Manille

Manila, capital of the Philippine archipelago, occupies a singular place in the geography of the Jewish diasporas, at once marginal and exemplary. Marginal, because the Jewish presence there was always numerically modest, never comparable to the great centers of Central Europe, the Levant, or the Maghreb. Exemplary, because this Far Eastern city became, on the eve of the Shoah, one of the few ports in the world to open its doors to Jews fleeing the Reich, when so many others were closing theirs.

The history of the Jews of Manila follows the ruptures of Philippine history itself: the long Spanish domination, marked by the Inquisition and exclusion; the transition to American tutelage after 1898; the experience of the autonomous Commonwealth; the Japanese occupation; then independence and relations with the State of Israel. At each stage, a tiny but cosmopolitan community—composed of Levantine Sephardim, Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe, Americans and, later, German-speaking refugees—managed to organize itself, build a synagogue, and find its place in a tropical Catholic society. The present work intends to retrace this trajectory by scrupulously distinguishing what the archive establishes, what tradition transmits, and what the historian must cautiously conjecture.

The lasting settlement of Jews in Manila belongs to the late modern era, but memory traces a diffuse presence back to the times of Spanish colonization. The archipelago, conquered in the name of Philip II and Christianized by the missionary orders, was subjected to the tribunal of the Inquisition, whose jurisdiction formally covered the Asian possessions. Within this framework, any open Jewish practice was impossible, and it is likely that the few conversos or New Christians present in the Manila galleon trade concealed all ties to their origins.

Historiography here has only fragmentary clues at its disposal: inquisitorial documentation and the records of transpacific trade allow glimpses, without clearly naming them, of individuals suspected of "Judaizing." No organized community could arise under this regime. This is why, in all honesty, the historian must treat this period as a threshold rather than a beginning: the true communal history of Manila begins only with the collapse of Spanish sovereignty. According to the available historical syntheses, structured Jewish presence remains nonexistent before the end of the nineteenth century [Encyclopaedia Judaica, "Philippines"].

The decisive turning point came in 1898, when the Spanish-American War transferred the archipelago to the United States. The first American Jews arrived in the islands in 1898, during the Spanish-American War. Soldiers, merchants, and officials from the North American mainland thus inaugurated an open Jewish presence, henceforth freed from inquisitorial prohibitions.

This first wave was followed by other contributions, shaping the composite character of the Manila community. A few years later, a number of Jewish families arrived from the Middle East, particularly from Turkey. These Levantine Sephardim, merchants and artisans, left a lasting ritual imprint on local religious life. In the aftermath of the First World War, many Jewish refugees arrived from Russia, seeking to escape discrimination. Thus, within the span of a single generation, Manila brought together a small but representative sample of nearly every branch of the diaspora.

Institutionalization quickly followed this growth. In 1922, the Jewish community organized formally, and in 1924 the first synagogue was consecrated in Manila — Temple Emil. A foundational edifice, Temple Emil — built thanks to the generosity of the Levy family and located on Taft Avenue — became the center of gravity of community life. In the early 1930s, the Jewish community of Manila numbered about 500 people. This figure, modest on a global scale, nonetheless represented a living and structured presence, endowed with its places of worship and its networks of solidarity.

The most celebrated chapter of Manila's Jewish history was written in the second half of the 1930s, when the rise of Nazism turned the refugee question into a planetary moral emergency. As Nazi power and persecution spread across Europe, many Filipinos grew concerned about the situation.

At the heart of this effort were the Frieder brothers, American cigar industrialists established in Manila, whose action combined financial resources with political access. In the 1930s, Alex Frieder, a wealthy cigar manufacturer in Manila, suggested to the President of the Philippines, Manuel L. Quezon, that the Philippines become a refuge for Jewish refugees from Europe. The endeavor unfolded as a network, mobilizing actors in the United States as well as within the American colonial administration. According to the chronology established by historians, the project involved the Refugee Economic Corporation of New York, affiliated with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Liebman, of the REC, made contact with American High Commissioner McNutt through mutual acquaintances, two brothers, Julius and Jacob Weiss. Senator Weiss wrote to McNutt on behalf of the REC, asking whether it would be possible to authorize one hundred families of German Jewish refugees to settle in the Philippines.

