Myanmar

Reading a brochure on the plane returning to Yangon from my Global Scavenger Hunt sojourn that took me to the temple-city of Bagan and villages-on-stilts on Inle Lake, I learn of the last synagogue in Myanmar and race to visit before it closes at 2 pm.

By the time I get here, it is 1:40 pm (it is just about 15 minute walk from the hotel). It is a lovely synagogue in the Sephardic style, built in 1896. The Jewish community in Yangon numbered as many as 2500 before the mass migration of WWII; today, there are only 5 families (about 30 people). The Samuels, one of the last remaining Jewish families, has maintained the synagogue for generations, a plaque notes. Getting there was interesting, going through all these street markets with sounds of chickens (for sale), live fish for sale (one almost got away), and the scent of spices.

Perhaps not surprising, a short distance from the synagogue is Bogyoke Aung San Market, which since 1926 has been the city’s major marketplace.

Jordan

With time constraints and a mad dash from Amman to Petra, I don’t specifically seek out Jewish sites or history in Jordan, but suffice to say, the Jewish heritage is a layer of Jordan’s landscape going back 4,000 years, back to Biblical times, along with the trading routes. Camel caravans crossed the desert to the Nabataean kingdom, with its spectacular capital city of Petra, carrying goods west to the Mediterranean and north and east through Judaea, the Phoenician coast, and across the Syrian desert.

Petra, an archeological jewel, I later learn, has a remarkable connection to Moses: the siq – that 1.5-mile-long stony cleft you go through to enter the ancient city (which made it defensible), is named for Moses who performed the miracle of drawing water from a stone during the Israelites’ exodus in the desert after leaving Egypt. The chasm in which the city was built was named Wadi Musa, or Valley of Moses – and is believed to be the source of water that supplied the desert city, making habitation possible. As you walk through, you can see where a channel system to direct water had been carved in the stone (https://arzaworld.com/israel-travel-guide/israel-travel-destinations/city-of-petra-jordan.aspx)

Athens

We are only in Athens for a day, and I retrace some of my steps from a previous trip when I took a Context walking tour with my guide, Vassilas. We had met in the district known today as Monasteraki, but as we walked through the flea market area, he mentioned it was originally called Yusurum, named for a Jewish family of tradesmen who built a store in the area. Athens did not have a “Jewish Quarter” per se, he told me, sensing my interest, but just a few blocks away, there once were a few Jewish synagogues, only one that is still in use today.

As we walked through the Agora, the ancient marketplace and political center where humankind had its first House of Parliament, he points to where it is believed to have been a synagogue, serving a Jewish community that had existed in Athens at least since 3rd C BC and possibly as early as 6th C BC (possibly dating from the Babylonian Exile in 598 BCE). This is based on finding etched marble – in essence, a sign for the synagogue, which comes from the Greek words “synagein,” meaning “to bring together” and the same root word as “agora” which means “a place of assembly.” (Context Travel’s “Everyday Greeks in Ancient Times” walking tour, www.contexttravel.com, info@contexttravel.com, 800-691-6036)

He pointed me to Athens’ Jewish Museum, where I found a reproduction of that original stone sign. There I was surprised to learn that the Greek Jews is the oldest Jewish community in Europe. (Jewish Museum of Greece, Nikis 39, Athens 105 57. Phone: 210 32 25 582, e-mail: info@jewishmuseum.gr, www.jewishmuseum.gr.)

On another walking tour, with a local guide through the city’s free “Athens with a Native” program, Constantine E. Cavoulacos, whose family has a prominent real estate development company (his uncle was an engineer on the Jewish Museum building) also sensing my interest, brought me to the end of Ermou Street where two synagogues – old (Ete Haim) and new (Beth Shalom) – face each other. It is a quiet street, set off from the busy neighborhood only a couple of streets beyond, but near (as it turns out), the Agora. Also close by is a Holocaust Memorial – a star exploding under a small grove of trees, with the name of each Greek city where Jewish communities were cut down. (www.thisisathens.org)

Jews did not live in a Jewish Quarter in Athens, unlike Corfu, Rhodes or Thessalonki, but lived around Athens, though they tended to live near the synagogue.

It is not known how many Jews lived in Greece at its peak – during the Holocaust, archives were burned. But prior to the World War II, Thessaloniki had 70,000 Jews; there were 29 communities.

Today, there are 5,000 Jews living in Greece – 3000 of them in Athens (a tiny number compared to the population). There are nine communities that are most active, with Jewish schools.

Next: Jewish Odyssey Continues in Morocco
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