Colonial powers explained subject minority superiority by inventing Israelite descent

Evidence

Let me turn my gaze to Burma. The first “authentic” Jew to spend any time in Burma, as far as I know, was a certain Shlomo Reinmann, a native of Galicia, who arrived in Rangoon in 1852 with the British army. Within five years, however, there were sufficient Jews (Baghdadis and Bene Israel from India) serving the Raj to warrant the construction of a small synagogue in the city, the Matzmiah Yeshurun congregation. But long before this actual Jewish presence had been established Western missionaries active in the country had formed the view that a particular Burmese ethnic group was itself of Jewish extraction. The Burmese group subjected to this reading of local traditions was the Karen people. Why were the Karens supposed by missionaries and others to have anything to do with Jews? Part of the answer, no doubt, has to do with the mechanics of colonization. In much the same way as I have discussed in the case of the Chi’ang, a particular, often “loyal,” minority was picked out and was perceived to have strikingly “superior” characteristics. A way of explaining the group’s “superior” ability was to imagine their origins outside the locus of the inferior majority and to place it in some sense within the sacred history of the colonial power. Thus it was that “the loyal Karens of Burma,” as one British official of the Bengal Civil Service called them in a book of that name, achieved a special status in British eyes. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 322 (#expands, via linked claim)

Western Christians, perhaps most acutely British and American Evangelicals, were prone to see traces of the Bible everywhere. As missionaries and others encountered exotic peoples a discourse was generated that potentially served white, Western interests in a variety of ways. One tactic was to single out a particular minority from the mass of “natives,” to argue that this group was in some way connected with the ancient Israelites and to attribute to this minority moral characteristics rather close to the self-image held by the British or the Americans of the time. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 305 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Colonial discourse projected an invented Jewish identity onto unknown peoples worldwide; Colonists explained a loyal minority’s superiority by inventing exotic origins for it; Missionaries ignored disconfirming evidence to prove Israelite origins of chosen peoples (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• Colonial powers assigned superior minorities Jewish origins to explain their perceived excellence #expands (0.97) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 322
• Colonizers claimed superior minorities descended from Israelites to rule through them. #expands (0.95) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 305