History of the Jews in the Philippines

The first permanent settlement of Jews in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial years began with the arrival of three Levy brothers from Alsace-Lorraine,[3] who were escaping the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870.

[2] The Levy brothers were subsequently joined by Turkish, Syrian,[1] and Egyptian Jews, creating a multi-ethnic Jewish population of about fifty individuals by the end of the Spanish period.

It was not until the Spanish–American War at the end of the 19th century, when the United States took control of the islands from Spain in 1898, that the Jewish community was allowed to officially organize and openly practice Judaism.

Economic prosperity, along with a high level of societal interaction, apparently precluded the need for strong Jewish institutions.

[9] These Jews had already been deprived of their German citizenship, and the Gestapo presence that was taking root in Japanese areas threatened Jewish existence in Shanghai as well.

The mechanics of the refugee rescue plan in Manila involved many different people and agencies in the Philippines, the United States, and in Germany.

In 1938, Emilio Aguinaldo was quoted to hold antisemitic beliefs in his opposition to Quezon's plan to shelter Jews in the Philippines.

[12] For the refugees who did manage to settle in the Philippines, the JRC organised committees to aid in finding employment and new homes for them in Manila.

[citation needed] An ironic turn of events occurred when all rescue plans halted with the invasion and occupation of the Philippines during WWII.

This once American-dominated Jewish community that had saved the lives of well over 1,300 European Jews from probable extermination in the Holocaust, faced an unexpected persecution of its own.

Having spent five years freeing hundreds of German Jews from Nazi oppression, the Manila American Jewish community now faced its own incarceration.

While inmates at STIC battled malnutrition, disease, and exposure, residents of Manila tried to adapt to life under Japanese occupation.

Houses and businesses were searched and seized without warning, providing lodging for the Japanese forces while making their owners jobless and homeless.

Japanese penalties for violations of imposed civilian restrictions were both swift and brutal, administered through beatings, hangings, imprisonment, starvation, torture, and executions.

In January 1943, antisemitic propaganda targeted the non-interned German Jews, as Japanese leaders began to be influenced by their Nazi allies.

[14] Dozens of incidents of German Jews, along with other civilians suffering at the hands of the Japanese during these years of occupation, illustrate the horror of the time.

But the destruction was so widespread that nearly all of the refugees and their American and British benefactors left the Philippines and the community membership had decreased by 30% by the end of 1946.

[citation needed] There are, of course, other Jews elsewhere in the country, like the Bagelboys of Subic and Angeles City[2] but these are obviously fewer and almost all transients,[16] either diplomats or business envoys, and their existence is almost totally unknown in mainstream society.