מצבות בבית הקברות היהודי בסורבאיה, אינדונזיה, 1980

Surabaya City

A port city on the island of Java, Indonesia.

Jews from the Netherlands settled in Surabaya after Indonesia became a Dutch colony. Jewish life flourished in Surabaya, thanks to the ‘Baghdadi" Jews - Jewish immigrants from the Middle East that settled in various parts of East Asia from late 18th century. The formal Jewish community consisted of a few hundred people and celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1948. In 1949, a house was purchased and converted into a synagogue. “The last vestige of one [of] Indonesia’s oldest and largest Jewish communities is now just a pile of rubble,” the Jakarta Globe wrote in June 2013. The Beth Shalom Synagogue in Surabaya, on Java, had been destroyed a month before. The synagogue, a Dutch-style building located in the middle of Surabaya's business district, dated back to the 19th century. Except for its mezuzah and the Stars of David carved on the doors, it looked like any other residential building in the neighborhood. It had been sealed off by Islamic hardliners in 2009, after becoming a focal point for anti-Israel protests.