Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Bangladesh
Bangladesh: a small historic Jewish presence, no relations with the Israeli state, the restored "except Israel" passport clause, and Israeli surveillance technology bought by its security agencies
Bangladesh had a small Baghdadi Jewish trading presence in Dhaka from the early 19th century; no synagogue exists today.[1] Bangladesh does not recognise "Israel", "forbids trade with it and prevents its citizens from travelling there".[2] In April 2025 the interim government restored the words "except Israel" to Bangladeshi passports, after a mass rally in Dhaka over Gaza.[3] Despite the absence of relations, Bangladeshi security agencies bought Israeli phone-hacking and interception technology, according to investigations by Al Jazeera and Haaretz.[2][4]
Jewish community and religious life
The World Jewish Congress has no community page for Bangladesh. According to Shalva Weil, a specialist on India's Jews at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Shalom Cohen, founder of the Calcutta Jewish community, sent employees to Dacca (Dhaka) to trade in cloth, silks and muslins, and in 1817 his son-in-law Moses Duek set up a prayer hall there before returning to Calcutta in 1822. Baghdadi Jews traded in Dhaka in textiles, pearls and opium but mostly lived in Calcutta. At partition in 1947 about 135 Jews lived in East Bengal. Weil wrote in 2012 that a few assimilated Jews remained, that there was no synagogue, and that a few expatriates met on the Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement.[1] She also noted that the Indian general J. F. R. Jacob, born into a Baghdadi Jewish family in Calcutta, was Chief of Staff of the Indian Army's Eastern Command in the 1971 war and took the surrender of Pakistani forces in Dhaka.[1]
How far is it Zionist? There is no organised community and no communal body, so there is no record of Zionist activity.
Chabad
- Main article: Chabad-Lubavitch movement
Powerbase does not yet have a page on Chabad in Bangladesh.
Israeli state and commercial ties
Diplomacy and the passport clause
Bangladesh has no diplomatic relations with "Israel",[2] and the Israeli foreign ministry's 2011 list of relations does not include it.[5] Its passports long carried the words "THIS PASSPORT IS VALID FOR ALL COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD EXCEPT ISRAEL". The Sheikh Hasina government dropped the phrase in 2021, saying it was bringing the document into line with international standards.[3] According to Anadolu Agency, officials insisted that travel to "Israel" remained banned, but the change was widely criticised.[6] After Hasina's fall in August 2024 the interim government restored the clause. The home ministry's directive was issued on 7 April 2025, and its existence was disclosed a day after the "March for Gaza" rally in Dhaka on 12 April 2025.[3] Anadolu reported that the rally's declaration listed the restoration of the clause as a primary demand.[6]
Surveillance technology
- Cellebrite. Documents obtained by Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit and Haaretz showed that the Bangladesh government spent at least $330,000 on phone-hacking equipment made by the Israeli company Cellebrite. In February 2019 nine officers of the Criminal Investigation Department were approved to travel to Singapore for training in Cellebrite's UFED system, which unlocks and extracts data from mobile phones.[2]
- Picsix. In 2018 the Bangladeshi military signed a contract for mobile-phone interception equipment, the P6 Intercept, from the Israeli firm Picsix. The contract named the manufacturer as "Picsix Ltd Hungary", but Al Jazeera found no public record of such a company, and all Picsix equipment is made in "Israel". In February 2019 Bangladeshi officers were trained by Israeli intelligence experts in Budapest. The Israeli human rights lawyer Eitay Mack petitioned the Israeli courts to revoke the export licences of Cellebrite and Picsix to Bangladesh.[2]
