L’Shana Tovah

A very sweet new years to all of our Jewish readers.

[Update: Here’s a wonderful description of Rosh Hashanah, Calcutta style, by an Indian Baghdadi Jew (via the 92nd street Y blog)]

There have long been Jews in India.

India has a legacy of three distinct Jewish groups: the Bene Israel, the Cochin Jews and the White Jews from Europe. Each group practiced important elements of Judaism and had active synagogues. The Sephardic rites predominate among Indian Jews.

The Bene Israel (“Sons of Israel”) lived primarily in Bombay, Calcutta, Old Delhi and Ahmadabad… The Bene Israel claim to be descended from Jews who escaped persecution in Galilee in the 2nd century B.C.E. The Bene Israel resemble the non-Jewish Maratha people in appearance and customs, which indicates intermarriage between Jews and Indians. The Bene Israel, however, maintained the practices of Jewish dietary laws, circumcision and observation of Sabbath as a day of rest.

Jewish merchants from Europe traveled to India in the medieval period for purposes of trade, but it is not clear whether they formed permanent settlements in south Asia. Our first reliable evidence of Jews living in India comes from the early 11th century. It is certain that the first Jewish settlements were centered along the western coast.

The first Jews in Cochin (southern India) were the so-called “Black Jews,” who spoke the Malayalam tongue. The “White Jews” settled later, coming to India from western European nations such as Holland and Spain. A notable settlement of Spanish and Portuguese Jews starting in the 15th century was Goa, but this settlement eventually disappeared. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Cochin had an influx of Jewish settlers from the Middle East, North Africa and Spain. [Link]

The Jews of Cochin say that they came to Cranganore (south-west coast of India) after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. They had, in effect, their own principality for many centuries until a chieftainship dispute broke out between two brothers in the 15th century. The dispute led neighboring princes to dispossess them. In 1524 … Most Jews fled to Cochin and went under the protection of the Hindu Raja there. He granted them a site for their own town that later acquired the name “Jew Town” (by which it is still known)….  Today most of Cochin’s Jews have emigrated (principally to Israel).

Sixteenth and 17th century migrations created important settlements of Jews from Persia, Afghanistan and Characin (Central Asia) in northern India and Kashmir. By the late 18th century, Bombay became the largest Jewish community in India. Bene Israel Jews lived in Bombay, as did Iraqi and Persian Jews.

Near the end of the 18th century, a third group of Indian Jews appears. They are the middle-eastern Jews who came to India through trade. They established a trading network stretching from Aleppo to Baghdad to Basra to Surat/Bombay to Calcutta to Rangoon to Singapore to Hong Kong and eventually as far as Kobe, Japan.

Under British rule, the Jews of India achieved their maximum population and wealth, and the Calcutta community continued to grow and prosper and trade amongst all the cities of the Far East and to the rest of the world. The Indians were very tolerant and the Jews of Calcutta felt completely at home. Their numbers reached a peak of about 5,000 during World War II when they were swelled by refugees fleeing the Japanese advance into Burma.

The first generations of Calcutta Jews spoke Judeo-Arabic at home, but by the 1890s English was the language of choice. After WWII, the rise of Indian nationalism made Jews feel less comfortable because they were identified with the English by the Indians. India’s Jewish population declined dramatically starting in the 1940s with heavy immigration to Israel, England and the United States. This is where most Indian Jews live today.

In March 2005, Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar decided to recognize the members of India’s Bnei Menashe community as descendants of the ancient Israelites. The Bnei Menashe community consists of close to 7,000 members of the Kuki-Chin-Mizo tribe, which lives in northeast India near the border of Myanmar (formally Burma). For generations they kept Jewish traditions, claiming to be descended from the tribe of Menashe, one of the ten lost Israeli tribes that were exiled by the Assyrians in the eighth century B.C.E. and have since disappeared. At the beginning of the 20th century, the tribe’s members converted to Christianity, but about 30 years ago, some of the community began moving back to Judaism and set themselves apart from the rest of the tribe. [Link]

23 thoughts on “L’Shana Tovah

  1. On the subject of Indian Jewry, check out In an Antique Land, an expansion on an earlier essay called The Slave of Ms. H.6 (appeared in Subaltern Studies, Vol VII, OUP, New Delhi, 1992). It’s basically Ghosh’s imaginative recreation of the life of a Jewish merchant and his Tulu slave who were mentioned in records that Ghosh apparently stumbled upon), and is wonderful, and strangely moving, stuff.

  2. It’s sad that today the beautiful synagogue in Cochin serves more as a tourist attraction than a vibrant place of worship. However, for anyone who gets a chance to visit the city, it’s not something that should be missed!

