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Getting into Myanmar: Jews work to funnel aid to cyclone victims

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Message: If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/34946/full/34946/getting-into-myanmar-jews-work-to-funnel-aid-to-cyclone-victims/ Getting into Myanmar: Jews work to funnel aid to cyclone victims Friday, May 16, 2008 | by jacob berkman The Starbucks on 50th Street and Second Avenue in Manhattan is a world away from the gruesome mayhem in Myanmar. But as Sammy Samuels sips on a $4 coffee, his thoughts are with his family in the ravaged country’s capital. His is one of only eight Jewish families in Yangon. Samuels is heading there this week to deliver suitcases of water purification tablets and medicine. When he arrives, the fourth-generation Burmese will become one of the few Westerners to bring aid into Myanmar, where an estimated 1.5 million people have been severely affected by the cyclone that ripped through the country May 3. Cyclone Nargis killed anywhere between 30,000, the number given by the country’s military rulers, and 100,000, the estimate provided by human rights groups. With the Burmese left without homes, food, water and basic medical supplies, the United Nations is warning that the situation could spiral out of control. Yet even as worldwide pressure is mounting on Yangon to admit aid from Western countries, and even though Thailand is becoming a staging ground for what could be the largest U.S. aid effort since the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia, the military junta has refused to allow in aid workers from the West. Only Westerners with Burmese citizenship are being allowed into the country. Aid groups, including a number of Jewish groups trying to mobilize, are waiting to help but are handcuffed. Along with the water purification tablets, Samuels will bring cash to buy a generator for Yangon’s only synagogue and to help repair the 110-year-old temple’s roof and windows, which were destroyed during the cyclone. When the Samuels family moved to Burma about 80 years ago from Iraq to pursue business interests in the rice and teakwood trade, the Jewish community numbered in the thousands. Most Burmese Jews fled to Japan during World War II. The rest left when the military seized power in 1962 and nationalized many of the businesses. (The military changed the name of the country from Burma to Myanmar in 1989, and the capital from Rangoon to Yangon.) Samuels’ family stayed and watched as the community dwindled to about 20. Four are in his family — his father, Moses; his mother, Nelly; and his two sisters, Kazna, 29, and Dina, 31. Along with the Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue, Yangon has a Jewish cemetery. Moses Samuels, who runs a travel agency that arranges Jewish tours of Myanmar, serves as the de facto caretaker for both. The beautiful brick synagogue features a two-tiered sanctuary — the men sit downstairs and the women in the balcony — but few worshipers attend services. Samuels recalls that as children, on sunny days he and his sisters would sit in the sanctuary and watch as a prism of light through the stained-glass windows would be cast over the area in front of the ark. Those windows were destroyed last week. Samuels moved to the United States in 2002 to attend Yeshiva University, from where he graduated in 2006 with a degree in international business, and to find a Jewish bride. In Myanmar, with only 15 Jews who are not family, that’s a difficult proposition. He heads the information technology department for the American Jewish Congress but remains close to his native country. Samuels plans to move back one day, hopefully when the economy develops. Perhaps then he could earn more than the $100 to $200 a month he estimates he would earn now. Samuels sends 10 percent of his salary to Myanmar to help keep up the synagogue and cemetery, which he estimates costs approximately $2,200 per month. But Samuels says he feels guilty about being in the United States while his family, friends and fellow Burmese suffer through the cyclone’s aftermath. His two-week trip is turning into a relief mission through the help of Scott Klepper, a business consultant in Utah. Klepper, 47, met Moses Samuels on a trip to Myanmar in March. Upon hearing about the cyclone, Klepper, an avid outdoorsman, remembered the water purification tablets he uses when hiking. He pulled out one, looked at the packaging and found the manufacturer, Wisconsin Pharmaceutical. Samuels called the company’s president, who offered to sell him the pills at cost and make a donation of 20 percent of the total sale to help Myanmar. Working with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and through a self-propelled email blast, Klepper had raised about $1,000 for the pills as of May 13. Samuels said the water purification tablets will go to help the general community, not just Jews. He also hopes the synagogue can be repaired quickly so it can take in those left homeless — Jews and non-Jews. Samuels’ mission is only part of what is a mounting Jewish response to the cyclone. The Joint has three staff members in some of the hardest hit areas of Myanmar. They entered the country on Israeli passports via Israel and through Thailand. In spite of its paranoia about the American government, Myanmar has good diplomatic relations with Israel. The Joint opened an online mailbox to raise money and will allocate whatever it raises to help Burmese citizens of all faiths. The United Jewish Communities and the North American Jewish federation system, as well as other groups, also will funnel money to the JDC mailbox. During the Indian Ocean tsunami four years ago, the system raised about $18 million for relief to help build infrastructure, schools, community centers and low-income housing, said the Joint executive director, Steve Schwager. As of May 13, the American Jewish World Service had raised about $60,000 to funnel to the 19 grassroots organizations it works with on the Thai-Burmese border. And B’nai B’rith International announced last week that it would allocate $10,000 to help the Israeli organization IsraAid send 10 relief workers, including paramedics, doctors and water specialists, to Myanmar. A team of Israeli volunteer doctors, nurses and water specialists from two Israeli nongovernmental organizations under the umbrella of The Israel Forum for International Humanitarian also arrived in the area May 8. It is expected to stay three weeks. But money has been slow to come in from the United States, according to Schwager. On May 8, a day after the Joint opened its mailbox, the organization had received about $50,000. On May 12, according to another senior staff member at the Joint, the number still had yet to reach $100,000. That staff member said the organization purchased a ton of bananas, rice and bottled water to ship into the region, and it was working with the Israeli Red Cross, the Magen David Adom, in getting medical workers into the region. The Joint expects the federation system appeal to slowly start funneling more money into the relief effort, Schwager said. Myanmar’s military junta is warier of foreign press than of aid workers, and it is hard to appeal for aid without being able to describe the situation on the ground. “The issue is that pictures are missing from the press,” Schwager said. “It is purely all about the pictures. “During the tsunami, it was about dead bodies in the streets and corpses not yet picked up. The folks in Myanmar are busy expelling reporters.” U.S. relief organizations are livid but not surprised by the junta’s actions. “The military regime is infamous for being extremely closed to international organizations and having very strict restrictions,” said an AJWS spokesperson who asked not to be identified. “They are one of the most egregious human rights violators in the world. It is a very difficult place to work for international groups. “The situation now in Rangoon illustrates that the military government has no responsibility toward its citizens.”

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