Understanding the Indian Jewish Experience in Historical Context
The story of India’s Jewish communities cannot be properly understood without appreciating the specific historical circumstances that shaped it. Judaism arrived in India through multiple routes over many centuries, creating communities that were diverse in their origins, their practices, and their social positions but united by their adherence to Jewish tradition and their identification with the Jewish people. The Bene Israel of Maharashtra, possibly descended from Jewish settlers who arrived before the Common Era; the Cochin Jews of Kerala, present for at least two thousand years under the protection of Hindu rulers; and the Baghdadi Jews of Calcutta and Bombay, arriving in the late eighteenth century from Iraq and the broader Middle East — each community had its own distinct history but shared the experience of being Jewish in India.
What makes the Indian Jewish story distinctive in the broader context of Jewish history is the nature of the host society in which these communities developed. India under Hindu rule provided a social environment quite unlike the Christian Europe or Muslim Middle East where most Jewish communities spent the Common Era. The absence of organized anti-Jewish persecution, the recognition of Jews as a legitimate minority community with rights to self-governance in religious matters, and the broadly tolerant character of Hindu social philosophy all contributed to a Jewish experience in India that was, by the standards of most Jewish diasporic history, remarkably peaceful.
India and Israel: A Special Bond
The relationship between India and Israel, shaped in significant part by the connections created by the Indian Jewish communities, is one of the most important bilateral relationships in the contemporary geopolitical landscape. India and Israel established full diplomatic relations in 1992, ending decades of Indian support for Palestinian causes that had prevented formal recognition of Israel. Since then, the relationship has grown rapidly, encompassing defense cooperation, technology transfer, agricultural development, and deepening people-to-people connections driven by the large Indian Jewish community in Israel and the growing Indian presence in Israel’s technology sector.
The Indian Jewish communities of Israel serve as a human bridge between the two countries. Their presence in Israel keeps alive the memory and the reality of Jewish life in India, while their connections to family and community in India maintain personal ties that give meaning to the diplomatic relationship. For both countries, the Indian Jewish story is evidence that the relationship between Indian and Jewish civilization has deep roots that long predate the modern political relationship — roots that make the contemporary friendship between the two countries feel like the fulfillment of an ancient connection rather than a new arrangement.
Related Reading
- The Four Communities of Indian Jews: An Overview
- The Bene Israel of Maharashtra
- The Jews of Cochin
- The Baghdadi Jews of Mumbai and Kolkata
- Books on the Jews of India
When Benjamin Netanyahu visited India as Israeli Prime Minister in January 2018, the trip was the first visit to India by a sitting Israeli Prime Minister since Ariel Sharon in 2003. For India’s small but historically deep Jewish community, the visit carried symbolic resonance that went beyond its diplomatic significance. Here was the leader of the Jewish state visiting the country where some of the world’s oldest Jewish communities had found their home, and where a tiny but committed remnant still maintained Jewish life. For these remaining Indian Jews, Netanyahu’s visit represented recognition, from the very top of Israeli leadership, of the unique connection between India and the Jewish people.
A Community Watching From the Sidelines
India’s Jewish community of approximately five to seven thousand people is one of the country’s smallest religious minorities, and its voice in public life is correspondingly quiet. The community does not have the political influence of India’s Muslim or Christian minorities, nor the cultural visibility of the Parsi community, which is similarly small but has produced a disproportionate number of prominent Indians. Yet the community maintains an awareness of its own historic significance that gives members a specific perspective on events like Netanyahu’s visit.
For the elderly Bene Israel members who attended welcoming events organized around the visit, the occasion brought complex emotions. They are the generation that chose to stay in India when most of their community left for Israel, and their relationship to the State of Israel is therefore different from that of the diaspora: admiring but also tinged with a sense of having made a different choice. Seeing the Israeli Prime Minister celebrated in their country validated both choices simultaneously: the choice to leave and build Israel, and the choice to remain and keep Jewish life alive in India.
What the Visit Meant Diplomatically
Diplomatically, Netanyahu’s India visit was primarily aimed at deepening the already substantial bilateral relationship between the two countries. Defense cooperation, which has made Israel one of India’s most important arms suppliers, was discussed alongside agricultural technology partnerships, water management cooperation, and potential investment in Indian infrastructure. The visit produced several concrete agreements and declarations of intent that expanded specific areas of bilateral cooperation.
For the broader public, the visit highlighted the remarkable transformation of the India-Israel relationship from the distance of the Non-Aligned Movement era to the warmth of the current strategic partnership. That transformation has been driven by practical interests on both sides but has been shaped and enabled by the people-to-people connections maintained by the Indian Jewish diaspora in Israel and by the centuries of positive Jewish experience in India that provide the emotional foundation for the current relationship.
Hope and Concern
The Jewish community of India greeted Netanyahu’s visit with hope: hope that the growing India-Israel relationship would bring renewed attention to India’s Jewish heritage, increased tourism to Jewish sites in Mumbai, Pune, and Kochi, and perhaps resources for the restoration and preservation of the synagogues and cemeteries that represent the physical legacy of Indian Jewish civilization. Some community members also hoped that greater visibility would help with the practical challenges of maintaining Jewish life in a country where the community is so small.
The concerns were more muted but present. As India and Israel move closer together on strategic and economic grounds, the community is aware that the specifically human, cultural, and historical dimensions of the relationship can get lost in discussions of defense contracts and trade agreements. The story of the Bene Israel, the Cochin Jews, and the Baghdadi Jews deserves to be told in its own right, not merely as background color for a bilateral relationship whose current priorities are primarily strategic.