page_title: History of the Jews in Vietnam
section_title: Vietnamese refugees in Israel
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Jews in Vietnam / Vietnamese refugees in Israel
caption_attribution_description: English: 35 Vietnamese refugees wait to be taken aboard the amphibious command ship USS BLUE RIDGE (LCC-19). They are being rescued from a 35 foot fishing boat 350 miles northeast of Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, after spending eight days at sea.
context_page_description: Jews are a minor ethno-religious group in Vietnam, presently consisting of only about 300 people. Although Jews have been present in Vietnam and Judaism has been practiced since the late 19th century, most adherents have been, and remain today, expatriates, with few to no native Vietnamese converts.
context_section_description: From 1977 to 1979 the Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin permitted approximately 360 Vietnamese boat people fleeing the 1975 Communist takeover of Vietnam to enter the State of Israel granting them full Israeli citizenship and rights as well as government-subsidized apartments. According to the Vietnamese Embassy in Israel, by 2015 approximately 150 to 200 former Vietnamese refugees and descendants were still in Israel while about half have left Israel mainly for the USA and France. Very few have formally converted to Judaism having retained their former religions.
caption: Vietnamese boat people awaiting rescue.
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