Pakistan Census Poses Question on Remaining Jews

Pakistan Census Poses Question on Remaining Jews.

Islamabad: (Correspondent CCNews Portal) the Government of Pakistan censes on civil servants raised curiosity about one of the Islamic Repuvlic’ssmallest and most low profile religion the Jews.

The 2003 census, released on a government website last week,showed none of the 234,933 government employs declared themselves to be Jews,though 10 had done so in the previous census three year earlier.”” Whatever happened to the 10 Jews civil servants,”read headline the News in Pakistan on Jaunary 25, Thursday.

But, for many people the real news was that there were still many jews living in Pakistan,given Pakistan longstanding antipathy towards Isreal and Zionism

. Even a former minister for religious minorities was taken aback that there were Jews in the country.” In never thought there were jews in Pakistan. I have never seen them or met them,even when I was minister” remarked Colonel S.K.Tressler, who served presient Pervez Musharraf first cabinet in 1999. I was also surprise to see the report that there were jews in the government service also”.

Official who conducted the census couldn’t say whether the Jews had retired converted the migrated, died ,or simply chose to mark themselves in an “other Religion category .The census depended on what answer respondents submitted ,and Jews might have chosen not disclosed their religion “In the latest census, they might not have indicated their religion. If it is not there, it will reflect in census , Saeed-un-nisaAbbasi, of the Establishment division , Which looks after civil service affaiars,told Reuters.

The number of Jews living in Pakistan today is unknown, but must be very tiny. There were a couple of thousand Jews living in Karachi and Peshawar before the partition of India and the formation of Pakistan in 1947. Their families mostly migrated from Iraq

In the 19^th century .A 55-year-old women , who converted to Islam from Judaism attending services at a synagogue in Karachi. The women who asked not to be named, says all of her relatives have migrated Europe, and she hasn’t seen any people from her old faith for from them for a long time’’, she said .A commercial plaza now stand where the synagogue used to be, she added. Agencies.