History of the Jews in Malaysia
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| Unknown | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Negeri Sembilan | |
| Languages | |
| English, Malay, Hebrew, Persian, Arabic, Portuguese, Malayalam | |
| Religion | |
| Judaism |
Malaysian Jews are Jews living in Malaysia, or those originally from the country. The state of Penang was once home to a Jewish community, until the latter part of the 1970s, by which time most had emigrated due to growing state-sanctioned antisemitism. They were also found elsewhere in the nation, especially in Negeri Sembilan and Malacca. Indications of the growing racial and religious hostility in the nation has caused many Malaysian Jews to leave or flee the country. The Malaysian Jewish community consists of Jews of Sephardic origin who live amongst the Kristang people (Malacca-Portuguese),Mizrahi Jews (the majority of whom are Baghdadi Jews), Malabar Jews and Ashkenazi Jews.
The first contact between Jews and the inhabitants of Malaya (later part of Malaysia) came in the 9th century AD on the riverbanks of the Bujang Valley. Jewish Malaysians could be found well into the 18th century in the cosmopolitan bazaars of Malacca. Malacca was the first and largest Jewish settlement in Malaysian Jewish history. The arrival of Baghdadi Jews in Penang probably occurred at the turn of the 19th century as the fledgling British-ruled entrepot grew and attracted Jewish trading families such as the Sassoons and Meyers from India. There was also significant emigration of Jews from the Ottoman province of Baghdad as a result of the persecutions of the governor, Dawud Pasha, whose rule lasted from 1817 to 1831.
The first Baghdadi Jew known by name to have settled in Penang was Ezekiel Aaron Manasseh, who emigrated from Baghdad in 1895. Menasseh claimed to have been the only practising Jew in Malaya for 30 years until after World War I, when a significant number of Baghdadi Jews began to settle in Malaya. Statistics from the same period showed a somewhat different picture:
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