  3. It’s also the first day of Ramadan. And tomorrow is the first day of Navratri. Happy holy days to everyone.

  4. 1) the bene israel exhibit the “cohen modal haplotype,” which strongly suggests they have a genetic relationship with the world jewry (this genetic marker is a Y chromosomal region which characterizes “cohen” males, the priestly caste which is defined by patrilineal descent).

    2) last i checked, the cochin jews who a high level of admixture with the indigenous substrate. the physical appearence of the bene israel and cochin jews suggests a great deal of admixture, likely female mediated (that is, local women joined the jewish community, and likely jewish women left and were absorbed into the surrounding societies, though that might be false if matrilocal traditions in kerala are any clue).

    3) the indian jews in israel tend to live in a few villages from what i hear.

  5. A few comments –

    On Seinfeld – the episode with the Pakistani restaurant owner – I think the actor was partly an Indian Baghdadi Jew.

    And there is a book called “Ruby of Cochin”. It was somewhat of an interesting read, a bit dry at times. Ruby was a Cochin Jew and returned to Israel to live in a kibbutz. I was especially interested to read how she felt slighted because her browner skin color made her “less of a Jew” in the eyes of others. She remarked that the blonde and blue eyed Jews ironically didn’t get the same treatment (!)

  6. And also, JFR (Jack Frederick Ralph) Jacob was a Calcuttan Jew who commanded the Indian offensive in the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War. I’m tickled to think that, apart from a few Western nations, India had prominent minority leaders, in the Parsis and Jews.

  7. It was somewhat of an interesting read, a bit dry at times. Ruby was a Cochin Jew and returned to Israel to live in a kibbutz. I was especially interested to read how she felt slighted because her browner skin color made her “less of a Jew” in the eyes of others. She remarked that the blonde and blue eyed Jews ironically didn’t get the same treatment (!)

    from what i gather the kibbutzim are dominated by ashkenazi (european) jews, so that makes sense, as they would have to then infer that their own relations were “less jewish.” i recall a few years back that a rabbi in israel refused to marry an indian israeli woman to a non-indian israeli on the grounds that she wasn’t sufficiently jewish. i think he caved after bad publicity.

  8. i recall a few years back that a rabbi in israel refused to marry an indian israeli woman to a non-indian israeli on the grounds that she wasn’t sufficiently jewish. i think he caved after bad publicity

    …. Would it still be valid to say that hinduism is the only religion to practice cast system? Just a thought.

  9. The racial composition of Indian Jews offers a vision of a future American Jewry, as intermarriage and conversion takes hold on an increasing scale (with my marriage to my Japanese wife, with children to be raised as Jews, an example)

    That portion of Jewish identity that has been racial has been so by default, as Jews lived in lands where by force of law or custom, expectations did not include intermarriage. “Living Jewishly” can be the only enduring test of Jewishness in a free land.

  10. On Seinfeld – the episode with the Pakistani restaurant owner – I think the actor was partly an Indian Baghdadi Jew.

    The actor who played Babu on Seinfeld is Brian George who was born in Israel.

  11. …. Would it still be valid to say that hinduism is the only religion to practice cast system? Just a thought.

    the difference between hinduism and the monotheistic religions is that hindus impose purity criteria officially on those who are ostensibly hindus in good standing. in other words, the issue wasn’t explicitly that the woman was a brown jew, the issue was whether she was a jew at all. muslims and jews have the same attitudes toward ritual purity vis-a-vi outgroups as high caste hindus, but unlike high caste hindus they tend to not impose these strictures on to those who share their faith (at least officially!). i know of a woman who was adopted by jewish business people in hong kong, her parents become orthodox and so she was raised orthodox, and her she know lives in israel in a haredi community and has seven children or something. she might get a weird look now and then, but that illustrates the fundamental difference as one of jewish identity, not subdivisions within the jewry (ie; the beta israel/ethiopian issues are partly due to racism, but the official reason is as to whether they are halakhic jews since they don’t have the talmud. i believe the bene israel have the same issue as they are not talmudic jews).

  12. also, let me add that the Law of Return defines a “jew” pretty broadly. i think the rule of thumb is that if the nazis would have sent you to the camps (1 jewish grandparent) you can emigrate to israel. the problem crops up in that the influential rabbinate of israel uses the traditional definition of matrilineal descent. the bene israel were not rabbinical jews, they only had the torah, so that is probably the root of the conflict.

