Jewish woman of color: Siona Benjamin’s art shows how she was raised in India, how she lives in the United States, and how she feels about Israel. Blue people are different. The color blue can be found in the sky and the ocean, so it can be anywhere and nowhere at the same time. Siona…
Migrant communities of Middle Eastern Jews arose throughout the enormous region between Shanghai and Port Said in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Bombay and Aden are two essential knots in the formation of these far-flung Jewish diasporas, according to this essay. These rising port cities of the British Raj served as the first stop…
Samson Koletkar, a Bay Area comedian, is a founder and performer with the Desi Comedy Tour, which runs until August 21. The Desi Comedy Tour, founded by Bay Area artists Samson Koletkar (dubbed “the world’s only Indian Jewish standup comedian”) and Abhay Nadkarni in 2014, featured 11 South Asian performers and four concerts. However, the…
Samson Koletkar is the only Indian Jewish stand-up comedian in the world. Koletkar, who was born and bred in Mumbai, has a refreshingly astute approach to humor. The ‘Mahatma Moses Comedy Tour’ is his brainchild. On to the stage, an Indian, a Jew, and an Indian Jew… Doesn’t this sound like a set-up for a…
Every week in Curtain Raisers, we invite a local theater artist to attend and discuss a show of his or her choice. Anjan Biswas, a comedian, recently went to the Westside Theatre to witness Peter Gethers and Daniel Okrent’s “Old Jews Telling Jokes,” directed by Marc Bruni. Mr. Biswas’ new show “What’s an Anjan?” will…
The Jewish connection to India is both ancient and modern and when Hinduism and Judaism come together, it gives us a lot of interesting information. As a minority in a country that has welcomed and cared for you, would you take the chance to go back to your home country? Whether or not: Is there…
On Monday, April 12, the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) and StandWithUs (SWU) hosted a virtual event called “Indo-Judaic Ties: Ancient Cultures, Common Challenges, Modern Miracles.” Nearly 300 members of the Jewish and Hindu American communities from across the country attended the ceremony. Mihir Meghani, HAF Co-Founder and Board Member, gave the introductory remarks, which were…
(JTA) — KOCHI, India — Today, a stroll along this seaside city’s “Jew street” will reveal lively Kasmiri businesses offering Persian antiques, pashmina shawls, and traditional Islamic handicrafts – a sharp contrast to the neighborhood’s heyday, when every household was Jewish. “There are just two individuals left in Jew Town,” said Shalva Weil, a senior…
A small Jewish community existed on India’s Malabar Coast for 900 years, coexisting peacefully with its Hindu, Muslim, and Christian neighbors. It served as an example of interfaith tolerance. However, as Fred de Sam Lazaro describes, the population has shrunk since Israel’s founding, and one of the last Jewish survivors, who runs the local synagogue,…
Indian Jews have the distinction of being the world’s only Jewish community to have never endured any sort of racial persecution in their two millennia of existence on the Indian subcontinent. Last Monday, the Maharashtra state government granted Indian Jews minority status, despite the fact that they are a small and old group. This official…