KARACHI: Not many people know that a number of Karachi’s landmark buildings were designed by a Jewish architect Moses Somake (1875-1947). While he was born in Lahore, he lived most of his life in Karachi before migrating to England a few months before the Partition of India. Reading a paper at Karachi conference here on…
SIMSBURY, Conn. (RNS) After burying her mother, Sharon Rosen found herself dealing with a problem: deli platter deliveries. A deluge of them, all ordered by her friends and neighbors as part of the Jewish tradition of providing food for the bereaved during the seven-day mourning period known as the “shiva.” “We had to find a…
SDEROT, Israel – A Kassam rocket had just landed across the street, but it couldn’t wipe the smile off David Lhundgim’s face as he entered his apartment in this embattled town near the Gaza border. Born in the rural provinces of northeast India, Lhundgim had lived in Sderot since he moved to Israel in…
A history of the Baghdadi Jews–who actually lived in India, not Baghdad. By Joan G. Roland The Persian Gulf port of Basra began to serve as a trading center of the British East India Company in 1760, and it was from Basra–and Baghdad–that many Jews who played an important role in English commerce in the…
Jerusalem: Dozens of Jews who claim to be the descendants of a lost biblical Jewish tribe emigrated to Israel on Monday from their village in northeastern India, celebrating their arrival after a five-year struggle to get in. The Bnei Menashe say they are descended from Jews banished from ancient Israel to India in the…
At 73 years old, Israel made a promise to the Indian Jews that it didn’t keep. It told them they could come back to the land of promise but then changed its mind. Sometimes, the consequences can be heart-wrenching. When a new state of Israel was set up after the Second World War in 1948,…
Background The journey of Jesus(as) to India, Kashmir and Afghanistan in search of the lost tribes of Israel is strongly supported by Biblical, historical and traditional literature. Some inhabitants of these areas have called themselves ‘Beni Israel’ from time immemorial, and take pride in being of Israelite origin. Historical evidence supporting the journey of the…
On Moshav Nevatim, a dust-blown, palm-tree studded community on the northern edge of Israel’s Negev desert stands a humble little synagogue with an enormous past. The Kerala Synagogue, as it is called, was built in the style of the synagogues of India’s Cochini Jews, a hardy handful of whom settled Nevatim in the 1950s after…
Shaul Sapir, a professor of historical geography at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, knows a thing or two about his field. At age 8, seeking out a Hebrew chewing gum he had seen in an advertisement, Mr. Sapir went to his father and insisted he be allowed to move to Israel. Despite the fact that the Sapir…
Two days before Yamit Talker-Shefer’s wedding to her husband Elad, in traditional Indian custom her family donned colorful saris and gathered together for the henna ceremony, in which her ring finger was painted red in preparation for the wedding ring to come. Forty-eight hours later, in traditional Jewish custom, she and Elad stood under the…