Photo: Bene Israel Teachers, 1855. SMU Central University Libraries / Wikimedia Commons
For the Indian Jewish community in Toronto, Passover is a celebration that looks and tastes nothing like the Seder most of their Canadian neighbors are familiar with. Where a typical North American Seder might feature matzo ball soup, gefilte fish, and brisket, an Indian Jewish Passover Seder in Toronto centers on rice-based dishes, coconut curries, spiced meats, and sweets flavored with cardamom and tamarind. The spice levels would shock most Ashkenazi guests, and the aromas that fill the house are unmistakably of the Indian subcontinent.
Toronto’s Indian Jewish community is small but active, drawing its members primarily from Bene Israel families who came from Mumbai, along with some Cochin Jewish families from Kerala. The community maintains its traditions through regular gatherings, and Passover is the most important of these. Because both the Bene Israel and Cochin Jews follow Sephardic practice regarding kitniyot, rice is permitted at their Passover tables, and it anchors the meal. A typical Seder menu might include spiced lamb or chicken as the main course, a coconut-flavored rice dish, a tamarind-sour vegetable preparation, homemade coconut sweets for dessert, and the traditional Seder plate with its symbolic items interpreted through an Indian lens.
The Haggadah used at an Indian Jewish Seder may differ from the standard Ashkenazi version. Some families use community-specific Haggadahs developed within the Bene Israel or Cochin traditions, which include prayers and songs in Judeo-Marathi, Malayalam, or Judeo-Arabic alongside the Hebrew text. The songs sung at the Seder, including the telling of the Exodus story, carry melodies that would be unfamiliar to most North American Jews but deeply familiar to anyone who grew up in the Indian Jewish world.
Gathering in Toronto and other diaspora cities, the Indian Jewish community uses Passover as an opportunity to transmit culture to a younger generation that may have grown up with less direct connection to India. Grandmothers who cooked these dishes for decades in Mumbai or Kochi now teach grandchildren who grew up in Canadian suburbs. The recipes are being written down, the songs recorded, and the stories told with increasing urgency as the generation that remembers life in India grows older.
The spicy, rice-rich, coconut-scented Passover of Toronto’s Indian Jews is a vivid reminder that Jewish tradition is not monolithic and that the Exodus story resonates as deeply and as personally in a Maharashtrian kitchen as it does anywhere else in the Jewish world.
Source: Passover a Spicy Affair for Toronto’s Indian Jews
Related Reading
- The Bene Israel of Maharashtra
- The Jews of Cochin
- Feature Articles on Indian Jewish History
- Interesting Facts About the Jews of India
- The Four Communities of Indian Jews: An Overview
Passover and the Indian Jewish Table
Passover is perhaps the holiday that most clearly reveals the distinctive character of Indian Jewish cooking. The Seder table in an Indian Jewish home is immediately recognizable as Jewish — the Haggadah is read, the Four Questions are asked, bitter herbs and charoset are present — yet the surrounding meal reflects Indian culinary traditions shaped over generations. The spice palate remains fully Indian: fresh turmeric, ginger, coriander, and chili make the Passover table fragrant and vibrant.
The prohibition on chametz during Passover encouraged Indian Jewish cooks to develop creative approaches using rice (permitted in Sephardic and Mizrahi traditions), coconut, potatoes, and legumes. For many Indian Jewish families, the Passover meal is the most elaborate and memorable of the Jewish year, requiring days of preparation and bringing extended family together around a table that honors both Jewish law and Indian culinary tradition.
Preserving the Recipe, Preserving the Culture
The documentation of Indian Jewish recipes has become an urgent priority as the communities that created them continue to shrink. In 1948, before the establishment of the State of Israel, there were an estimated 30,000 Jews living in India. Today, fewer than 5,000 remain, most of them elderly. The younger generations have largely emigrated to Israel, where they maintain some connection to their Indian heritage while integrating into Israeli society.
Cookbooks, food blogs, and community archives have played a crucial role in preserving these recipes. Works like “Bene Appetit: The Cuisine of Indian Jews” and various community-produced recipe collections represent efforts by Indian Jewish families to document their culinary traditions before they are lost. Food writers and ethnographers have also contributed by interviewing elderly community members and recording not just the recipes but the stories and memories surrounding them.
For the Indian Jewish diaspora, cooking these dishes is an act of cultural maintenance — a way of honoring ancestors and transmitting identity to children who may have grown up in Tel Aviv, New York, or London, far from Mumbai, Cochin, or Kolkata where their grandparents lived. The food becomes a bridge between generations and across geographies, carrying the taste of a world that is gradually disappearing but whose flavors refuse to be forgotten.