… Before I came to Bangkok, I e-mailed the rabbi at Chabad House and asked him for help to reserve a hotel room. He e-mailed me back, confirming my reservation at the Viengtai Hotel across the street,” she says.

Historians of Siam say the first synagogue was already established by Jewish merchants in Ayutthaya in 1601. Britain’s East India Company employed a Jewish interpreter here in 1683.  Russian Jews fled to Bangkok from the Soviet Union in the 1920s, boosted by 120 German Jews who escaped the Nazis in the 1930s.

Israelis mostly began arriving in the 1970s, attracted to Bangkok’s gem and jewelry trade, while others sought to advise the Thai government about methods of dry agriculture, security and other issues.
In 1972, four Arab “Black September Ali Taha Group” gunmen invaded the Israeli Embassy in Bangkok, denounced the “Zionist occupation of Palestine” and seized six hostages. After negotiations, the hostages were released and the siege ended peacefully. The guerrillas were given safe passage to Egypt, flying out on a Thai International plane.

See the full article from “Chabad Info”




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