History of the Jews in Cambodia

The available record does not establish a continuous, organized Cambodian Jewish community extending from the colonial era to the present. The earliest evidence concerns French Indochina as a region, while the clearest Cambodia-specific colonial account is the career of Suzanne Karpelès, a Jewish scholar who helped establish major Buddhist and library institutions in Phnom Penh.[1][2]

Journalistic accounts describe a small, informal Jewish presence in the mid-twentieth century, its disruption under the Khmer Rouge, and renewed Jewish activity beginning in the late 1990s.[3][4] The modern population largely consists of foreign residents and visitors rather than descendants of the earlier community. A 2024 U.S. Department of State report documented a small Jewish foreign-resident community in Phnom Penh.[5]

Jews began settling in French Indochina — the colonial territory encompassing modern Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos — during French colonization starting in the 1840s.[1] Available historical sources do not supply a separate founding date or population figure specifically for Cambodia; the community must be understood largely through regional accounts covering Indochina as a whole.

Population estimates for the eve of World War II illustrate the difficulty of reconstruction. The American Jewish Committee reported approximately 1,000 Jews spread across Hanoi, Saigon, Tourane, and Haiphong in 1940, while official French colonial documents counted only 140 individuals, including 18 children, across the entire territory.[1] The author of the principal scholarly account suggests the official figure may have referred to families rather than individuals, which would bring it closer to the American Jewish Committee's estimate.[1] Neither figure is Cambodia-specific.

The most prominent documented Jewish figure in colonial-era Cambodia was Suzanne Karpelès, a French scholar of Buddhism and Asian studies who arrived in Vietnam and Cambodia in 1923 as a member of l'École française d'Extrême-Orient.[2] In Cambodia she founded the Royal Khmer Library in 1925 and the Buddhist Institute of Phnom Penh in 1930, and she directed both institutions until 1941.[2] She also served as chief publications officer at l'École Supérieur d'Pali and promoted the use of printing for Buddhist texts.[2] Her career provides the clearest documented example of a Cambodia-specific Jewish presence in the available prewar sources.

The fall of France and the establishment of the Vichy regime extended antisemitic legislation into French Indochina. Restrictions barred Jews from a range of positions in public service, the military, teaching, the media, and finance; some Jewish property and bank accounts were seized.[1] Some Jews were able to continue running businesses after making payments to the colonial administration.[1] These measures were administered by the French colonial authorities; Japanese forces did not administer the anti-Jewish decrees.[1]

The most documented Cambodian case was that of Suzanne Karpelès, who was dismissed from her positions in 1941 under Vichy anti-Jewish measures.[2][1] Local colonial officials sometimes ignored the Vichy directives, but Karpelès's dismissal was carried out. The ruling was reversed in 1946.[2] The broader regional community, described in the scholarly record as having survived the war "virtually intact," largely emigrated to France following the end of hostilities in Europe in May 1945 and in the Pacific in August 1945.[1] The Jews who remained in Indochina mostly departed when France withdrew and the territory was divided in 1954.[1]

Accounts describe Jewish arrivals before Israel's establishment and, especially, during the 1950s and 1960s. Traders, diplomats, and businesspeople came primarily from France — including North African Jews who had emigrated there — as well as from other countries.[3] They were concentrated mainly in Phnom Penh and worked in textiles, diamonds, trade, and consulting.[3] They did not establish a large organized presence with synagogues, Jewish schools, or formal communal institutions.[3]

Diaries and testimonies from the period describe private Shabbat dinners and small holiday gatherings, with individuals and families maintaining Jewish identity through quiet, private practice rather than a prominent public communal life.[3] Some Jews integrated into Cambodian society and formed ties with local government.[3] The historical record from this era is thin, and the claims that can be made about the size and composition of the community are not accompanied by detailed population figures.

A 2025 journalistic account reports that the few Jews remaining when the Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975 were expelled or killed along with other foreigners during the 1975–1979 genocide, and that records or other traces of Jewish life were destroyed.[3][4] The account provides no names or estimate of the number of Jews affected. The Jewish Virtual Library states that Jews constituted approximately 0.1% of Cambodia's population when the Khmer Rouge came to power and that Pol Pot's forces sought out and killed Jews and other religious minorities because of their minority status, but it supplies no citation or methodology for that estimate.[6]

Jewish humanitarian organizations in the United States responded to the broader Cambodian catastrophe. Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum, serving as the American Jewish Committee's national interreligious affairs director and a member of the International Rescue Committee's Citizens Commission on Indochinese Refugees, participated in a February 1978 mission to refugee camps in Thailand, where approximately 15,000 Cambodian refugees had fled.[7]

An April 1978 memorandum in the Commission's files described the 191 Cambodians then eligible under a refugee admissions point system as a "pitifully low" number, explaining that Cambodians scored lower under that system than Lao or Hmong refugees.[7] The American Jewish Committee, the National Council of Jewish Women, and the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith were among organizations that supported the Commission's findings and advocated a long-term U.S. refugee policy with relaxed admission criteria for Cambodian refugees.[7]

