For almost a century, Jews from the Middle East, known as Baghdadis, have lived in flourishing communities all around Southeast Asia. Baghdadis were philosophically divided between two promised lands: the religious ideal of Jerusalem and the political promise of England. They were linked across distances by tradition, family, and economic relationships. Baghdadis, like other minorities in British India’s diverse society, progressively adapted their lifestyles and goals to the British model. In a talk titled “Almost Englishmen: Baghdadi Jews in British Burma,” anthropologist Ruth Fredman Cernea will analyze the Jewish experience in Burma. The free and open-to-the-public talk will take place at noon on Tuesday, Sept. 9, in the Asian Division Reading Room entryway (Room 150) of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First Street S.E., Washington, D.C. The Asian Division, the Asian Division Friends Society, and the Library of Congress Professional Association’s Hebrew Language Table are all sponsoring the event. Cernea is the author of “Afikoman in Exile,” an anthropological study of the Passover Seder, and the editor of “The Great Latke-Hamantash Debate,” as well as some articles on Jewish society and culture. Through decades of archival research and interviews in Burma, the United Kingdom, Australia, Israel, the United States, and other locations across the world, she has reconstructed the history of the Jews of Burma in her new book. She has contributed to Jewish and colonial studies by capturing a society and an experience that has been overlooked in historical accounts.
Source: https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-08-141/baghdadi-jews-subject-of-sept-9-lecture/2008-08-22/
