A Mumbai Jewish heritage walk through the city’s downtown core passes six working synagogues within a few square kilometers, a concentration unmatched anywhere else in India. Four belong to the Bene Israel community, whose ancestors settled the Konkan coast more than two thousand years ago, and two belong to the Baghdadi Jews who arrived from the Middle East beginning in the early nineteenth century. Together they trace the story of how two very different Jewish communities built a shared home in what was then Bombay.
Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue: Mumbai’s Blue Synagogue
Any Mumbai Jewish heritage walk usually begins behind the Kala Ghoda district’s landmark black horse statue, at the Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue. Built in 1884 by Jacob Elias Sassoon and his brothers in memory of their father, Elias David Sassoon, the synagogue belongs to the Baghdadi Jewish community founded in the city by the elder Sassoon patriarch, David Sassoon, after he settled in Bombay in 1832. Designed by the British firm Gostling and Morris, the building combines Neo-Classical columns and pediments with Gothic-Victorian stained glass, and its striking indigo-and-white exterior has earned it the nickname the Blue Synagogue.
Inside, a double-height sanctuary holds a wooden bimah trimmed in brass, with a women’s gallery wrapping around three sides of the upper floor. A major restoration completed in February 2019, carried out by conservation architect Abha Narain Lambah and Associates with support from the JSW Group and the World Monuments Fund, brought the synagogue’s chandeliers, stained glass, and decorative tilework back to their original condition. Visitors need a valid photo ID to enter, a security measure common to all of Mumbai’s synagogues since the 2008 terrorist attacks on the city.
Shaar Harahamim: The Gateway of Mercy
A short distance away, in the congested lanes of an area still known as Israel Mohalla, stands Shaar Harahamim, literally the Gateway of Mercy and the oldest synagogue in Mumbai. It was founded in 1796 through the efforts of Samuel Ezekiel Divekar, a Bene Israel officer in the Bombay Army, and was known for generations simply as Samaji’s Synagogue after him. The present building dates to 1860, when a larger structure replaced the original to accommodate a growing congregation, and it took its current name during centenary celebrations in 1896.
From the street, Shaar Harahamim reveals little of its purpose beyond a pair of marble plaques and a Star of David on the gate. Inside, a grey marble floor and tall windows light a sanctuary built to the same basic plan found across Mumbai’s Bene Israel congregations, with a central pavilion and an upstairs gallery for women.
Shaare Rason: The New Synagogue
Also within Israel Mohalla is Shaare Rason, the Gateway of Will, built in 1843 by a group of Bene Israel congregants who had split from Shaar Harahamim over disagreements about its management. Because it was newer, it became known simply as the New Synagogue, while Shaar Harahamim was called the Old Synagogue. A high wall and gated compound enclose the building, and inside, bright yellow walls and brass chandeliers give the single-floor sanctuary a warm, golden character. Miniature menorahs decorate the corners of the wooden central platform.
Magen David Synagogue: Byculla’s European-Style Landmark
The Bene Israel of Bombay had welcomed the first Baghdadi Jewish arrivals into their own synagogues in the early nineteenth century, but as the Baghdadi community grew, it wanted a synagogue of its own. In 1861, David Sassoon funded Magen David in Byculla, the first Baghdadi synagogue in the city. Unlike the earlier Bene Israel synagogues, which blended Middle Eastern and local architectural elements, Magen David was built in a fully European style, complete with a clock tower, an unusual feature for a synagogue anywhere in the world.
An 1910 expansion added matching bays on either side of the original structure. The interior, a double-height sanctuary with a wraparound women’s gallery, was repainted in blue and white in the 2010s, giving Magen David a luminous quality that pairs the Byculla landmark visually with its sister synagogue at Kala Ghoda.
Magen Hassidim: The Largest Bene Israel Synagogue
Also in Byculla, but belonging to the Bene Israel community, is Magen Hassidim, the largest Bene Israel synagogue in Mumbai and the newest of the city’s six downtown synagogues. The congregation organized in 1904 and met for years in rented halls, including one established by community member Benjamin Samson Dandoolkar, before building its present prayer hall in 1934. A vaulted ceiling and recessed entry porch mark the exterior, while decorative chandeliers and a wooden central platform light the interior, with the women’s gallery on the first-floor balcony.
Tiphereth Israel: The Synagogue Near Jacob Circle
The sixth stop on the walk, Tiphereth Israel, sits near Jacob Circle and traces its history to 1886, when the Bene Israel community of the area organized a prayer hall there. In 1924, community member Aaron Benjamin Kandlekar funded a move to a larger space, and out of gratitude the synagogue became known locally as Kandlekar’s Synagogue, a name the Kandlekar family still carries today through its continued involvement in running the congregation. The synagogue’s brass and glass lanterns, decorative window grilles, and wood-and-brass bimah date largely from a major renovation completed around 2000.
Planning Your Mumbai Jewish Heritage Walk
A Mumbai Jewish heritage walk is rewarding precisely because none of the city’s downtown synagogues operate as museums, and each requires its own permission for entry, arranged in advance through community contacts, a point confirmed by heritage photographer Rangan Datta’s detailed survey of the city’s synagogues. Photography inside typically carries a separate fee, and visitors should expect security screening and an ID check at every stop, a legacy of the heightened protection placed on Mumbai’s Jewish sites after 2008. Any Mumbai Jewish heritage walk benefits from planning ahead for these permissions. Because the six synagogues sit within a relatively compact stretch of downtown Mumbai, from Kala Ghoda through Israel Mohalla to Byculla and Jacob Circle, they can realistically be visited in a single day with a car or taxi between stops.
Beyond the synagogues themselves, this Mumbai Jewish heritage walk offers a condensed history of Jewish Bombay: a Bene Israel officer building a synagogue from his own resources in 1796, a splinter congregation founding its own house of worship in 1843, a merchant family importing European architectural styles in the 1860s and 1880s, and a growing Bene Israel congregation still raising its own prayer hall as late as 1934. Read alongside our complete geographic guide to India’s synagogues and the roots tourism trail through Nagaon and Alibaug, Mumbai’s six downtown synagogues show how much of India’s Jewish history survives in buildings that are still, however quietly, in active use.