  13. the difference between hinduism and the monotheistic religions is that hindus impose purity criteria officially on those who are ostensibly hindus in good standing. in other words, the issue wasn’t explicitly that the woman was a brown jew, the issue was whether she was a jew at all

    Add Hinduism to your to-google list. First, there is no such thing as “official” Hindu criteria on anything. Moreover, Hindu texts and general practice do not label lower castes as un-Hindu. Rather, they are very much part of the body of Hindu philosophy. Quite literally….read the metaphor of purusha, the primordial man. His body parts symbolize the echelons of Hindu social hierarchy. The Shudras were the feet. Just as feet are an essential part of the complete body, shudras were very much “officially” Hindu. The actual ramifications of this system led to the horrors of the caste system. But you’ve got to be deluding yourself if you don’t think social hierarchies are built into other cultures, religions, and times…including present day USA.

  14. vurdlife, do you just pretend to read or what?

    1) my point was that is that hindus have purity stratifications among ingroups.

    2) i said at least officially to acknowledge that in practice all religions are rife with hierarchy.

    3) First, there is no such thing as “official” Hindu criteria on anything. then you should shut up about what hinduism is, nothing is official, right? yeah, sure, i thought there was a hindu pope, thanks for enlightening me that there isn’t a hindu catechism.

    4) to elaborate, for the rest of the un-asshole audience, my point in contrasting hinduism with islam and judaism is this: both the abrahamic religions have official prescriptions for how not to be sullied by non-believers. so muslims and jewish law traditionally frowns upon (or bans) receiving food from pagans and what not, lest one be sullied. sound familiar? the point though is that within themselves, officially, jews and muslims tend to accept a priesthood of believers (excluding a few exceptions like cohens and sayyids). to take the code of manu analogy further, the jews are a light unto the nations, they consider themselves all equally brahmins (‘a nation of priests’). muslims are not that different, there is ostentatious egalitarian rhetoric at the base of a lot of islamic revivalism. so the general issues that i think many people have with hindus when they come from these traditions (and to some extent christians) is that high caste hindus treat low caste hindus like they treat/view kufirs and goyim, which seems peculiar since they supposedly are part of the same religion.

    . But you’ve got to be deluding yourself if you don’t think social hierarchies are built into other cultures, religions, and times…including present day USA.

    with all due respect, why are you such a priggish dumbass? any excuse to shit on the USA. yeah, i believe other religions don’t have hierarchies, sure. fuck, i pray for a killfile feature on this weblog, i just vomited on my keyboard.

  15. agree with u vurdlife…Razib, ever heard of black churches? I have seen some kind of discrimination-official or otherwise in every religion.

  16. First, there is no such thing as “official” Hindu criteria on anything. then you should shut up about what hinduism is, nothing is official, right? yeah, sure, i thought there was a hindu pope, thanks for enlightening me that there isn’t a hindu catechism.

    I reiterate that it is impossible to say Hinduism has an “official” anything. You can type 50 pages worth but that does not change. Moreover, just because there is no official Hindu doctrine doesn’t mean there are no Hindus. All there is is general practice and custom. That was so simplistic I didn’t think I had to explain it.

    Anyway, such practice and custom do not mandate any type of outgroup and I mentioned before. There are built in social hierarchies, but the lowest levels are not the equivalents of kaffirs and goys. That is my point and it stands.

    Interestingly, AFAIK Hinduism does not have a widely accepted derogatory term for nonbelievers.

    fuck, i pray for a killfile feature on this weblog, i just vomited on my keyboard.

    Here’s a hanky, go clean yourself up.

  17. Agreed vurdlife.

    i said at least officially to acknowledge that in practice all religions are rife with hierarchy

    . WOW

    Razib, the vomit on your keyboard is just about the only thing “fluid” about your prose, copied and pasted though it may be.

  18. Interestingly, AFAIK Hinduism does not have a widely accepted derogatory term for nonbelievers.

    May not be for non-believers but there are for ‘other’ believers. ‘Mlechcha’, ‘Panchama(this could be sometimes for untouchables)’. Hey, don’t they sound really dignified? “You Mlechcha….”…hmmm…I suppose you have add few adjectives before that.

    I reiterate that it is impossible to say Hinduism has an “official” anything.

    Since majority of Hindus are part of the caste system(or eumestically, brahmanical hinduism), how about “Manu Smriti”?

  19. Thanks for posting the article on the Jews of India. I am a Bene-Israel Jew from Bombay who immigrated to Israel at age 19 and now live and work in Jerusalem.I have not experienced any significant discrimination in Israel and rather there is a love for all things Indian as many of the Israeli youth have done long journeys in India. There is an Indian Jewish ‘Diaspora’ in Israel numbering about 40,000 and you can get Indian snacks and supplies at shops in Ramle, Ashdod and Dimona in Israel.