In September 1937, anthropologist David Mandelbaum short documentary film. One of the first cultural anthropologists to conduct ethnographic research in India was David Goodman Mandelbaum (1911-1987), who taught at the University of California, Berkeley from 1946 until his retirement in 1978. He spent two weeks with the Jewish community in Kerala during the High Holy…
All India Radio has started its broadcast day with the same music every morning since 1936. The tune is distinctly Indian, with its droning strings and melancholy violin. But it was written by Walter Kaufmann, a Jewish emigrant from Czechoslovakia. That was the first of numerous shocks unveiled at UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music’s…
Siona Benjamin lives in a world that is both transnational and transcultural. She was raised as a Jew in Mumbai (Bombay), India, in a region dominated by Hinduism and Islam, each with its creative sensitivities and disputes, and went to Catholic and Zoroastrian schools. Of course, she was a girl in a culture that was…
Prime Minister Modi has a lot on his plate during his official visit to Israel, but he has a special event planned for when he comes. On July 5, he will meet the Indian diaspora in Tel Aviv, the capital of Israel’s money. It will be mostly Indian Jews, who make up about 85,000 of…
He started his “groundbreaking” trip to Israel with Benjamin Netanyahu giving him a big welcome. He also said that “even the sky” isn’t the limit when it comes to working together with India. He started his “groundbreaking” trip to Israel with Benjamin Netanyahu giving him a big welcome. He also said that “even the sky”…
Bombay Brides (HarperCollins) is a new book by Jewish author and artist Esther David, who is 73. It’s about 18 stories of love and loss set in a flat in Ahmedabad, India, that is rented out to people from the Bene Israel community. David, who won the 2010 Sahitya Akademi Award for The Book of…
In today’s world, what does it mean to be Jewish? This book investigates the Bene Ephraim community of Madiga Dalits from rural Andhra Pradesh, India, who declared their allegiance to the Lost Tribes of Israel towards the end of the twentieth century, shedding new theoretical light on the subject. Yulia Egorova and Shahid Perwez present…
Portraits of Israeli ladies appear on dinner plates arranged on a tablecloth with Hindu mythological elements in Shirley Siegal and Madan Lal’s collaboration. Judy Chicago, an American artist, created The Dinner Party, an installation art piece that is regarded as one of the earliest feminist artworks, in 1979. The ladies portrayed ranged from legendary and…
“This book looks at how the Baghdadi Jewish community changed dramatically overtime during their stay in India from the end of the 18th century until they moved on to Indian diasporas in Israel and English-speaking countries around the world after India became independent in 1947. Chapters on schools, institutions, and culture show how Baghdadis in…
The Bene Israel Jewish community from West India is a unique group of people whose history before the 18th century isn’t very well known. Bene Israel members think they are descendants of Jews, but they don’t know who these ancestors are or when they came to India. Some people think they came in the 8th…