When Mark, a Jewish American who asked that his surname not be published, moved his young family from the West Coast of the United States to Taiwan nearly eight years ago, the plan was to stay for two or three years.
A job opportunity in the tech industry brought them to Taipei, along with what he describes as “a general sense of adventure.”
By year four, the conversation had changed.
“Once our kids started thriving in school and we realized how peaceful day-to-day life is here compared to back home, the mindset flipped from ‘when do we move back?’ to ‘this is where our life is,’” he told JNS in an interview.
Mark’s story is increasingly familiar across parts of Asia. Jewish communities once associated largely with Israeli backpackers, foreign business people and short-term expatriates are developing a more permanent population. And around them, Jewish infrastructure is changing to meet needs that go well beyond a Shabbat meal or holiday service.
That shift was at the center of a regional Chabad summit held in Taipei in late August, bringing together 75 emissaries from 15 countries. The gathering marked 40 years since the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the spiritual leader who transformed Chabad-Lubavitch into a global Jewish outreach movement, sent Rabbi Mordechai Avtzon to Hong Kong as Chabad’s first emissary in the region.
Today, according to Chabad, there are around 60 centers across Asia, stretching from the Himalayan region to Japan.
‘People don’t buy land for a cemetery if they’re passing through’
Few things illustrate the change as clearly as what has happened in Taiwan.
When Rabbi Shlomi Tabib and his wife, Racheli, arrived in 2011, they had contact details for around 70 Jews. Today, they estimate that approximately 1,500 Jews live across the island, including Israelis, tech and international business professionals from North America and Europe, academics, students and diplomats.
In June, another piece of infrastructure was added: Taiwan’s first dedicated Jewish cemetery.
Until then, Jews who died on the island generally had to be flown overseas for burial. The first burial took place on June 23.
“Beyond logistics, a cemetery signals permanence and dignity,” Tabib told JNS.
“It sent a profound message to our community that Jewish life in Taiwan is not merely a transient layover for expats. It is a home with full life-cycle infrastructure from birth to eternal rest.”
Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, executive director of Chabad International, sees the cemetery as part of a wider regional story. A Jewish cemetery has recently been established in Thailand as well.
“People don’t buy land for a cemetery if they’re passing through,” he told JNS.
Other signs are less dramatic but perhaps even more significant.
Hebrew schools and Jewish after-school programs are growing. Chabad has expanded its CKids and CTeen youth programs in cities including Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok and Mumbai. Communities are building permanent mikvahs. In Mumbai, the Hebrew school has expanded to participate in JewQ, an international Jewish knowledge competition.
In several cities, Kotlarsky said, additional emissary couples have been brought in specifically to work with local families and young people. Four new couples have moved to the region in the past year.
“These are new institutions that are not focused on business people,” he said. “They’re focused on local families.”
Building Jewish life far from Jewish centers
In Taiwan, the growth is visible in the $16 million, 22,500-square-foot Jeffrey D. Schwartz Jewish Community Center in Taipei, which includes a synagogue, kindergarten and classrooms, kosher restaurant, Judaica museum, 300-seat ballroom and mikvah.
For Mark, who is not strictly observant, that infrastructure has helped make it possible to raise Jewish children in a country without a large Jewish population.
“My faith is more about tradition, community and values than daily ritual,” he said. “That’s where Chabad and Rabbi Tabib have been a lifeline.”
The ability to buy kosher meat or obtain matzah for Passover matters, he said, but so does having other Jewish families with whom his children can celebrate Chanukah and Purim.
“It gives our kids a sense of belonging they wouldn’t otherwise get in a local environment.”
That challenge is shared by communities across the region.
Kosher food can be difficult to source, while Jewish populations may be spread across cities or even countries. In Taiwan, community members live in Taipei, Hsinchu, Taichung and Kaohsiung. Jewish education has to be deliberately created in an environment where a child may have few Jewish peers.
The Jewish communities also depend heavily on one another.
