The Jews of Burma (Myanmar)

Recently, I have had the opportunity to take another look at a most interesting family, the Battat family.  It was almost 6 years ago when I was first introduced to their history and I found it amazing. At that time I was given access to a collection of records that I called the records of the Battat Family of Iraq. This collection had histories and documents that traced the family through the lands of Persia, which is modern day Iran. Now, this same family is taking me on a journey to another area of the world, Burma.

The history of the Jews of Burma is much different than that of Iran, and it covers a much shorter time frame. The first Jew to be recorded in the records of Burma, was Solomon Gabirol, an 18th century commander in the army of King Alaungpaya, however the first group of Jews didn't start to arrive until the mid 1800's.
It was at this time that Jewish families like the Battat's, most of whom were from India and Baghdad, first started establishing communities in Burma. These groups, who were mostly merchants, established businesses dealing with cotton and rice trading, and prospered under the British rule in places such as Rangoon and Mandalay. It was during this time that the Jewish population peaked at around 2,500 people. However, this all changed in 1942.
With the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942, the Jewish community began to leave the country. With the Japanese and the Nazi's being allies it was not a place that the Jews felt comfortable being, so most fled to India. Later those who had stayed immigrated to Israel and the United States. The family of Ezekial Moses Battat and his wife Sally, had actually left even earlier, in 1931.

The family of 10 arrived in New York on 4 November 1931 on board the SS Olympic. At the time of the Petition for Naturalization in March of 1934, the family had established their new home in San Francisco, California. The 1940 United States Census (shown below) shows the births of the children all in Burma.

The Jewish population of Burma today is probably well under 100 people, but hopefully the traditions they established will now be carried on by the descendants of those families that once flourished there.

California, San Francisco Passenger Lists, 1893-1953

When looking for our ancestors in the United States, one of the first places we search are the passenger lists of arrivals. While many people first check ports such as New York, Philadelphia, Boston or New Orleans, there are other less researched ports.
One of these ports is San Francisco, which has just had over 900,000 of its images added to www.familysearch.org. The collection, California, San Francisco Passenger Lists, 1893-1953, contains some incredible information for researchers.
Using information I already knew,  I searched for Abraham Cohen, who was born in Constantinople, Turkey in 1870. He and his wife and 3 children arrived in San Francisco in the late 1920's. That information quickly led me to the Abraham Cohen I was looking for. The image below is the basic information provided at FamilySearch.

After verifying that this was the person I wanted, I was then able to look at the original passenger list by clicking on the view Image button on the lower right side. That image, shown below, gives great information on the family, and shows that they left Shanghai, China on 10 July 1929.

This collection is very easy to use and as always with FamilySearch is free of charge.

Adolph Sutro 24th Mayor of San Francisco and his family.

Adolph Heinrich Joseph Sutro (29 Apr 1830- 8 Aug 1898), was born in Aachen, Prussia the son of Emanuel and Rosa (Warendorff) Sutro. He was an educated man, with a background of engineering when he arrived in the United States in 1850.

Sutro had plans to drain water and gasses from the mine shafts of "The Comstock Lode" by building a tunnel through Mount Davidson to drain the water. He incorporated the project and over time made considerable money from the project. When he saw that modern technology would soon be able to out dig his equipment he sold out and moved to San Francisco.

Sutro invested his fortune in many projects in the San Francisco area, many of them remain today, and bear his name. His popularity led him to be asked to run for mayor. He won and served as the 24th mayor of San Fransisco from January of 1895 to January of 1897.

In the collection of records left by Malcolm Stern at United Hebrew College is a descendency chart of the Sutro family beginning with Abraham Sutro (grandfather of Adolph) and continuing down through almost 700 members of the family.

The records of that chart have now been added to The Knowles Collection- Jews of the Americas and will be available after the next update.