Almost Englishmen: Baghdadi Jews in British Burma

Cernea, Ruth Fredman

ISBN 10: 0739116479 / ISBN 13: 9780739116470

Published by Lexington Books, 2006

May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.75. Seller Inventory # G0739116479I4N00

Synopsis:

Before the Second World War, two golden _promised lands_ beckoned the thousands of Baghdadi Jews who lived in Southeast Asia: the British Empire, on which _the sun never set,_ and the promised land of their religious tradition, Jerusalem. Almost Englishmen studies the less wellknown of these destinations. The book combines history and cultural studies to look into a significant yet relatively unknown period, analyzing to full effect the way Anglo culture transformed the immigrant Bagdhadi Jews.

Review: This newly published volume is a delight: an easy read offering a fascinating account of the lives and times of the small but significant Jewish community--numbering some 2,100 at their peak--of Baghdadi origin in Burma (Myanmar) during and immediately after the Raj. It is illustrated with evocative photos and inventories of community members and their subsequent emigration details.--David Simon "Hadashot "

The author has done a service to Jewish studies by this engagingly written book, documenting a community that has largely disappeared. She has also done a service to the descendants of the people described, who are enabled through this book to recognize their ancestral roots.--Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal Of Jewish Studies

Well-written with hardly a trace of politically-correct jargon or formulaic social-science talk . . . quite literary in its style. . . . [Cernea] seems to write . . . for general readers as well as the people it directly concerns.--Asian Journal of Social Science

Almost Englishmen offers a painstaking record of the rise, flourishing, and slow death of the prosperous community of Baghdadi Jews in Burma (today's Myanmar.) With the keen eye and sympathetic ear of the anthropologist, Cernea has gathered the memories and contemporary impressions of a lost world of merchants at once devoted to tradition and enchanted by the cosmopolitan modernity of British India.--H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews Online

The book is of interest to academics as well as non-academics who are personally committed to the history of the Jewish diaspora in South(East)-Asia. . . .Cernea's analysis provides material for comparative anthropological as well as sociological and political research which is concerned with the establishment of religious minorities abroad. It offers a contribution to the analysis of international migratory movements in terms of patterns of assimilation, and the socio-political role and rights of religious minorities within the contexts of statehood and citizenship before and after colonialism.--Allegra Lab: Anthropology, Law, Art & World

Bibliographic Details

Title: Almost Englishmen: Baghdadi Jews in British ...
Publisher: Lexington Books
Publication Date: 2006
Binding: Paperback
Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket