As you know, the story of the Jews in Hollywood is well-known. But what about the Jews in Bollywood? Bollywood makes more movies than Hollywood does in a year. There are more than 1,000 movies made in Bollywood each year. There is also a very interesting Jewish Bollywood story that needs to be talked about.
An Indian Jewish student at my university gave me a piece of paper her father had sent to her. “It’s an obituary about the Jewish Bollywood actress Nadira,” she told me, adding that her father had sent it.
A Jewish actress in Bollywood?
I quickly learned that Nadira was a superstar in Indian movies who was Jewish. She played the vamp, the bad girl who drank and smoked in Bollywood movies. She was also widely thought to be the best vamp Bollywood had ever seen. For my second documentary film, I had just finished making my first one. I was looking for a good story. That made sense. Nadira seemed to be the person who did it.