Jewish presence in Cambodia began to revive in the late 1990s, though this renewal was not a return by descendants of earlier Jewish residents.[3] It was instead driven by a new wave of Chabad emissaries, Israeli and international Jewish businesspeople, and humanitarian workers attracted by business opportunities, development projects, or personal interest.[3]

Accounts differ over the founding of Phnom Penh's Chabad institution. The Jewish Virtual Library credits Israeli expatriate Dror Marcus with opening a Chabad house in 2008 after living in Cambodia for more than 20 years.[6] A 2025 Ynet account credits Rabbi Bentzion Butman and his wife, Mashi, with establishing the present Chabad center after spending approximately four years building relationships in the city before purchasing land and constructing its building.[3] The couple described their goal as creating an open, welcoming home for Jewish tourists, businesspeople, diplomats, and long-term residents.[3]

The Chabad center has become the focus of Jewish communal life in Cambodia, hosting a synagogue, Shabbat and holiday meals, Torah classes, children's activities, kosher food, and lodging.[4] It has hosted as many as 150 guests for a Shabbat dinner and up to 300 for a holiday evening.[3] A sign associated with the institution reads, "No Jew will be left behind."[6]

The present-day Jewish community is small and partly transient. The Jewish Virtual Library estimates that approximately 200 Jewish individuals live in Cambodia year-round, most in Phnom Penh. It separately estimates that 60–70 Jews live across some 20 countryside towns, without clarifying whether they are included in the national estimate.[6] It reports that Siem Reap is home to around 20 Jews, most working at the local hospital.[6] Israeli visitors come for business and extended travel, while Jewish residents from the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe have increasingly settled in Phnom Penh for longer periods.[4]

A 2024 U.S. Department of State report confirmed the existence of a small Jewish foreign-resident community in Phnom Penh and recorded no antisemitic incidents.[5] A later Ynet account reported Rabbi Butman's statement that antisemitism had been almost absent before October 7, 2023, but that plainclothes security personnel had subsequently been stationed around the Chabad building each day.[4]

Sustaining Jewish life at such a distance from major Jewish population centers presents ongoing challenges. Kosher products, religious books, and qualified teachers are difficult to obtain.[4] There is no Jewish school in Phnom Penh; Rabbi Butman and his wife teach their children in the mornings, and the children attend a Chabad-affiliated school online in the afternoons.[4] JewishGen's Cambodia directory lists a Chabad contact and a Jewish cemetery in Phnom Penh but provides no dates or historical context.[8] A 2025 Ynet account places the cemetery approximately 40 minutes from the Chabad center and reports that ten people were buried there at the time of publication.[4]

Beyond Suzanne Karpelès, the modern period has produced a notable story of Jewish life intersecting with Cambodian royal heritage. Elior Koroghli, an Orthodox Jew, is the great-granddaughter of Cambodian King Sisowath Monivong, who reigned from 1927 to 1941.[9] Her mother, Sathsowi Thay Koroghli, was raised Buddhist and converted to Judaism — first through the Conservative movement in 2003 and then through an Orthodox conversion nine years later.[9] The family held a bat mitzvah celebration for Elior in Phnom Penh, attended by Cambodian royal relatives, with kosher food arranged with the help of Rabbi Bentzion Butman.[9]

In Siem Reap, the Jewish Agency's Project TEN program opened its first Asian center in mid-2022, bringing young Jewish adults from around the world to work alongside local communities while engaging in dialogue about Jewish identity and values.[10] Volunteers worked in local schools each week, preparing activities for children, and celebrated Shabbat together at the center on weekends.[10]

The historical record of Jewish life in Cambodia is limited. Many claims about the pre-1975 community — including its size, composition, and fate under the Khmer Rouge — rest on diaries, testimonies, and later journalistic accounts rather than extensive Cambodia-specific archival documentation.[3][4] Population figures for Jews in French Indochina conflict between official colonial counts and American Jewish Committee estimates, and neither figure is Cambodia-specific.[1]

The Jewish Virtual Library's claim that Jews made up 0.1% of Cambodia's population when the Khmer Rouge took power is unaccompanied by a source or methodology.[6] Assertions that the remaining Jews were expelled or killed during the Khmer Rouge period and that records or traces of Jewish life were destroyed are broad claims that have not been quantified or independently corroborated in the gathered sources.[3][4]

Modern accounts also differ over the establishment of Phnom Penh's Chabad institution. The Jewish Virtual Library credits Dror Marcus with opening it in 2008, while Ynet credits Rabbi Bentzion Butman and his wife with establishing the present center roughly sixteen years before its 2025 report.[6][3] The available sources do not explain whether these accounts refer to separate stages or forms of the institution.