In the 1970s, Anish Kapoor, known for his stainless steel sculptures, spent two years on a kibbutz. Queen Elizabeth II knighted Jewish-British artist Anish Kapoor, according to JTA. Kapoor, who is of Indian descent, was honored last week as part of the Queen’s birthday honors list for 2013 for his contributions to the visual arts….
Why are Jews and Israel important? India is adored by the public. Kalnirnay, Western India’s ubiquitous calendar/almanac, is a delightfully ecumenical document that hangs in my kitchen. It has a list of all religious holidays, including several that I had no idea were celebrated in India. While Christmas has certainly taken center stage this week,…
Why do Jews and Israel exist? People adore India more than any other country on the planet.
When Danny Ben-Moshe read an obituary for acclaimed Hindi cinema actor Nadira in 2006, he noticed two things. Florence Ezekiel was one of her real names. The other was her “raunchy vamp” persona, as he put it. Nadira was one of the last Jewish actors in Hindi cinema, according to the Australian filmmaker’s research. Sulochana…
Since its composition in 1936, the characteristic melody of All India Radio has been heard by hundreds of millions of people. The tune, based on raga Shivaranjini, was composed by a Czech man, Walter Kaufmann, somewhat unexpectedly. He was the music director at AIR and one of the many Jewish exiles who sought safety from…
Nissim Ezekiel’s poem “Night of the Scorpion” will always be remembered fondly by generations of Indian school students, especially those from the ICSE stream. The poem’s various themes of good vs evil, superstition versus rationality, and love conquering all ( “My mother only said/Thank God the scorpion picked on me/And spared my children”) were not…
Bene Israel (Hebrew: “Sons of Israel”) is the largest and oldest of India’s Jewish communities. They were integrated into Indian society, preserving many Jewish observances but acting under the caste system, according to legend. They were stranded on the Konkan coast of western India more than 2,100 years ago. Only about 5,000 of the 67,000…
The Jews of India are one of the least well-known and fascinating Diaspora populations. The religious lives of the Jewish community in Cochin, the Bene Israel from the remote Konkan coast near Bombay, and the Baghdadi Jews, who migrated to Indian port cities and flourished under the British Raj, are examined in depth in this…
A single falsehood may not harm a civilization, but a continuous stream of thousands does, and history has taught us how destructive this can be. In terms of modern history, Israel and India have a lot in common. They were both created in the fires of British colonization. To rule both, colonial rulers used a…
Did you know that India’s Jews are descended from four separate groups, each with ancient Indian roots? Bene Israel, Cochin Jews, Sephardic Jews from Europe, and Iraqi “Baghdadis” are the four groupings. The Cochin Jews attribute their genealogy to King Solomon’s lost 10 Tribes, who came in quest of spices with him; the Bene Israel…