Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Singapore
Singapore: the Jewish Welfare Board and a Baghdadi-founded community, the Israeli advisers who built the Singapore Armed Forces from 1965, diplomatic relations since 1969, major Israeli arms purchases, the 2025 sanctions on violent settlers, and Ehud Barak's meetings with Singapore's leaders
Singapore has about 2,500 Jews, mainly expatriates, according to the World Jewish Congress (WJC), and a community founded by Baghdadi Jews in 1840.[1] In 1965 Israeli military advisers, disguised as "Mexicans", drew up the plan for the Singapore Armed Forces,[2] and Singapore has had full diplomatic relations with "Israel" since May 1969.[1] It has bought a wide range of Israeli weapons since 1969.[3]
Jewish community and religious life
History and demography
According to the WJC, the first Jews to settle in Singapore were of Baghdadi origin, mostly from India, and arrived in 1840; the Sassoons were among the first to set up businesses there. The community built a synagogue on what is still called Synagogue Street, and in 1878 consecrated the Maghain Aboth Synagogue, which the WJC describes as the oldest in East Asia. In 1905 Sir Manasseh Meyer built a second synagogue, Chesed El, on his own estate. The 1931 census counted about 1,500 Jews in the city, and there were 5,000 on the eve of the Second World War. Many were interned during the Japanese occupation and many emigrated after the war, so that by the 1960s the community had fallen to about 450. In 1955 David Marshall, a Jew of Iraqi origin, became Singapore's first chief minister.[1]
Communal organisations
Jewish Welfare Board (JWB). The JWB is the WJC's Singapore affiliate and represents the community; its president is Victor Sassoon. It runs mikvehs, the Abdullah Shooker Home for the elderly and a Jewish centre with a Hebrew school, auditorium and library. The Maghain Aboth and Chesed El synagogues hold daily services, and a progressive Ashkenazi congregation, the United Hebrew Congregation of Singapore, meets monthly. The Sir Manasseh Meyer International School and a Sunday school provide Jewish education.[1]
Chabad
- Main article: Chabad Lubavitch of Singapore
Israeli state and commercial ties
Diplomacy
According to the WJC, trade links between Singapore and "Israel" grew in the early 1960s; in 1968 the two signed a trade agreement and "Israel" opened a trade mission in Singapore. Full diplomatic relations followed in May 1969.[1] The Israeli foreign ministry lists an embassy in Singapore from that date.[4] The WJC gives the embassy's address as 58 Dalvey Road, Singapore 259463. The Singapore-Israel Industrial R&D Foundation (SIIRD), set up in 1997 and run by Singapore's Economic Development Board and the Israeli Office of the Chief Scientist, funds joint high-tech projects. In April 2016 Lee Hsien Loong became the first Singaporean prime minister to visit "Israel".[1]
In a statement to parliament on 22 September 2025 the foreign minister, Vivian Balakrishnan, said Singapore would "recognise the State of Palestine when it has an effective government that accepts Israel's right to exist and categorically renounces terrorism", that Israeli settlements were "illegal under international law", and that Singapore would impose targeted sanctions on leaders of violent settler groups, calling this "a significant change". He said Singapore would reconsider its position on recognition if "Israel takes further steps to extinguish a two-State solution".[5] On 21 November 2025 Singapore imposed financial sanctions and entry bans on four Israelis "for their involvement in acts of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank": Meir Mordechai Ettinger, Elisha Yered, Ben-Zion Gopstein and Baruch Marzel.[6]
Military ties
In October 1965, soon after independence, the defence minister Goh Keng Swee secretly received a senior Israeli officer, Major-General Rehavam Ze'evi, after Egypt and India, which Singapore had also asked, had not offered help. Ze'evi's team wrote "The Brown Book", a plan for a conscript citizen army led by a small regular force, and the two governments signed a one-page agreement under which "Israel" provided defence advisers, who were called "Mexicans" to disguise their presence. The account appears in Beating the Odds Together: 50 Years of Singapore-Israel Ties (2019), a book published by the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore.[2] According to an account published by Mothership, seven advisers led by Colonel Yaakov "Jack" Elazari arrived in November 1965 and chose the site of the Singapore Armed Forces Training Institute (SAFTI) at Pasir Laba, which was built to plans from the Israeli Engineering Corps.[7]
