East Asian Jewry - Korea

Korea

Main article: History of the Jews in South Korea

The Jewish presence in South Korea effectively began with the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. At this time a large number of Jewish soldiers, including the chaplain Chaim Potok, came to the Korean peninsula. Today the Jewish community is very small and limited to the Seoul metropolitan area. There have been very few Korean converts to Judaism. In North Korea however, the presence of a Jewish community remains unknown, as this country is openly hostile towards Israel.