He met with the Indian Jewish community in Israel on Sunday and thanked them for their many contributions to the friendship between India and Israel. This is Jaishankar’s first visit to Israel. He thinks the Indian Jewish community in Israel will help bring the two countries even closer together. This is what he said: “In…
I go all over the world. When someone says “Asia,” I think of a mystical India. If you want to fall in love with “Incredible India,” as the country’s tourism ministry calls it, you don’t have to try very hard. Even though the country can be a bit of a shock to visitors, they soon…
There are 899 Indian Jews from Manipur and Mizoram who are members of the “lost” Bnei Menashe tribe who can now live and work in the Jewish state. The cabinet voted last week to allow the Indian Bnei Menashe community to move to Israel in groups. The first group is expected to arrive at the…
Amulet for pregnant women and newborn babies to keep them safe. In Kochi, Kerala, India, these were found. Hebrew, Aramaic, and Judeo-Spanish, as well as the Hebrew square script Diwali, which is celebrated by Indic people all over the world, is very similar to Hanukkah, which is a Jewish holiday. Triumph over darkness and the…
Samuel Hallegua, 79, died in his Fort Kochi home. The Hindu, which reported Mr. Hallegua’s death yesterday, described him as a ‘community leader’ and, more poignantly, as someone who resented, not without reason, Cochin’s once-thriving Jewish community’s transformation into a tourist attraction. Mr. Hallegua’s family is said to have been in Cochin since 1592, and…
In colonial Bombay, this research investigates cultural contact and spread. It investigates the connection between India’s little-known Bene Israel Jewish community and Protestant missionaries, focusing on Hebrew language training. While Cochin Jews taught the Bene Israel Jewish liturgy and customs of worship in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Bene Israel learned Hebrew and Biblical…
Indian Jews have a long history in India, dating back to when Jews first arrived and settled there. The Cochin, Baghdadi Jews, Bene Israelis, and the recently found Bene Menashe and Bene Ephraim were among the key groupings they established. The Jews have successfully maintained their culture and tradition over the years and have become…
Esther David is an Indian Jewish novelist, artist, and sculptor who was born on March 17, 1945. In Ahmedabad, Gujarat, she was born into a Bene Israel Jewish family. In 2010, she received the Sahitya Akademi Award for The Book of Rachel. Reuben David, her father, was a hunter who later became a veterinarian and…
Meetings between the Prime Ministers may not make much of a difference to Israeli tourists visiting India, but they provide crucial optics for Indian Jews living in Israel. National dailies informed us that India and Israel are “celebrating 25 years of friendship,” and that Israeli technology in drip irrigation and soil-water management will help water-stressed…