History of the Jews in Mongolia

Mongolia’s Jewish population has included Siberian merchants, refugees from Russia, Soviet civilian and military specialists, and, more recently, Israeli businesspeople and other expatriates.[1][2] Trade brought the earliest settlers, while persecution and civil-war violence drove later arrivals from Russia.[1] Religious restrictions, intermarriage, and emigration subsequently reduced the community, whose contemporary members are often temporary residents.[1]

There are no official statistics for the current Jewish population, and community leader Sumati Luvsandendev estimated that “there are enough fingers on two hands to count all Jews who live [in Mongolia].”[1] The present-day community is concentrated in Ulaanbaatar, and many members reside in Mongolia for business or commercial reasons.[1] Despite its small size, it maintains a community organization, regional Jewish affiliations, and occasional observances of the Jewish holidays.[1]

Jewish families from Siberia traded in Mongolia at the end of the nineteenth century, and some established homes there through their commercial activities.[2] Between 1918 and 1920, Russian Jews fleeing civil-war violence crossed Lake Baikal and settled in Outer Mongolia.[2] By 1920, a small community, almost entirely of Russian origin, had formed; some of its members had received Mongolian noble titles.[1] Its population included businesspeople and their families, political prisoners, and refugees from persecution and war.[3]

In 1921, White Russian forces retreating before Soviet forces killed most of the Russian Jews who had arrived between 1918 and 1920.[2] Forces led by Baron Ungern targeted Jews whom they suspected of pro-Communist sympathies.[3] Israel-Eli, also known as Alexander Zanzer, survived the violence after becoming influential in gold mining and receiving a Mongolian name and noble title from Bogd Khan.[3] He escaped to Lutsk, Poland, where he was later murdered in the Holocaust.[3]

A 2024 Jerusalem Post opinion article recounts that Ungern-Sternberg entered Mongolia beginning in October 1920 and made repeated attempts to capture Urga, which was then occupied by Chinese forces.[4] The article dates his capture of the city to February 4, 1921, following an attack begun in late January, and describes the ensuing violence as a targeted assault on Jews.[4] It quotes Ungern declaring that Jews were “not protected by any law” and ordering that neither men, women, nor their descendants should remain.[4]

The same article cites Urga resident and writer Dmitri Pershin’s estimate of at least 50 Jewish deaths, and recounts that he hid the Jewish dentist Gauer and his family before helping them escape.[4] It also describes an unsuccessful attempt by Prince Togtokh to shelter several Jews in his compound.[4] In the article’s account, the Red Army captured Ungern on August 20, 1921; he was tried on September 15, with Yemelyan Yaroslavsky serving as prosecutor, and executed that night.[4]

Jewish settlement resumed during the mid-1920s.[1] In 1925–26, a Russian-Jewish journalist encountered 50 newly settled Jewish families in a remote area of Outer Mongolia, approximately 200 miles from the Manchurian border.[2] These settlers were again largely Russian Jews seeking safety outside Russia.[1] The later community moved to Urga, now Ulaanbaatar, amid increasing Soviet activity in Outer Mongolia.[1]

Ulaan Bator had a community of 600 Russian Jews in 1926, including watchmakers, jewelers, barbers, furriers, and construction workers.[2] Growing Soviet influence prompted most to leave for Manchuria and elsewhere; those who remained worked for state enterprises.[2] During the same decade, Jews from Hailar in Manchuria visited seasonally to purchase furs and other domestic products without establishing permanent residence.[2]

As Mongolia became a Soviet satellite state, Judaism, along with other religions, was forbidden, and many Jewish families assimilated or intermarried with Mongolians.[1] Jewish civilian and military specialists from the Soviet Union also spent time in Mongolia during Communist rule.[2] Contact between Jews and Mongols produced mixed marriages, a pattern reinforced by Mongolians traveling to the Soviet Union for study and other activities.[2]

