On the music of Yahudi, Bimal Roy’s unexpected Bollywood historical about the persecution of Jews in ancient Rome, the dulcet ring of the oud is impossible to miss. The background score, produced by Shankar and Jaikishan, has a slightly Middle Eastern flavor to it, and the adaptable Arabian stringed instrument is frequently used to express…
Another famous Jewish Israeli Indian is Samson Khamkar, a first generation Israeli Indian sitar and violin player. He belonged to a popular ethnically mixed Israeli musical group whose name translates to “The Natural Gathering”. One of their more well known recordings was called “Waiting for Samson”, because, as they explained, Samson believes in following Nirvana,…
Ruby Myers (1907 – 10 October 1983), better known by her stage name Sulochana, was an Indian silent film star of Jewish ancestry, hailing from the community of Baghdadi Jews in India. In her heyday she was one of the highest paid actresses of her time, when she was paired with Dinshaw Billimoria in Imperial…
Samson Kehimkar was a Jewish violinist and sitar player from India. One of the pioneers of ethnic and world music in Israel. Before emigrating in 1976, he played in Indian classical orchestras, film and pop bands. One of the founding members of “Habrera Hativit” (literal translation: The Natural Selection, known in English as The Gathering)….
Because I didn’t know who I was, I didn’t know I had the right to claim all of myself. It was a tradition for me to start the week with curry at my grandmother’s house, then go to synagogue for raucous music and charming. In the evenings on Sundays, I spent time with my Indian…
For a long time, Cochin Jewish women have sung Jewish songs in both Hebrew and the Malayalam language, which is the language of Kerala, their old home on the Indian coast. The Jewish women in Kerala sang in Hebrew with the men in the synagogue, with their families at the Shabbat table, and other events….
We uploaded a video of Indian dancers performing Hava Nagila in a Bollywood-style staging in an Indian film in April 2010. It was Israel’s time to reciprocate in April and May. A Bollywood Dance workshop was held on April 29 at the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv, Israel’s most famous dance facility, to kick…