NEW DELHI — India has been in lockdown since March 24. It came without any warning: Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared a 21-day complete shutdown one evening, giving the country four hour’s notice to plan. All services like transportation were suspended, except for critical services including grocery stores and health care providers. For India’s minuscule…
Because of the ban on the entry of community members into synagogues and limitations on congregations in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Jewish community in India is gearing up for low-key Jewish New Year celebrations and associated festivals. The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, begins on Friday evening and ends on Sunday evening….
The origin and affiliation of Indian Jewish groups with other world populations remain a point of contention due to a lack of written records or inscriptions. Previous genetic investigations have discovered indications of Indian Jewish and Middle Eastern (Jewish) communities sharing a modest heritage. However, these studies (which rely on a small number of people)…
In February 2006, Florence Ezekiel Nadira died in a Mumbai hospital. That same week, thousands of miles away in Melbourne, Danny Ben-Moshe chanced upon her obituary. The interest it sparked would drive an 11-year search and culminate in a documentary on Hindi cinema’s once-lauded — and since forgotten — Jewish celebrities. Ben-Moshe, an adjunct professor…
TRAVELLING TO the Nehru Science Centre in Worli from Mahalaxmi Station, motorists take the Dr E Moses Road. While the road finds a mention on the addresses of other prominent locations in the city, such as Famous Studios and Mahalaxmi Race Course, very few know that the 2-km stretch is named after the city’s first…
Will Maharashtra’s decision to recognize them as a minority help to revive India’s shrinking Jewish community? But why aren’t we allowed to see the Torah? “There are so many of us here,” a young boy asked Ezra Moses, the synagogue’s secretary, as part of a group of schoolchildren viewing Thane’s 137-year-old “Gate of Heaven.” While…
India’s Jewish community is thousands of years old. Here are five little-known facts about the role Jews have played in India through the ages. Meeting Marco Polo When Marco Polo traveled through India in the year 1293, he recorded a surprising encounter in his diaries about meeting Jews there who’d developed a thriving community on…
The minister of state for minority affairs has said that the government can only give minority status to people after talks with “many stakeholders,” including the states. A new city is called New Delhi. According to the 2011 Census, there are about 4,650 Jews in India. They have been waiting for a long time to…
In my country — India — God is everywhere. At school, at work, even in a taxi ride, the average Indian encounters God in a million daily interactions. Instead of steering away from religion, we steer toward it without hesitation. And “religion” here doesn’t always look the way you might expect it to. In Mumbai’s…
There will be a limited run of the off-Broadway hit Old Jews Telling Jokes at the Indian Wells Theater on the CSUSB campus in Palm Desert. The National Touring Production is now playing through March 15, but it will be over on March 15. In Old Jews Telling Jokes, five actors perform jokes from both…