Sunday, June 28, 2009

Monument in Israel honors Filipinos

I never knew that the Philippines once opened it's doors, to Jewish refugees. Thanks to this Barrio Siete post. I wonder why this was never written in our elementary and high school textbooks?

Just recently, a monument honoring Pinoys was unveiled in Israel.

Cheers!

8 comments:

Panaderos said...

Hi. Got here through R-Yo the Islander's site.

Yes, the Philippines, through a decision by President Quezon, opened its doors to the Jews back in the 1930s as they were being expelled by the Nazis from Europe. Our country was one of the very few in the world who welcomed Jews at that time. Thus, to this day, the Israeli Embassy invites members of the Quezon family whenever it hosts special events or occasions.

I didn't know about this fact too until I visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC back in the late 1990s. They had a world map there that showed which countries in the 1930s welcomed Jews and one of those countries was ours.

Great site you have here. :-)

Ely said...

Hi Panaderos! Thanks for dropping by.

I'm in awe. LOL. I actually couldn't believe that I've never heard about this up until recently.

wanderingcommuter said...

wow this is very interesting indeed. uplifting na mabasa ito!

Dear Hiraya said...

ayos to ah? ngayon ko lang din nalaman ito..

Anonymous said...

i've never heard of this before. wow. *goose bumps* tiningnan ko rin yung website ng Embassy of Israel sa Manila and got the ff:

Through President Quezon’s open door policy in 1939, thousands of Jews escaped the Nazi horror and found refuge in the Philippines. The warm hospitality of the Filipino people undoubtedly shed light to one of the darkest and most difficult period in Jewish history. Fortunately, memoirs of such episodes were documented by Frank Ephraim, a Holocaust survivor himself, through his book “Escape to Manila.”

history lesson for the day, for all of us. haha.

thanks for sharing this. :)

Abaniko said...

My question is: how come we don't have a considerable number of Jews living with us in Pinas now? I hear they are the rich ones in America just like Chinese are in our country.

Non-sequitur ba? Hehe.

Ely said...

Abaniko, bumalik din sila after the war, cguro because the fact na WW2 na din sa atin 2 years later.

The Scud said...

great info! yan ang maganda sa mga blogs, dami mo natutunan.