Jewish women were Indian cinema's first actresses
The Baghdadi Jewish community owes a significant debt of gratitude to Indian cinema because its women were among the first to act in films, at great...
Pearl Padamsee (1931–2000) was an Indian theatre personality as a stage actress, director and producer of English language theatre in Mumbai active in 1950s–1990s.
She also acted a few Hindi and English language films. She performed in at least ten...
When Danny Ben-Moshe read an obituary for acclaimed Hindi cinema actor Nadira in 2006, he noticed two things. Florence Ezekiel was one of her real names. The other was her "raunchy vamp" persona, as he put it.
Nadira was one...
A prize-winning actress (for some reason, the word ‘award’ wasn’t as much in vogue then), she was a triple M A, plus she did her Ph.D. after twenty years of marriage and two children. The first MA was in...
MUMBAI, India (Reuters) – Protests by India's small Jewish population caused star actor Anupam Kher to drop out of a film about Adolf Hitler's final days, a rare subject for a Bollywood film.
Following an outpouring of messages on social...
When Jews ran… Bollywood?
Hollywood has long been connected with Jews, for better or worse, since the first Jewish-run studios made cinema what it is today. Bollywood? Not at all.
The Jewish superstars who once ruled Bollywood
Danny Ben-Moshe, a Melbourne-based documentary filmmaker, received a newspaper clipping from his Indian research assistant in 2006. It was an obituary for a famous Indian actress...
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...
Bollywood appears to be losing a legacy - its Indian Jewish patrons - at a time when it is reaching out to many countries.
Their contribution to the Hindi film industry, particularly during the silent era before independence, was significant,...
In Indian films during the 1920s and 1930s, Hindu and Muslim women were uncommon. Women showing their bodies to strangers on-screen was frowned upon and regarded as taboo. Male actors are more likely to play female roles than female...