Indonesia, formerly Dutch East Indies

INDONESIA - THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

"Descendants of Iraqi Jews who came to Indonesia more than a century ago to trade spices still live and practice in Surabaya in the eastern half of the densely populated (and almost exclusively Muslim) island of Java. Their Jewish traditions are primarily ancient in origin (the Sabbath before Yom Kippur, for example, the community leader slaughters a chicken and swings it around the synagogue courtyard to dispel the community's sins), though Dutch Jewish traders from the 18th and 19th centuries introduced them to some European Rabbinical teachings."
Source: http://www.mindspring.com/~jaypsand/dispersed.htm [January 2002]

REFERENCE: Justin Corfield. Java: British and Empire Graves . BACSA: London, 1998. {SIC: "submitted as forthcoming" in 1998. No information about the books publication has been submitted as of December 2000]

http://www.haruth.com/AsianIndia.html [October 2000]

Also click on Indonesia at http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/comm_asia.html [August 2005]