HONG KONG — It’s barbecue night at Hong Kong’s Jewish Community Center, and the lower-level function room is packed.
Jews ranging in age from toddlers to septuagenarians, and in religious observance from completely secular to ultra-religious are lining up at the buffet tables.
They are seeking their fill of steak, turkey shashlik, corn, pasta, salad, halvah and more — all under the watchful eye of the island’s mashgiach, or kosher supervisor.
Anyone who belongs to one of Hong Kong’s four Jewish congregations is entitled to membership in this resplendent community center, which also houses a Jewish day school, two synagogues, a kosher restaurant and a deluxe swimming pool and health spa complex.
It is only weeks until the British turn over control of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China. A large digital clock in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square counts down the seconds until July 1.
But there are few signs of anxiety about the transition among those partaking of the Sunday-night smorgasbord.
“I’m not worried,” says Yaron Meir, an Israeli from the town of Hadera who came here with his wife, Ziv, several months ago to open a candle-making factory in the neighboring Chinese province of Canton.
“I don’t think it will affect foreigners.”
Stephane Wilmet, whose cosmetics firm transferred him here from Paris in 1994, agrees.
“Nothing’s going to happen,” he says confidently. “There’s going to be a big party, and that will be it. I think I’ll be here a long time.”
But pressed a little further, Wilmet concedes that the new regime will not be as democratic as its British colonial predecessor.
“It will be authoritarian rule in Hong Kong for sure,” he says. And he also believes that the transition will “further close China for foreigners. Foreign companies are going to have a tougher time doing business in China. It’s going to be China for the Chinese.”
That should be a concern for Hong Kong’s Jews. But Wilmet’s friend, Axelle Sznajer, sees the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong as a business opportunity, a way to get easier access to the enormous Chinese market.
Sznajer, a Belgian native, came here a year ago with husband Michel after working in London for three years. She is in finance; he is a management consultant.
Like many expatriates in Hong Kong, they are young — in their mid-20s — and ambitious. They came here planning to spend a year or two, ended up staying a little longer, but always know that they can return home if the going gets tough.
And that, in fact, seems to be why the Jews of Hong Kong are not worried.
There are no Jewish “natives” here to speak of, other than a handful of Sassoons and Kadoories, Iraqi Jews who came here decades ago and made vast fortunes.
For the time that they are here, their home away from home is the Jewish community center. The center was built two years ago as part of a complex that includes two 47-story towers of luxury apartments with a breathtaking view of Hong Kong’s Central District.
The land it sits on was a barren lot, in the center of which stood the historic Ohel Leah Synagogue. The majestic Sephardi-style synagogue is still there — the architects simply built the housing and community center complex around it.
For Hong Kong’s tiny but affluent Jewish community, what matters is that they now have a place to worship, educate their children and swim.
“It’s a great community,” says Sznajer, the Belgian. “I love the feeling of being at home — that’s important. “The strength of the community is that you have one center for everyone.”
Indeed, looking around the dining room, where 50 or 60 people have gathered for the weekly get-together, one sees a woman with a sheitel, the wig worn by many married Orthodox women, in one corner; a secular Israeli in jeans and a T-shirt in another corner; and plenty who seem to be somewhere in between — some with head coverings, many without.
They share not only the same swimming pool but also the same restaurants and day school.
On an island where the Jewish population numbers at best a few hundred, there is a Reform congregation, a mainstream Orthodox one and a Chassidic one that holds Shabbat services in a converted suite of the luxurious Hotel Furama Kempinksi. Across the bay in Kowloon is a fourth, ultrareligious congregation.
Rabbi Netanel Meoded, leader of the ultra-religious congregation in Kowloon, reports a consensus about the changeover.
“The Chinese people like the Jews,” he says. “If there’s a change, it will be good for the Jews.”