Religion in Vietnam - Judaism

Judaism

The first Jews to visit Vietnam likely arrived following the French colonization of the country, in the latter half of the 19th century. There are a handful of references to Jewish settlement in Saigon sprinkled through the pages of the Jewish Chronicle in the 1860s and 1870s.

As late as 1939, the estimated combined population of the Jewish communities of Haiphong, Hanoi, Saigon and Tourane in French Indo-China numbered approximately 1,000 individuals. In 1940 the anti-Semitic Vichy-France "Statute on Jews" was implemented in French Indo-China (Vietnam), leading to increased restrictions and widespread discrimination against Jews. The anti-Jewish laws were repealed in January 1945.

Prior to the French evacuation of Indochina in 1954, the Jewish population in Indochina (which encompassed Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) was reportedly 1,500; most of these Jews were said to have left with the French, leaving behind no organized Jewish communal structure. In 1971, about 12 French Jews still remained in South Vietnam, all in Saigon. In 2005, the U.S. State Department's "International Religious Freedom Report" noted "There were no reported anti-Semitic incidents during the period covered by this report. The country's small Jewish population is comprised almost entirely of expatriates."