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) records Israeli deliveries to Singapore from 1969 onwards. They include second-hand AMX-13 light tanks (1969), Gabriel anti-ship missiles, 155 mm guns and mortars in the 1970s, Barak-1 naval air-defence missiles in the 1990s, about 3,000 Spike anti-tank missiles since 2001 (partly made under licence in Singapore), Python and Derby air-to-air missiles, SPYDER air-defence systems, Hermes-450 and Heron drones, and airborne early-warning radars for four G-550 aircraft (2009–2011). Orders still open at the end of 2025 included Blue Spear anti-ship missiles and five Hermes-900 drones.[3]
Trade
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics reports that "Israel" imported goods worth $1,620.2 million from Singapore in 2025 (2024: $1,579.5 million) and exported goods worth $824.7 million to it (2024: $735.5 million).[8]
Political interference
UN voting
Singapore 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]
- Programme with Singapore's leaders, 2013. On 16 August 2013 Winston Choo sent Barak the programme for his visit in September, copied to the deputy director-general of the Middle East directorate at Singapore's foreign ministry. It included a call on the prime minister at the Istana and lunch hosted by the "2Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ms Grace Foo" on 9 September; a call on the chief executive of Temasek Holdings, Ho Ching, on 10 September; and a call on the defence minister, Ng Eng Hen, and lunch with the deputy prime minister, Teo Chee Hean, on 11 September. Choo wrote that a meeting with Lim Siong Guan of GIC could not be arranged because he would be overseas.[11]
- Ng Eng Hen on Yoram Oron, 2014. On 21 February 2014 Ng Eng Hen, writing in a message marked "Message Classification: Restricted", told Barak that he had "checked with GIC, as requested" about the Israeli venture capitalist Yoram Oron. He passed on GIC's assessment, which said that Oron's strengths included "access to good Israeli research (including military IP), extensive VC experience in Israel, and strong connections in government" and that he was "well connected in Singapore, since he created Vertex Israel (linked to Temasek)". Ng suggested approaching Temasek "for a more current read".[12]
Jeffrey Epstein
Documents released by the US Department of Justice in the Jeffrey Epstein files include the following.
- On 30 November 2010 Prince Andrew, signing as "The Duke", forwarded to Epstein the official visit reports for Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shenzhen from his trip to South East Asia the previous month, sent to him by his special adviser at Buckingham Palace.[13] His itinerary, which he had sent Epstein on 7 October 2010, had him in Singapore from 13 to 15 October.[14]
See also
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Indonesia
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Malaysia
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to the Philippines
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Thailand
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Vietnam
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Taiwan
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 World Jewish Congress, Community in Singapore worldjewishcongress.org, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Lim Min Zhang, New book details how Israel helped build up the SAF The Straits Times, 10 December 2019, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Arms Transfers Database SIPRI, trade register for Israel as supplier, 1950–2025, data generated 20 October 2026.
- ↑ Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Diplomatic Missions Abroad: Status of relations mfa.gov.il, archived 5 August 2011.
- ↑ Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Singapore), Ministerial Statements by Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Vivian Balakrishnan and Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Home Affairs Sim Ann on the Situation in the Middle East, 22 September 2025 mfa.gov.sg, 22 September 2025, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Singapore), Targeted Sanctions on Violent Israeli Settlers mfa.gov.sg, 21 November 2025, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ The first military advisors sent from Israel to S'pore were called 'Mexicans' in order to be discreet Mothership, January 2020, 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 from Winston Choo to Ehud Barak, "RE: A Visit", 16 August 2013, file
ehbarak1@gmail.com/Inbox!44/1 (282).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 Ng Eng Hen to Ehud Barak, "Yoram", 21 February 2014, file
ehbarak1@gmail.com/Inbox!38/1 (202).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 "The Duke" to Jeffrey Epstein, "Fw: South East Asia Visit Reports", 30 November 2010, EFTA00751685, US Department of Justice, Epstein Files release, Data Set 9, copy at tommycarstensen.com/epstein, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ Email from "The Duke" to Jeffrey Epstein, 7 October 2010, EFTA00755508, US Department of Justice, Epstein Files release, Data Set 9, copy at tommycarstensen.com/epstein, accessed 25 October 2026.