Translations of antisemitism: Jews, the Chinese, and violence in colonial and post-colonial Indonesia

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Notes

Clive Sinclair, quoted in Gilman (1991: 242).

While I was formulating this project in 1998 I was fortunate to have both Benedict Anderson and James Siegel read and comment on my original proposal, titled ‘Translations of antisemitism: violence and minorities in Indonesia’. Professor Siegel similarly engages many of my proposal's sources and themes (including the Jewish-Chinese connections) in his fascinating and inspired article, ‘Kiblat and the Mediatic Jew,’ Siegel (2000). Preliminary research in Indonesia in 1999 was funded by a grant from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. Open lectures on Judaism at the State Islamic University in Jakarta and the Institut DIAN/Interfidei in Yogyakarta in 1999 and 2000 further helped me to refine my ideas. A version of this paper was given with the panel Hidden Forces: Lost Histories of the Netherlands East Indies at the AAS Annual Meeting, San Diego, 12 March 2000. While doing research Michael Leifer and Moshe Yegar generously provided materials and suggestions from afar, and Dadi Darmadi, Guy Sharett and Daniel Ziv helped with contacts and concepts in Jakarta. While in Berkeley correspondence with Joan Bieder, Raimy Che-Ross, Matthew Cohen, Djoko Pitono Hadiputro, Margaret Kartomi, Didi Kwartanada, and Arjan Onderdenwijngaard has been essential in thinking through this often elusive topic. Marianne Dacy of the Archive of Australian Judaica, University of Sydney, deserves my deepest gratitude for making the Hirsch Munz Collection accessible to me from Berkeley. Most of all the friendship and guidance of the historian Langgeng Sulistyo Budi of the National Archive in Jakarta made the research not just possible, but a pleasure.

A novel by Saidi (1996) illustrates his claims, tracing this network of Theosophical Jews from the colonial era through the late 1970s, in the form of a hounded romance between a Jewish woman and Indonesian Islamic activist.

For analyses of these journals see Liddle (1996) and Hefner (1997). Neither article historicises the context of Islamic antisemitism beyond the 1970s.

This monthly newspaper was first published in Padang, and later moved to Bandung. It only closed in 1942 with the Japanese occupation.

David Mussry, the scion of the Jakarta community, and Rivka Sayers, who tended the synagogue in Surabaya, have reportedly both emigrated to America.

Singaporean Jewry's ties to Penang, Batavia, and Surabaya are discussed in Nathan (1986: 171–77).

See Lubavitch (1992). Of course, the community was hardly as deteriorated as the Lubavitchers claimed, and their visit is today largely forgotten.

Interview with Rivka Sayers at the Synagogue in Surabaya (Jl. Kayoon 4–6). Under intense criticism the President backed down from an early promise to create ties with Israel, and so the throngs of young Israeli tourists never materialised. It should be noted that group tours from Israel do visit two Indonesian sites: Bali and Tanah Toraja.

James T. Siegel also has a stake in reaffirming the invisibility and insignificance of the Jews who live in Indonesia. He asserts: ‘Practically speaking, there are no Jews in Indonesia’ [p. 9], continuing, ‘As soon as the Jew appears in Indonesia he disappears’ [footnote 36 p. 25] and concluding, ‘It is not altogether surprising to find anti-Semitism without Jews’ [p. 40]. Siegel (2000).

The date of Saphir's visit to Batavia has been confirmed by L.F. Brakel (1975: 88–89).

Preliminary translation with Yeheshva Shay Sayer, April 2003. Further translation advice from Paul Hamburg, April 2004.

EI 1.3: p 1, 8 Nov '26. On this Lodge see Gedenkboek (1917).

And in 1930 the sub-category of Jews made its appearance among Europeans in the colonial census. I am indebted to Siddharth Chandra for bringing this to my attention. Census data is appended to this essay.

The National Library in Jakarta's collection is more extensive, with issues through 1942. I have not had a chance to review these additional issues.

Hirsch Munz Collection, box 3 folder 4.

Mussry claims he has publicly taken on the role of ‘Indonesian Jew’ in an article in the Jerusalem Report, and has asked me to correct the Report's miscasting of him as a victim of Indonesian anti-Semitism. There is no anti-Semitism directed against the Indonesian Jewish community, he says. See Shanson (1993: 32). While the Mussry name is mentioned in the article he is not the focus of it.

It is also possible that he meant Dutch ‘subject’ rather than citizen – an honour extended to the ‘foreign Asiatic’ residents of the Indies. After the Revolution, these subjects were offered citizenship; to a young boy this might have been confusing. As ‘Baghdadis’ the Mussrys would likely have been classified as Arab Foreign Asiatics, see Fasseur (1994).

On this community see Sarkissian (1987). Incidentally, one foreign observer of the Armenian massacres had just completed his colonial tour as Assistant Resident in West Sumatra, see Westenenk (1986).

The Japanese were equally uncertain in their policy towards the Indo-European community. See Touwen-Bouwsma (1997).

Interview with de Vries, now Xaviera Hollander, in Berkeley, 13 June 2002.

In a now legendary story we know that it was Benda's prison conversations with another interred Jew, William Wertheim, that convinced him to become an academic.

‘Hakko Ichiu’ is probably better translated as ‘unity’ than family values.

‘Judaisme’ appeared in Media Dakwah and Saidi (1993: 85–98). Ratu Langie's was not the first Indonesian text on Jews; see the benign Langevoort (1894).

A likely place in which to find Dutch colonial anti-Semitism would be the publications of the Vaderlandsche Club. As discussed above, this organisation was a leading donor to the Dutch Nazi party. Vaderlandsche (1929), Statuten (1933).

The letter lists a board of eight, and is signed by F. Dias Santilhano (head) and I. Khazam (scribe). ANRI (1953).

From a message posted on Edward Aspinall's e-mail list, 27 Apr 2004, ‘Subject: [I-Discussion] Arief Budiman: Gestapu dan Gestok.’

See the documents pertaining to ‘Nawaksara’ collected in Alex Dinuth, Dokumen Terpilih sekitar G.30.S/PKI, Jakarta: Intermasa, 1997.

‘Waktu itu kita mengadakan pertemuan, sih, diskusi berapa kali, bagaimana cara … kita mempelajari bagaimana Hitler, itu, ‘Mein Kampf’-nya Hitler … Kita mempelajari teori Hitler, buku Hitler yang terkenal namanya ‘Mein Kampf’ … itu teori bagaimana membawa kekuasaan, kekuatan. Jadi bagaimana Hitler membangun kekuatan Nazi menjadi bisa berkuasa. Kita berpendapat, karena komunis terlalunya ‘begitu’ di Indonesia, maka kita harus menghadapinya dengan ‘begitu’ pula. Ah, disitulah kita mendirikan Banser. Banser ini, itu di Mein Kampfnya Hitler itu, kita pelajari bagaimana kita membangun kekuatan masyarakat, untuk menghadapi kekuatan yang mengancam. Jadi sebenarnya Banser itu soalnya hampir sama dengan Hitler Jonker.’ From my interview with Yusuf Hasyim, 19 August 1999. I was not fishing for this information; the interview was for a different project, and about the killings in East Java 1965–66.

Not my translation.

One article analyses the creation of a ‘myth of the Jewish Islamic interfaith utopia’ by 19th-century European Jewish intellectuals exasperated by the failure to assimilate in Europe. Cohen (1996: 50).

Amin Sweeney has traced a sinicised Protocols in Malaysia, Sweeney (1999).

I thank David Hirsch for an updated report on the synagogue. See too the essay by Kurlantzick (2004).