In my early twenties, I told my mother, “One day, I want to publish a book on our family’s tale.” “Inshallah” – “God willing” – she said, evoking our ancestors’ Arabic. Because my mother uses this word, someone could assume that my family is Muslim. We are, however, Jewish. And for a long time, I…
When I was staying with a cousin in Colaba, Mumbai, for a few days a few years ago, she recommended that I go to the street book vendors. She claimed that I could get books on any subject for dirt cheap. When I inquired about Jewish books, I was instructed to return the next day….
Growing up Jewish in India is a book on India’s Jews told from a range of perspectives, including history, culture, art, and religion. Ori Z. Soltes, the editor, is a Georgetown University professor of art history, religion, philosophy, and political history. He is fascinated with Indian Jew’s”material culture,’ and he paints compelling depictions of synagogues…
YAHEH HALLEGUA is Mattancheri’s last Jewish woman of childbearing age. Keith and Len, her cousins, are the final remaining bachelors. But neither of them appeal to her. As a result, the 400-year-old Jewish community in the port village of Kerala, India’s southern state, would be gone in a few decades. Mattancheri is the most well-known…
Sudha Bharadwaj, who was imprisoned in Mumbai’s Byculla Jail for a month, wrote the following critique by hand. Bharadwaj was diagnosed with heart disease as her friends and family were typing the text for potential publication. Appeals for her bail are still pending while she remains imprisoned in an overcrowded prison based on disputed allegations…
In European history, Jews are the most important race. Though they originated in ancient Israel (from Hebrew people), they were unable to establish their own country until the United Nations Organization formed Israel in 1945. As a result, Jews were distributed all over the world until then, and as a result, they arrived in India,…
In a yard sale in Salford, a rare Jewish text published for the “Black Jews of India” in the 19th century was uncovered. Dr. Yaakov Wise of the University of Manchester discovered the 137-year-old Poona Haggadah, which was used by the Bene Israel community during Passover. After recognizing it at the auction, he said he…
The Jewish people have had a long relationship with India. Trade, vocabulary borrowings from Indian languages in Biblical Hebrew, explorers’ travelogues, and oral traditions of local populations all point to very early relationships. The emergence and expansion of religions like Judaism in India, as well as their coexistence with a variety of other religions, demonstrate…
15 October 2014, New Delhi: H.E. Mr. Daniel Carmon, Israel’s Ambassador to India, sponsored a book launch entitled “Jews and the Indian Art Project & Western Jews in India” at his residence in Delhi yesterday. More than 60 people from various disciplines, including the media and art world heavyweights, attended the event. Dr. Kenneth X…
It wasn’t until Nandita Godbole began researching her family’s history that she realized how little she knew about her past. “We used to visit my father’s parents a couple of times a year when I was a kid in India… “[My grandmother’s] ethnicity was never truly discussed,” Godbole, a cuisine writer who has published two…