Published: 9 February 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
A LEADER OF MYANMAR’S tiny Jewish community, reacting to the military coup that has rocked the nation, recalled witnessing “the brutality of the military” in his Southeast Asian country in 1988.
“But since 2015, I never thought I or my children’s generation” would ever “witness this again,” Sammy Samuels wrote on Facebook. “But I was wrong.”
He called Sunday’s coup “A sad day for Myanmar.”
Samuels, who keeps the keys of Musmeach Yeshua synagogue in the nation’s largest city, Yangon, once known as Rangoon, has been instrumental in holding together the community of about a dozen families. Following in the footsteps of his father, Moses, Samuels has maintained the site as a haven for Jewish visitors and tourists.
The coup is the latest turn in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, where the military took over the government and announced a yearlong state of emergency. The junta detained the democratically elected leader, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, on transparently thin criminal charges, put up roadblocks, suspended communications and closed down the airport.
FULL STORY Myanmar’s tiny Jewish community is rattled after military coup (JTA/Times of Israel)
Photo: A group of Myanmar activist in Israel wave the flag of Burma (until 1974), the flag of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, and the flag of Israel, during a protest outside the country's embassy in Tel Aviv on February 3 (Jack Guez/AFP)