The result of this convergence of efforts was hailed as a moral exception. At a time when most nations were closing their doors to Jewish refugees, Quezon welcomed Jews, coming from Germany and Austria. These newcomers received a name that stayed with them: they became known as the "Manilaners." It is also recalled that the future American president Dwight Eisenhower, then a military adviser in Manila, was associated with the discussions; according to documentary sources, Eisenhower dated the offer to 1938 or 1939. The most commonly accepted estimate places the number of Jews thus saved at roughly 1,200 to 1,300 [United Nations, Permanent Mission of the Philippines].

Beyond diplomatic negotiations, the everyday experience of German-speaking refugees constitutes a dense memory, transmitted through testimonies, correspondence and family narratives. Torn away from Berlin, Vienna or Frankfurt, the Manilaners discovered a tropical metropolis, its overwhelming heat, its typhoons, its baroque Catholicism and its multiethnic society. For these physicians, jurists, musicians and merchants trained in the high culture of Central Europe, acclimatization was a challenge as material as it was spiritual.

The pre-existing community, gathered around Temple Emil, provided the foundation of the welcome: assistance with settlement, employment guarantees required by the American authorities, and religious support. Plans for agricultural settlement were considered, notably in the Marikina region and on the island of Mindanao, where a larger Jewish colony was envisioned — a design largely thwarted by administrative reluctance and the imminence of war [USHMM, collections]. According to the tradition passed down by the survivors, it was the melodies of the services, the warmth of the host families and the dignity of their Filipino president that remained the most vivid memories. These accounts, gathered belatedly, belong more to living memory than to the ledger of the archive, and it is on that account that they appear here under the seal of transmission [Asian Jewish Life, "Manila Memories"].

The respite that Manila offered was short-lived. The Japanese invasion of December 1941 and the occupation that followed plunged the archipelago into violence, and the Jewish community shared the fate of the entire civilian population. A tragic paradox: refugees from Nazi Germany found themselves under the authority of a power allied with the Reich. Yet, contrary to what one might have feared, the Japanese occupiers did not apply a policy of racial extermination to the Jews of Manila, most often treating them according to their nationality — which placed German nationals, even Jewish ones, in an ambiguous position.

The most deadly ordeal came, paradoxically, from liberation: the Battle of Manila, in February and March 1945, was one of the most destructive of the Pacific War. Temple Emil and numerous communal properties were damaged or destroyed in the fighting and the fires that ravaged the city. Members of the community perished in the fury of the bombardments and massacres that accompanied the reconquest. In the absence of a detailed census of specifically Jewish losses, the historian must present this toll as plausible rather than precisely quantified, while emphasizing that the community emerged from the war deeply scarred and scattered [Encyclopaedia Judaica, "Philippines"; World Jewish Congress].

The post-war period saw the community reconstitute itself, while shrinking through emigration to the United States, Australia, and Palestine, then Israel. On the diplomatic front, the Philippines, which became independent in 1946, played a remarkable role in the birth of the Jewish State. On November 29, 1947, the Philippines was the only Asian nation to support the partition resolution at the United Nations, creating a Jewish State in Palestine. This vote, faithful to the spirit of hospitality embodied by Quezon, sealed a lasting bond. Israel and the Philippines established full diplomatic relations in 1957, and embassies were opened in Tel Aviv and Manila in 1962.

Religious life, for its part, experienced an institutional revival in the following decades. In 1983, a new synagogue was erected in Manila, which holds weekly services, maintains a mikveh, and runs a Sunday school. This liturgical continuity preserved the Sephardic imprint of the Levantine founders: services follow the traditions and melodies of the Syrian-Sephardic communities. The community also acquired the essential ritual functions, since it has a full-time rabbi who serves as mohel and shochet for the community. The unifying body remains, to this day, the Jewish Association of the Philippines, the community organization of Manila.

The Jewish history of Manila rests on a luminous paradox: a community of a few hundred souls, lost in a Far Eastern archipelago, entered universal memory for having been, in the darkest hour of the twentieth century, a refuge. What the great states refused, a poor and still semi-sovereign nation granted. The figure of Manuel Quezon, the initiative of the Frieder brothers, and the identity of the "Manilaners" compose a narrative that far exceeds the numerical importance of the community.

From forced clandestinity under the Spanish Inquisition to the diplomatic recognition of Israel, from the Turkish merchants of the early century to the Viennese refugees of the 1930s, the Manila trajectory illustrates the capacity of diasporas to recompose themselves on the margins of the world. Today diminished but alive, faithful to its Sephardic melodies and to its memory of hospitality, the Jewish community of Manila remains the discreet witness of a moment when an Asian city knew how to open its doors. It is this lesson, as much historical as moral, that the present volume has sought to transmit.