Friday, January 18, 2019, 6:30 pm – 10:00 pm Join Havurah on The Hill for a fantastic, lay-led Kabbalat Shabbat service at the Museum of African American History. Lauren Pyes will speak about her travel to India with JCP and Project Inspire, as well as her interactions with the Indian Jewish community. India’s Jewish community…
World-renowned Indian-Jewish artist Siona Benjamin will be at the JCC of Middlesex County on April 29 at 2 pm. Benjamin is an Indian-Jewish artist who has worked all over the world. Benjamin, who was born in Mumbai, India, will show a 30-minute documentary called “Blue Like Me” about her art and work that blends Indian…
January 15, 2018, 6:00 PM The Festival will be a cultural celebration of all things Bene-Israeli, both past, and present. This month of January appears to be the festival season in Mumbai. Aside from the Mumbai Shopping Festival, the Bene Israeli Jews – a small but historic Jewish community deeply rooted in Indian culture –…
Samson Koletkar (aka Mahatma Moses) was born in Mumbai and raised Jewish. Growing up in the world’s most crowded city, he spent most of his childhood years burning the midnight candles for earning a Masters Degree in Computer Software, thereby fulfilling his parent’s dreams. He then moved half-way across the world, to the technology headquarters…
Amrita Shergill (1913 to 1941). She was born to a Punjabi father and a Hungarian Jewish mother. One of the most famous painters of 20th century. She is also the ‘most expensive’ woman painter of India. Source: https://www.quora.com/Can-somebody-list-all-the-punjabi-painters-I-only-know-about-Shobha-Singh
Satamkar (also Satamker) is a Bene Israel family who lived for centuries in Kolaba (now Raigad District) in the Konkan region, India. Most members moved to Israel from the 1960s through the 1980s; some have settled elsewhere in the world. Origins The Satamkar family has its origins in the village of Satamba/Virjoli (18.343726°N 73.092846°E), Roha…
Gerry Judah is a British artist and designer who has created settings for theatre, film, television, museums and public spaces. Early life Gerry Judah’s maternal and paternal grandparents came from Baghdad to settle in the already established Baghdadi Jewish community in India and Burma. His mother was born in Calcutta and his father in Rangoon….
Ranjit Chowdhry (alternate spellings: Ranjit Chowdhary / Ranjit Chowdhury) is an Indian actor, with around forty movies and television performances to his credit, besides acting in theatre as well. Varied spellings of his names have been used in credits. He has also appeared in several episodes of The Office, as Vikram, a telemarketer who worked…
The ability to move between different worlds was an asset to Jewish writers and film-makers. Joseph David Penkar was a prolific playwright, screenwriter, director, and lyricist. He wrote and directed in Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi, and Urdu while being fluent in Hebrew and English. Like many other members of the Bene Israel community, he lived in…
Florence Ezekiel Nadira (5 December 1932 – 9 February 2006), commonly known as Nadira, was an actress in Indian cinema. She is best remembered for her performance in films in the 1950s and 1960s such as Shree 420 (1955), Pakeezah (1972) and Julie (1975), which won her Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award. Early life Nadira…