Baghdadi Jewish Women in India
Baghdadi Jews, who came to India in the late eighteenth century from Baghdad, Basra, Aleppo, and other Arabic-speaking portions of the Ottoman Empire, established large diaspora groups in...
Nissim Ezekiel's poem "Night of the Scorpion" will always be remembered fondly by generations of Indian school students, especially those from the ICSE stream. The poem's various themes of good vs evil, superstition versus rationality, and love conquering all...
Baghdadi Jews, also known as Indo-Iraqi Jews, are mostly descended from Baghdad and other parts of the Middle East, as the name implies. They first established themselves in ports and along trade routes in the Indian Ocean and the...
Jael Silliman is an Associate Professor of Women's Studies at the University of Iowa and the author of Jewish Portraits, Indian Frames: Women's Narratives from a Hopeful Diaspora (Brandeis University Press, 2002). The experiences of four generations of Jewish...
Apart from being India's former British capital, Kolkata was once a migratory hub, with populations like Parsis, Armenians, Chinese, and Jews flourishing in its crumbling colonnades and fading world history.
However, the culturally lively metropolis is seeing a decline in...
Surat: The relatively minuscule Jewish community in India has never faced anti-Semitism in its 200 years of existence. In India, Jews have Christian neighbors, Hindu coworkers, and Muslim caregivers while maintaining their own identity.
They celebrate Durga Puja, Diwali, Rosh...
The congregation of Baghdadi Jews in Shanghai dedicated the newly completed structure that will house the Ohel Rachel Synagogue on January 23, 1921. It was built in the Greek Revival style of London's Bevis Marks and Lauderdale Road synagogues...
Baghdadi Jewish Merchants in Shanghai and the Opium Trade
Between 1858 and 1917, the opium trade was legal in China. The trade-in of this addictive, highly crippling narcotic drug was heavily dominated by...
Baghdadi came to refer to all Jews from Iraq, Syria, and other parts of the Ottoman Empire, as well as Jews from Aden, Yemen, and even Persia and Afghanistan. Baghdad, on the other hand, was always viewed as their...
The once-thriving Baghdadi Jewish community has shrunk to only 20 members.
Kolkata had a sizable Jewish community before India's independence in 1947. They were known as "Baghdadi Jews" because they came from modern-day Iraq and Syria in the late 1800s....