Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Myanmar
Myanmar: the Baghdadi Jewish community of Rangoon and the Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue, recognition of "Israel" in 1949, Israeli arms sales to the military from Spitfires to Super Dvora patrol boats, the 2017 controversy over sales during the Rohingya crisis and the gagged High Court ruling, UN rapporteurs' report of IAI shipments after the 2021 coup, and Ehud Barak's Burma fund contacts
Myanmar has about 20 Jews, all in Yangon, according to the World Jewish Congress (WJC), which says it was the first Asian country to recognise "Israel", in 1949.[1] Israeli arms sales to the Myanmar military date back to 1954,[2] and in 2017, during the military's campaign against the Rohingya, the Israeli foreign ministry said it had frozen weapons sales to the country.[3]
Jewish community and religious life
History and demography
According to the WJC, Jews from India and Iraq settled in Rangoon and Mandalay after the British conquest of 1852 and became prominent in the rice and cotton trade; the Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue in Rangoon was consecrated in 1857. Early in the 20th century Rangoon had a Jewish mayor, and the community peaked at about 2,500 in 1940. Many fled to India during the Japanese invasion of 1942, and more than three-quarters of the pre-war population never returned. Since 1948, 751 Jews from Burma have emigrated to "Israel".[1]
Communal organisations
Myanmar Jewish Community. The community, the WJC's Burmese affiliate, is run by the Samuels family, formerly by the late Moses Samuels and now by his son Sammy Samuels. It is based at the Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue in Yangon, the only active synagogue in the country, which has no official rabbi.[1]
Chabad
- Main article: Chabad Lubavitch of Myanmar
Israeli state and commercial ties
Diplomacy
The Israeli foreign ministry lists an embassy in Yangon and recognition dating from January 1949.[4]
Military ties
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) records Israeli deliveries to Myanmar beginning with 29 second-hand Spitfire fighters in 1954–1955. Later deliveries include 16 refurbished 155 mm towed guns (2000), 12 modernised EE-9 Cascavel fire-support vehicles (2009–2010), 10 Amir armoured personnel carriers (2019) and eight Super Dvora Mk-3 patrol boats delivered between 2017 and 2023, six of them assembled or built under licence in Myanmar. SIPRI also lists second-hand 76 mm naval guns for Chinese-built ships delivered in 2001–2011, but notes that the supplier is uncertain and could have been South Africa.[2]
According to The Times of Israel, the commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing announced the purchase of the Super Dvora boats, made by the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), after a visit to "Israel" in 2015, and the Israeli company TAR Ideal Concepts announced in 2016 that its CornerShot weapon was in service with Myanmar's special operations forces. In September 2017 activists petitioned the Israeli government to halt exports to Myanmar. On 30 November 2017 the foreign ministry said it had sold weapons to Myanmar in the past but had frozen all military sales several months earlier; its statement did not mention surveillance technology or training.[3]
In January 2017 the human rights lawyer Eitay Mack and ten other activists had petitioned the Israeli High Court of Justice to block all arms sales to Myanmar. The state's attorney argued that the court had no authority to overrule the decisions of the defence and foreign ministries. On 27 September 2017 the court gave its ruling but placed it under a gag order barring Israeli media from publishing it.[5]
In a letter to the Israeli government dated 16 October 2023, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar and the UN Working Group on business and human rights set out reports that IAI had made eight shipments of "metal plates" to the military's Directorate of Defence Procurement between 2019 and 2022. According to the letter, the plates could be used in aerospace products or to outfit the Dvora-class patrol boats IAI had sold to Myanmar, and four of the shipments came after the February 2021 coup, the last two in February and March 2022. All eight followed a statement by an Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson in June 2019 that "Israel does not sell arms to Myanmar and this policy has not changed." The letter also recalls that the Special Rapporteur's paper Enabling Atrocities (A/HRC/49/CRP.1) examined Israeli transfers to the military, and that the government had not replied to his request for comment.[6]
In October 2022 Justice For Myanmar reported that, according to documents leaked to it, Star Sapphire Trading had acted, with the permission of the Israeli defence ministry, as the sole representative in Myanmar for IAI, Elbit Systems and Israel Shipyards. It said transfers to the military included Elbit's Skylark drones and IAI's Super Dvora boats. On 3 October 2022 the lawyer Eitay Mack, acting for 60 Israeli citizens including the former Knesset speaker Avraham Burg, asked the Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to open a criminal investigation into the companies and the officials who approved Star Sapphire's role.[7]
Trade
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics reports that "Israel" imported goods worth $3.9 million from Myanmar in 2025 (2024: $3.6 million) and exported goods worth $1.8 million to it (2024: $0.5 million).[8]
Political interference
UN voting
Myanmar voted in favour of the September 2025 General Assembly resolution endorsing the New York Declaration on a two-state solution.[9]
Ehud Barak's emails
The following items come from the two leaked mailboxes of the former Israeli prime minister and defence minister Ehud Barak (ehbarak1@gmail.com and ehud.barak@hyperion-eb.com, 2007–2016). They were hacked and leaked by Handala, a group that Distributed Denial of Secrets describes as "believed to have ties to Iranian intelligence", and were published by Distributed Denial of Secrets in August 2025. The emails carry no cryptographic signatures, and Distributed Denial of Secrets warns that material from such hack-and-leak operations may have been altered.[10]
- On 31 July 2013 Barak forwarded "the Burma opportunity (as well as a Kurdistan one)", a young fund linked to the advisory firm Ergo, to the Israeli businessman Shaul Shani, and told him he had informed Ergo's chief executive that a friend had shown interest "in what happens in Burma".[11]
- In October 2013, after joining Ergo's advisory board, Barak wrote to its chief executive, RP Eddy, "I try to think about the Burma Fund".[12]
See also
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Brunei
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Cambodia
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to East Timor
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Indonesia
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Laos
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Malaysia
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to the Philippines
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Singapore
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Thailand
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Vietnam
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 World Jewish Congress, Community in Myanmar worldjewishcongress.org, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Arms Transfers Database SIPRI, trade register for Israel as supplier, 1950–2025, data generated 20 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Judah Ari Gross, Israel says it stopped selling weapons to Myanmar months ago The Times of Israel, 30 November 2017, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Diplomatic Missions Abroad: Status of relations mfa.gov.il, archived 5 August 2011.
- ↑ Judah Ari Gross, After court's gagged ruling on arms sales to Myanmar, activists call for protest The Times of Israel, 28 September 2017, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar and Working Group on business and human rights, Communication AL ISR 8/2023 to the Government of Israel Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, 16 October 2023, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ Justice For Myanmar, JFM calls on Israel’s Attorney General to take urgent action following application for criminal investigation into Myanmar arms sales justiceformyanmar.org, 26 October 2022, accessed 25 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).
- ↑ Distributed Denial of Secrets, Ehud Barak emails, 27 August 2025, with download at data.ddosecrets.org, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ Email exchange between Ehud Barak and Shaul Shani, "Re: Four Rivers overview July 2013.pdf", 31 July – 1 August 2013, file
ehbarak1@gmail.com/Sent Messages/1 (52).html, Ehud Barak emails, Distributed Denial of Secrets, released 27 August 2025 (hacked and leaked by the Handala group), accessed 25 October 2026. - ↑ Email from Ehud Barak to RP Eddy, "Re: Thank you and Follow-up", 18 October 2013, file
ehud.barak@hyperion-eb.com/Inbox!2/1 (418).html, Ehud Barak emails, Distributed Denial of Secrets, released 27 August 2025 (hacked and leaked by the Handala group), accessed 25 October 2026.