When Taiwan’s cemetery held its first burial, the deceased was a Jew who had lived on the island for many years. A rabbi with expertise in Jewish burial traveled from Hong Kong together with members of the local Jewish burial society to ensure the burial was conducted according to Jewish law.
“The shaliach [emissary] in Taiwan couldn’t have done that on his own,” Kotlarsky said. “He needed a rabbi in Hong Kong who knows how to do it, and he needed the burial society there.”
The same informal network helps communities obtain kosher food and ritual items and respond to emergencies involving Jewish residents and travelers.
For the emissaries themselves, distance presents another problem. Their children are growing up far from the large Jewish communities that would normally surround religious families. Chabad operates a virtual community for them, called MyShliach, while regional gatherings give parents facing similar circumstances an opportunity to share experiences and advice.
Oct. 7 changed the equation
The move toward more permanent Jewish communities was already underway before Oct. 7, 2023. The Hamas massacre, Kotlarsky said, accelerated it.
“We’ve seen tremendous growth in Jewish involvement since October 7 in Asia as well,” he said.
Some Jews who had moved to Asia had made a conscious effort to blend into their surroundings and had little involvement with organized Jewish life, he said. After Oct. 7, many began seeking out other Jews.
More telling was what happened after they came through the door.
“A lot of them are bringing their children now, which is really the difference,” Kotlarsky said. “It’s not showing up once for a holiday. It’s putting their kids into the Hebrew school, into CTeen.”
Tabib saw the same shift in Taiwan.
People who had rarely attended services began coming to the Jewish center looking for community and solidarity. Requests for mezuzot, tefillin and Shabbat candles rose. For those with family and friends in Israel, distance could make the aftermath of Oct. 7 particularly isolating.
“Chabad became a sanctuary where community members could gather, pray, cry and support one another without needing to explain their grief to outsiders,” he said.
Mark’s own relationship with his Judaism changed.
“Oct. 7 made my Jewish identity much more central and conscious,” he said.
His extended family and friends in Israel made events there intensely personal, even when the people around him in East Asia experienced them from a very different distance.
“Connecting with the local Jewish community became crucial for mutual support,” he said. “Within the expat Jewish community, the bond has definitely tightened.”
What comes next
The question facing Chabad now is how to support communities that are no longer defined primarily by people passing through.
At the Taipei summit, Taiwan-based businessman Jeffrey D. Schwartz and Kotlarsky announced the creation of the Jeffrey D. Schwartz Asia Fund through Keren Hashluchim.
Schwartz, who has lived in Taiwan for more than 50 years, established the fund to support the expansion of Jewish life across Asia, including seed funding for new emissary couples, youth centers, after-school programs and mikvahs, as well as emergency assistance when needed.
The need for such emergency support was underscored by the disaster in Nepal, where catastrophic flooding triggered by a glacial collapse on Aug. 26 left thousands dead or missing. Around 30 Jews, including two Israelis, were reported among the missing, according to Chabad of Nepal, which has been working with authorities and families to coordinate search efforts while also providing aid to flood victims.
Taiwan itself still has gaps.
Tabib wants expanded educational programs for children and teenagers and wider availability of kosher products. His hope is that a younger generation will be able to grow up simultaneously at home in Taiwan and secure in its Jewish identity.
“I hope to see a vibrant network of families, expanding educational programs, and a strong younger generation proud of their Jewish identity and deeply rooted in both their faith and their home here in Taiwan,” he said.
Mark believes the long-term future of Jewish life in Taiwan will depend on reaching what he calls “a larger critical mass of permanent Jewish residents,” together with more educational options for young people.
For a community that was once built largely around people in transit, the growing focus on children may be the clearest indication of how much has changed.
Across Asia, Kotlarsky said, more Jewish parents are making the same investment that Mark has made for his own family: enrolling their children in Hebrew schools and youth programs.
The question is increasingly not how to serve Jews while they are passing through Asia, but how to build Jewish life for those who have made it their home.
