Ben Frank - Scattered Tribe: Traveling the Diaspora from Cuba to India to Tahiti & Beyond

Ben Franks guides transcend the genre of travel books that crowd bookcases with facts and figures... his books have emerged as deep insights into places, cultures, histories through the voices of those who live therestewards of tradition, caretakers of the present and the future. His interviews weave Jewish communitieswho share concerns and joys common to many of us into the global community thus shrinking the distance among all travelers...

Maria Lisella, author of Amore on Hope Street and Two Naked Feet, contributor to FOXNews.com and other travel outlets

Ben Frank provides a fascinating, varied account of modern Jewish life across the globe. I learned something new on every page, and enjoyed the book immensely.

Martin Fletcher, former NBC News Middle East correspondent and Tel Aviv Bureau chief, is the author of Walking Israel:

A Personal Search for the Soul of a Nation, Breaking News, and The List.

Whenever Ben Frank writes a new book on the pulsating and multidimensional Jewish world, its cause for celebration. The Scattered Tribe proves the point yet again. Bravo!

David Harris, Executive Director of the American Jewish Committee

A fascinating ode to a resilient people. Ben Frank reveals the road less traveled, following members of the tribe who have made lives for themselves in some of the most surprising and far-flung places around the globe.

Pat Farnack, WCBS Radio

Copyright 2012 Ben G. Frank

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to Globe Pequot Press, Attn: Rights and Permissions Department, P.O. Box 480, Guilford, CT 06437.

Text design by Sheryl P. Kober

All photos courtesy of Ben G. Frank and Riva Frank unless otherwise noted.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Frank, Ben G.

The scattered tribe : traveling the Diaspora from Cuba to India to Tahiti & beyond / Ben G. Frank.

p.cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-7627-7033-5

1. Jewish diasporaMiscellanea. 2. Frank, Ben G.Travel. 3. JewsTravelGuidebooks. 4. TourismReligious aspectsJudaism. I. Title.

DS134.F73 2012

305.892'4dc23

2011028780

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my lovely wife Riva And to our children and grandchildren

It was the Biblical Abraham, the ancestor of the Jewish people, who set a precedent and pattern for his descendants as the first monotheist to believe in one universal God. Abraham understood that he could travel anywhere, for his God would always be with him. Those who believed in local gods feared to travel outside the jurisdiction of those deities. Hence, Jews, the descendants of Abraham, became great travelers.

Travel books make for great reading, and there are wonderful collections of pioneering Jewish travelers tales in both Hebrew and English. The wise Jewish traveler was indeed universal in outlook, and accurately reported in detail about the particular region visited, adding descriptions of Jewish sites, Jewish community, and the Jewish situation in that area.

Among Jewish travelers, we may include those who collected funds for Jewish schools and the Jewish poor living in the homeland, Israel, along with those who sailed as far away as Australia, leaving behind valuable diaries.

Sir Marc Aurel Stein pioneered the exploration, history and archaeology of the Silk Road in the 1900s and found the oldest Hebrew manuscript on paper in Dandan-Uiliq, near the Chinese-Tibetan border. He wrote many precious volumes that continue to inspire readers.

Benjamin of Tudela, who lived in the twelfth century, is perhaps the most famous and best-known among the Jewish travelers and even today is widely read and quoted.

Sir Matthew Nathan, distinguished Jewish governor of Hong Kong during the early 1900s, delivered a magnificent lecture on the history of Jewish travel. Elkan Nathan Adler (18611946) collected many diaries and reports which were published under the title, Jewish Travellers. Pedro Teix-eira, a marrano (secret Jew), was the first to circumnavigate the globe, and left us a valuable record of his journey. He returned to his ancestral faith when he finally reached safety.

Another probable marrano was Ferno Mendes Pinto, the first to describe the unique ceremonies of Japan in the 1500s. We even have the fascinating and magnificent diary of Jacob dAncona, who visited China before Marco Polo, but alas, it is a forgery. And recently, Raphael Patai published a most informative and enlightening book called The Children of Noah: Jewish Seafaring in Ancient Times.

We must now add the current volume, The Scattered Tribe: Traveling the Diaspora from Cuba to India to Tahiti & Beyond, to the impressive list of Jewish travelers accounts.

The reader will be fascinated by reports of a Yiddish-speaking Jewish region of Siberia, where the sign at the Trans-Siberian Railway station is written in Yiddish, and even today, all signs on government buildings are in Yiddish. Who would believe there was a Jewish king of a principality in India where the original copper plates, etched in Tamil, can still be found in a historic synagogue? And who could imagine that Jews lived in the interior of Indiawithout contact with other Jewsfor about two thousand years, and survived successfully?

We all owe a great debt to Ben G. Frank for adding the Eastern world to our Jewish itinerary and agenda. He walks in the footsteps of the many great Jewish travelers before him, recording his travels with a keen eye and an inquisitive mind. Each country, city, and community he describes will open your eyes to the previously unknown Jewish experience in the Eastern world.

Your mind and your eye will enjoy reading this volume!

Rabbi Marvin Tokayer

Great Neck, New York

July 2011

In every journey, no matter how curious and how adventurous journalists or travel writers might be, they need a road map, a signpost, good guides as well as people on the ground who are knowledgeable, trustworthy and informative. I have had those kind, patient and helpful souls.

Five dear friends and colleagues, make up the core of my experts for The Scattered Tribe:Traveling the Diaspora from Cuba to India to Tahiti & Beyond, who advised, consented, and were not afraid to criticize and get me back on the path when I willingly or innocently strayed off course. Rabbi Marvin Tokayer, scholar, author of The Fugu Plan: The Untold Story of the Japanese and the Jews During World War Two, and former Rabbi of the Jewish Community of Japan who advised me on India,Vietnam and Myanmar; Robert Leiter, literary editor of the Jewish Exponent, Philadelphia; Raphael Rothstein, National Public Relations Director of Israel Bonds; Amir Shaviv, JDCs assistant executive vice president for special operations; and Ruth Rich, travel consultant, New York City.

I also was able to move freely about the countries of the diaspora and interview many informative, knowledgeable men and women in each nation because of the following people, both in the U.S. and abroad, who helped me paint an accurate portrait of these exotic Jewish communities.