The Jews of India

Though many may not be aware of this, India has had resident Jewish communities for more than a millenium. Regular visits by Jewish merchants and sailors from West Asia go back two millenia and more. This book tells the story of the three strands of Indian Jews—the ancient Bene Israel and Cochini Jewish communities and the more recent (18th–20th century) community of West-Asia Jews, the ‘Banghdadis’, their inter-relations and interactions, both among themselves and with the Hindu and Muslim communities among which they lived and worked in peace and harmony. Never numerous, the number of Jews in India has dwindled, especially of the Cochinis and Baghdadis, who are now so few that they find it extremely difficult to maintain any community activity, religious or otherwise, without the support of the Bene Israel of Maharashtra who, though a fraction of their original number, are still numerous enough to sustain a viable community life. The second part of this book is devoted to this small but surviving Indian Jewish community, their religious evolution after years of total isolation from all centres of world Jewry, and the surnames they adopted which link them for all time with their ancient village homelands in the coastal Konkan region of Western India. Few though they are, they remain a continuing demonstration of how a minuscule community, long subject to discrimination and persecution elsewhere, could live in India with honour and in complete harmony with its fellow Indians over almost two millenia, in spite of its centuries-long complete isolation as a religious group. Read more