PUNE: The Bene Israel Jews are India’s largest Jewish community. While there is considerable controversy about whether they are one of Israel’s lost tribes, one of their most unique cultural customs is in grave danger of being lost forever. “As members of the Bene Israel Jewish community lived and worked in villages near the Konkan…
The Baghdadi Jews of India had their record labels in the cosmopolitan society of the 1930s, and the Iraqi-Jewish tunes performed by oud player Isaac David even found their way into Bollywood musicals. Sara Manasseh, a Mumbai-born ethnomusicologist, released Shir Hodu, a collection of 15 pieces in 2009. The following is an excerpt from a…
Even before clients smell the wonderful aroma of spices drifting from the kitchen, a sign welcoming Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomes them at a curry eatery in downtown Israel. Modi’s three-day visit to Israel, which begins on Tuesday and will be the first by an Indian prime minister, is a watershed moment for the…
All India Radio has started its broadcast day with the same music every morning since 1936. The tune is distinctly Indian, with its droning strings and melancholy violin. But it was written by Walter Kaufmann, a Jewish emigrant from Czechoslovakia. That was the first of numerous shocks unveiled at UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music’s…
Julian Futter, a record producer, was given a stack of vintage 78s six years ago. He knew little about them save that they featured music originating from Iraqi Jews. These songs were ultimately included on the critically acclaimed CD Shbahoth. However, among the pile were a few records from Mumbai, which Futter describes as fascinating…
“Can you hear it?” Sarah Cohen whispers upstairs in the Paradesi Synagogue during Jewish prayers. Something is happening next door at the Hindu temple.” Indeed, the strange liturgy fusion between this congregation and the one neighboring is difficult to overlook. “We often hear their music and prayers,” she says, a Star of David pendant dangling…
At the Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation, Cantor Aviva Marer is the cantor. She grew up in Canada with a strong feeling of cultural Indian Judaism, having been born into a family of Bene Israel Jews from India. She enjoys educating about her background and was featured in the Smithsonian’s Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shaping the Nation…
The folk songs of Kerala of the 14th and 15th centuries bear an uncanny resemblance to the Jewish folk songs of the same period. Traditions of long-standing, which appear in the folk literature of the Jews, persist in these communities. Former Malayalam professor and HoD of Sree Sankaracharya University, Kalady Herman Gundert Chair at the…
Since its composition in 1936, the characteristic melody of All India Radio has been heard by hundreds of millions of people. The tune, based on raga Shivaranjini, was composed by a Czech man, Walter Kaufmann, somewhat unexpectedly. He was the music director at AIR and one of the many Jewish exiles who sought safety from…
It may seem hard to believe, but the most ardent audiences and lovers of classical Indian music nowadays may be found in the tiny state of Israel, which is located outside of India (population some 8 million, far less than the size of one of the major Indian cities). To some part, this odd fact…