{"id":239918,"date":"2024-11-21T01:29:16","date_gmt":"2024-11-20T19:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=239918"},"modified":"2025-08-08T17:12:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T11:42:06","slug":"sri-lankas-arugam-bay-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/sri-lankas-arugam-bay-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka’s Arugam Bay Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mark Salter<\/a> –<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Mark Salter<\/p><\/div>\n

Tisaranee Gunasekara\u2019s usually excellent writings are informed by a strong moral compass. In her recent examination of the Arugam Bay<\/a><\/span> controversy (Daily FT<\/i>, 6 Nov. 2024), however, that compass wobbles to the point of fracture.<\/p>\n

Some preliminaries. Her account of the often gruesome atrocities meted out by the Israeli IDF to civilians in Gaza, and now Lebanon, is both accurate and sobering. And in this context it\u2019s also good to see that she highlights opposition to the Israeli war both from within Israel itself, the Jewish American community – and, as she could have added, global Jewry. Thus, opposition to the war is not the issue in focus here. Rather, the key questions raised by her article relate solidly to Sri Lanka-directed realities and concerns.<\/p>\n

Gunasekara<\/a><\/span> argues that the Chabad House established in Arugam Bay some while back should simply be closed down, thereby (I infer from her article) simultaneously removing both a terrorist threat for, and what she views as a moral stain on the country.<\/p>\n

Perspective<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

First a little perspective. As she says, the Chabad movement\u2019s Hasidic origins are in 18th<\/sup><\/span> century Russia, and later Poland. What she glides over here, however, is the fact that today, Chabad houses of prayer exist in over 100 countries and cities around the world \u2013 Colombo included, a fact she curiously fails to mention. I say \u2018curiously\u2019 because if you\u2019re looking for evidence of a Chabad centre\u2019s local impact, the one in Colombo is a good example. It is well attended for services by Jews from all over the world \u2013 as I can attest personally – most here on holiday but many resident, Sri Lankan converts to Judaism included. Discernible impact on life in its city centre surroundings? Close to zero.<\/p>\n

Yes, discrete exterior security is there to protect visitors \u2013 something that bitter experience has taught Jews to ensure. But there\u2019s absolutely no suggestion of a place that does anything to threaten or provoke anything or anyone. And in a similar vein, I don\u2019t think it would be na\u00efve to suggest that in principle, similar considerations apply to the Arugam Bay Chabad.<\/p>\n

Like many national groups on holiday Israelis can be a parochial bunch. For Brits abroad in search of fish and chips, Sky Sports and a pint of lager replace with youthful, dreadlocked Tel Avivers with surfing boards \u2013 and a wish to attend Shabbat prayers wherever they are in the world. As the Colombo House website puts it, they are there to \u2018serve as a place for Jewish travelers searching for a warm and welcoming community, as well as assist with kosher food and other religious needs\u2019. All in all, a pretty reasonable-sounding mission statement.<\/p>\n

Gunasekara suggests that the \u2018threat\u2019 from the Arugam Bay Chabad stems from the wider movement\u2019s extremist political ideology, as evidenced (by implication) in Israeli soldiers recently establishing a similar prayer house in Beit Hanoun, Gaza. And while I agree with her that any right-wing, \u2018Greater Israel\u2019-directed ideology poses a potentially serious political problem wherever it exists, I\u2019m not convinced that is what\u2019s at stake with the Arugam Bay Chabad.<\/p>\n

Terror attack in prospect<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

From what we know now \u2013 the picture is doubtless still unfolding \u2013 the US State Department\u2019s decision some weeks back to issue a travel advisory for Arugam Bay and surroundings stemmed from a specific piece of intelligence. That intelligence was that the Iranians had given an agent \u2013 probably an Afghan national – two assignments: planning and carrying out the assassination of Donald Trump before this month\u2019s US presidential elections; and organizing the mass shooting of Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka. In the latter case, the shootings were supposed to have taken place to coincide with the anniversary of the Hamas massacre of Israelis last October 7.<\/p>\n

All of which poses the following question: are the residents of the Chabad House in Arugam to be blamed, or otherwise held responsible for such a planned attack? Underlying Gunasekara\u2019s article seems to be the unspoken assumption that yes, they \u2013 and their ideology \u2013 are indeed to blame. There are two key problems with this view. First, as with Palestinians in Gaza, blaming Jewish victims for potential attacks on them \u2013 an updated version of the age-old Christian canard that Jewish sufferings are divine retribution for the murder of Jesus – is not a defensible line of argument. Israeli tourists holidaying in southern Sri Lanka \u2013 and a somewhat pre-modern group catering to their religious needs \u2013 cannot and should not be held responsible for potential terror attacks on them stemming from Israel\u2019s continuing war in Gaza and Lebanon.<\/p>\n

Religious freedom \u2013 for all?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The second relates to freedom of religion. Surely Jews, no less than Buddhists, Muslims and Hindus have a right to practice their religion in this country free from fear? Gunasekara\u2019s response is to suggest that \u2018the constitution guarantees that right to Lankan citizens and not to tourists\u2019. While it\u2019s true that the Sri Lankan constitution doesn\u2019t include Judaism in its list of recognized religions (it probably should), the implication suggested by Gunasekara is an alarming one: on the face of it, religious freedom \u2013 but only for citizens – looks like an updated version of a religious apartheid. And if the constitution really is as she says, surely it\u2019s high time to revisit its definition of fundamental rights \u2013 not use its restrictive approach as an argument for religious exclusion?<\/p>\n

So while I\u2019m not a lawyer, I sincerely hope the officials she accuses of constitutional ignorance go ahead and give permission for a \u2018non-Christian prayer house\u2019 \u2013 an extraordinary description of a Jewish place of worship, but never mind \u2013 to be registered in Arugam Bay. That way, they would be demonstrating that Sri Lanka really is a country where fundamental religious freedoms are guaranteed for all, citizens or otherwise.<\/p>\n

An underlying issue this debate highlights is the relative invisibility of Jews, and Jewish life in Sri Lanka. Even during the British colonial era the number of Jews living in the country was never more than a small community, serviced by a now defunct synagogue in Colombo. A few, such as Leonard Wolff, rose to prominence, though not (in his case) on the basis of their identity. Today the figure remains small, even if tourists ensure the numbers are larger now than for some time.<\/p>\n

I am regularly struck by this \u2018non-presence\u2019, for example when following the news from Israel\/Palestine. Whereas in my home country, the UK, Jewish and\/or Israeli perspectives, including Jewish Israel-critical voices \u2013 as well, of course, as every shade of pro-Palestinian opinion – are regularly featured in news coverage of the conflict, in Sri Lanka the picture is \u2013 perhaps inevitably \u2013 more monochrome. Jewish voices are conspicuous largely by their absence. Indeed in some quarters, demonization of all things Israeli \u2013 or is it Jewish, I sometimes wonder? \u2013 has reached a point that induced me to think hard before going public with this article.<\/p>\n

To underscore the point, Jewish friends in Colombo have recently been asked by the police if they want school-time protection for their children. In other words, threats are out there for Jews: and not necessarily because they attend services run by latter-day Hasidic missionaries. There, perhaps, is something for the ever-thoughtful Gunasekara to ponder.<\/p>\n

*The author is a writer, researcher and consultant. His latest book, <\/span><\/strong><\/i>From Independence to Aragalya: A Modern History of Sri Lanka<\/i> will be published by Hurst, London in Autumn 2025.<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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