After Communist rule ended in Mongolia and the Soviet Union around 1991, several children of these mixed marriages immigrated to Israel.[2] Other Jews left Mongolia in search of better economic opportunities, including opportunities in Israel.[1] Israel and Mongolia established full diplomatic relations in 1991.[1]

Israeli businessman Yair Jacob Porat, who moved to Mongolia in 1996, organized Shabbat dinners and holiday celebrations and imported kosher staples for the small local community.[3] He estimated its size in single digits, and permanent Jewish residents included Israeli businesspeople and foreign aid workers.[3] Porat also located graves marked with Stars of David and Jewish names in Ulaanbaatar’s Russian-Orthodox cemetery.[3]

The Jewish Community of Mongolia is affiliated regionally with the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress.[1] Mongolia was among the countries whose Jewish communities were included when that congress formed in March 2002.[5] The Mongol-Jewish Cooperation, a Jewish interest group established in 2003, sought to encourage greater interest in Israel and Judaism within Mongolia.[1]

There are no resident rabbis, kosher food is rare, and community members gather occasionally for the High Holidays.[1] Aharon Wagner, chief rabbi of Irkutsk in Siberia, has supported Jewish religious life in Mongolia.[1] A 2017 Jerusalem Post opinion article described Jews among Mongolia’s expatriate and diplomatic communities but reported no Jewish community facilities at that time.[6] It identified Luvsandendev as a public-opinion pollster who represented Mongolian Jewry at the Euroasian Jewish Congress in 2003, and reported subsequent visits by Chabad and other Jewish organizations.[6]

Judaism is not officially recognized as a religion by the Mongolian government.[1] Nevertheless, Jewish representatives participated in an informal multifaith network that began in 2022, alongside representatives of Buddhism, Shamanism, Christianity, Islam, and the Baha’i Faith.[7] The network provided a setting for exchanging information and discussing shared challenges and concerns.[7]

The community’s ties to Israel include immigration by descendants of Jewish-Mongolian marriages, the residence of Israeli businesspeople in Mongolia, and organizations encouraging interest in Israel and Judaism.[1][2] These connections continued after the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1991, even as the resident Jewish population remained very small.[1]

In 2005, no Mongolian Jewish population was identified, resident foreign Jews were described as very few, and no antisemitic acts were reported.[8] The same broad picture appeared in 2006, when the resident Jewish population was again described as very small and no antisemitic acts were reported.[9] In 2020, there were likewise no reports of antisemitic acts; neo-Nazi groups active in Mongolia tended to target other Asian nationalities rather than Jews.[10] The 2023 human-rights report again described a very small Jewish population and recorded no antisemitic incidents.[11]

In July 2026, six young Israeli travelers were attacked at an isolated tent campground in northern Mongolia after an intoxicated Kazakh man reportedly heard them speaking Hebrew, shouted “Heil Hitler,” and charged at them with an axe.[12] One traveler suffered a broken jaw and was flown to Israel, while the others were also evacuated from Mongolia.[12] The travelers declined an offer to file a police complaint, and Mongolian authorities condemned the attack.[12] The report did not identify a formal finding concerning the attacker’s motive.[12]

Accounts differ over the scale and precise fate of the community during the violence of 1921: one describes deportation, another the killing of most recent Russian Jewish arrivals, and another a massacre with only one known survivor.[1][2] The latter account identifies that survivor as Zanzer, while the 2024 Jerusalem Post opinion article also recounts the escape of Gauer and his family.[3][4] Exact casualty totals and the full circumstances of individual survivors therefore remain unresolved in these accounts.[3][4]

Encyclopaedia Judaica’s Mongolia entry reports 600 Russian Jews in Ulaan Bator in 1926, while its China entry lists 800 Jews in Mongolia in the 1920s and says that 600 in Urga were killed or fled to China. The entries do not explain whether the figures refer to different dates, areas, or population categories.[13]

Porat believed that he had identified a mass grave of victims of the 1921 violence in Ulaanbaatar’s Russian-Orthodox cemetery, but this was his interpretation rather than a confirmed archaeological finding.[3]