India’s ‘lost tribe’ of Jews from Karishma Vyas on Vimeo. India’s ‘lost tribe’ of Jews look to Israel CHURACHANDPUR, India They say they are the descendants of an ancient tribe of Jews exiled from the land of Israel almost 3000 years ago. In India’s remote Manipur state, this ‘lost’ tribe has lived for generations, adopting…
At home in Kochi (Cochin), I was born to a Jewish doctor named Dr. Koder in 1950 (the youngest of five siblings). He was also a dentist, ran a general store, and was in charge of the synagogue, too. Kochi is a city in India. The Dutch built my house there and it still stands…
Shobha “Fori” Nehru was an Indian woman who was married to BK Nehru, who was the Indian ambassador to the United States and the nephew of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. While it is clear that she is a member of the Indian aristocracy, she was born and raised as a Hungarian Jew. Take…
March 12, 2015 at 4:30pm From the late 19th century frontier west to the mid-20th century urban east, the Jewish Studies Program presents a discussion that chronicles American Jews’ encounters with both the concept of “the Indian” and Native American peoples. It contends that paying attention to the Jewish-Native interaction sheds new light on some…
Life as a Jew in India was no different to the lives of people of other faiths. India is the only country in the world where anti-semitism never existed. Jews were full citizens with the same rights and duties as everybody else. Jews from other parts of the world are usually surprised to discover the…
With only a few thousand Jews left in India, it’s hard to believe that the country still has about 60 synagogues that are either still standing or have been in the past. Many are closed, but there are still a lot of places to go. Most of the time, people who go on vacation will…
There are few clues as to the identity of the last Pakistani Jew to be buried in Karachi. A heart-shaped piece of marble set into a slab of rough concrete in the city’s Jewish cemetery in February 1983 has none of the detail or Hebrew script of the more elaborate tombs built a century earlier,…
India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, on Friday sent greetings in Hebrew to the Jewish people on the occasion of Hanukkah. “I wish my friends of the Jewish faith a Happy Hanukkah! May this Festival of Lights and this period of celebration herald peace, hope and well-being for all,” Modi wrote on Twitter. (Arutz Sheva’s North…
The Jewish community played a significant role in the mercantile development of the city. Now with only around 30 of its members remaining, an urgent effort is on to salvage its history It is perhaps not surprising that the last conductor of the now-defunct Calcutta Symphony Orchestra should have been Bernard “Bunny” Jacob. After all,…
New Archive Sheds Light on Semitic Side of Indian Megacity Treasure Trove: Above, Esther ‘Pramila’ Abraham in ‘Jungle King’ (1939). Below, ‘Punjab Mail’ (1939), another film poster in the archive. By Aruna D’Souza Published October 25, 2014. “Jews in India?” people exclaim when the concept is mentioned. With fewer than 30 members of the community…