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 India and Israel established full diplomatic relations in January 1992, it marked the beginning of a new chapter not only in bilateral geopolitics but in the lives of Indian Jews who had spent decades navigating the complications of having deep attachments to two countries that were, for much of their post-independence history, not on speaking terms. For the Bene Israel and Baghdadi Jews who had emigrated to Israel, normalization meant that the India of their birth and the Israel of their national identity were finally aligned in the way they had always felt personally aligned.
India’s Pre-1992 Relationship with Israel
India’s decision to refrain from establishing full diplomatic relations with Israel from 1948 until 1992 was shaped by multiple political considerations. India’s foreign policy under Nehru and his successors prioritized solidarity with the Non-Aligned Movement and with Arab states, many of which were strong opponents of Israeli statehood. India also had a large Muslim population whose sentiments on the Palestinian question were a domestic political consideration. And India’s dependence on Arab oil exports made maintaining good relations with Arab states a practical economic priority.
The result was a peculiar diplomatic situation in which India had consular but not full diplomatic relations with Israel, maintained friendly people-to-people contacts, conducted quiet defense cooperation, and allowed its Jewish citizens to maintain connections with the Jewish state, while officially keeping Israel at arm’s length. For Indian Jews who had immigrated to Israel, this situation created an awkward feeling of being caught between two countries that should logically have been friends.
What Normalization Changed
The establishment of full diplomatic relations in 1992 opened the door to a rapidly deepening relationship between India and Israel. Defense cooperation, which had existed covertly, became overt and grew quickly into one of the largest components of the bilateral relationship. Israel became one of India’s most important defense suppliers, providing advanced weapons systems, surveillance technology, and military training. Agricultural cooperation, water management technology transfer, and innovation partnerships followed.
For Indian Jews, normalization had both practical and symbolic significance. Practically, it made travel and communication between India and Israel easier and more visible. Symbolically, it meant that the two countries that Indian Jews thought of as their homes were now publicly acknowledging their relationship, validating a connection that Indian Jews had always felt but that their countries’ diplomatic stance had implicitly denied.
Indian Jews as Human Bridges
As the India-Israel relationship has deepened over the decades since 1992, the role of Indian Jews as cultural and human bridges between the two countries has become more explicitly recognized. Indian Jewish communities in Israel are natural interlocutors for Indian businesspeople, diplomats, and tourists visiting Israel. They speak both Hebrew and Indian languages, understand both cultures, and carry within their personal histories the long relationship between the two countries.
Indian Jewish organizations in Israel have actively cultivated this bridging role, hosting cultural events that bring together Indian and Israeli audiences, facilitating business connections, and serving as resources for Israelis who want to understand India better. The Indian Jewish diaspora in Israel is, in this sense, a diplomatic and cultural asset of a kind that no amount of official programming can replicate.
The Future of the Relationship
The India-Israel relationship continues to deepen, driven by shared strategic interests, complementary economies, and the personal connections maintained by the Indian Jewish diaspora. Prime Minister Modi’s 2017 visit to Israel was a high-water mark in the public recognition of this relationship, but it represented a formalization of trends that had been building for decades. For Indian Jews watching from Israel, the growing warmth between their homeland and the country they have made their home is a source of deep satisfaction, a vindication of the dual identity they have always carried.