- Passitora / SpearHead. In January 2023 Haaretz reported that the National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre (NTMC), an agency under the home ministry, had bought a vehicle-mounted SpearHead interception system for $5.7 million. It was delivered to Dhaka from Switzerland in June 2022. The seller was Passitora, a Cyprus-registered firm controlled by Tal Dilian, an Israeli businessman and former intelligence commander; under its previous name, WiSpear, it had been fined one million euros in Cyprus. Haaretz said Passitora was part of Dilian's Intellexa Alliance.[4][7] The Swiss company Toru Group, whose chief executive Assaf Elias is an Israeli citizen, acted as intermediary, and NTMC officials, including its director general Major General Ziaul Ahsan, were trained on the vehicle in Greece. Cyprus export records also showed that another "Israel"-based company, Prelysis, exported a Wagtail Wi-Fi interception system worth $2.9 million to another Bangladeshi intelligence agency in July 2019.[4]
Arms and trade
SIPRI records no Israeli arms transfers to Bangladesh.[8] The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics does not list Bangladesh separately in its trade-by-country table.[9]
Political interference
UN voting
Bangladesh voted in favour of the September 2025 General Assembly resolution endorsing the New York Declaration on a two-state solution.[10]
Jeffrey Epstein
Documents released by the US Department of Justice in the Jeffrey Epstein files include the following references to Bangladesh:
- In January 2010 the Scholar Rescue Fund, through Henry Jarecki, sent Epstein confidential notes on scholars it had helped. Among them was a Bangladeshi constitutional-law scholar who said he lost his post at the University of Dhaka after refusing "political orders" from the Prime Minister's office. Epstein replied that a scholar from Egypt "certainly does qualify" and "the others nope".[11]
- In June 2011 a correspondent told Epstein that, after his feedback on incomplete project figures, they had hired the auditors KPMG and "a documentarian from BRAC Bangladesh".[12]
- In July 2014 a redacted correspondent wrote from Dhaka, from the diarrhoeal disease research institute ICDDR,B, that it would be "super duper cheap" to search for probiotic bacterial strains there.[13]
See also
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to India
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Pakistan
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Bhutan
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Shalva Weil, The Unknown Jews of Bangladesh: Fragments of an Elusive Community Asian Jewish Life, issue 10, September 2012.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Bangladesh bought phone-hacking tools from Israel, documents show Al Jazeera, 8 March 2021.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Bangladesh reintroduces 'except Israel' inscription on passports after thousands rally in Dhaka over Gaza situation The Hindu, 13 April 2025.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Haaretz reports Dhaka bought spy tech from Israeli supplier The Daily Star, 11 January 2023.
- ↑ Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Diplomatic Missions Abroad: Status of relations mfa.gov.il, archived 5 August 2011.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Under public pressure, Bangladesh restores passport clause barring travel to Israel Anadolu Agency, 14 April 2025.
- ↑ Bangladesh buys Israeli advanced spy tech Prothom Alo, 11 January 2023.
- ↑ Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Arms Transfers Database SIPRI, trade register for Israel as supplier, 1950–2025, data generated 20 October 2026.
- ↑ Central Bureau of Statistics (Israel), Foreign Trade Statistics Monthly, Table D1: Trade Countries – Imports and Exports CBS, December 2025 issue (library copy).
- ↑ United Nations General Assembly, Recorded vote on A/80/L.1/Rev.1: Endorsement of the New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, 12 September 2025 (copy hosted by Al-Quds Al-Arabi).
- ↑ Email thread between Cynthia Reed (for Henry Jarecki) and Jeffrey Epstein, "Re: Scholar Notes 1/19/10", 19–21 January 2010, EFTA00744559, US Department of Justice, Epstein Files release, Data Set 9, copy at tommycarstensen.com/epstein, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Email thread with Jeffrey Epstein, "Re: When will you be in senegal. ?", 26–27 June 2011, EFTA01862439, US Department of Justice, Epstein Files release, Data Set 10, copy at tommycarstensen.com/epstein, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Email "Gut", 4 July 2014 (sender and recipient redacted), EFTA01920594, US Department of Justice, Epstein Files release, Data Set 10, copy at tommycarstensen.com/epstein, accessed 21 October 2026.