After their army service, young Israelis are traveling to India in droves. Many who visit come back home with delightful stories and memories of their time in South Africa. Now, their parents are visiting with tour groups that feature...
Rahel Musleah was born in Calcutta, India, to a family whose lineage can be traced back to Baghdad in the 17th century. This lady is going to lead you on a very interesting tour of Jewish India that incorporates...
This article examines the Babylonian Jews' religious music repertory (liturgical and paraliturgical) in the port city of Bombay (now Mumbai) in western India, based mostly on information gathered from informants in the mid-1980s in Bombay and the United Kingdom....
This week on the Right Brain Music Podcast, we meet the Om Shalom Trio, a group of musicians who blend Indian, Jewish, and classical music traditions so well that you won't even know they were ever apart. This is...
Shir Hodu: Jewish Song from Bombay of the ‘30s
Over the last few decades, there has been an increasing interest in the music of India's Jewish community. Indeed, the formation of a close-knit...
From India to Israel, Making Beautiful Music
Zubin Mehta is on the phone with an old buddy for the first few minutes of our encounter (who, it turns out, is a grandson of...
Apart from the time-honored rituals of children and adventurous adults screaming and stomping their feet to scare away the evil Haman during readings from the ‘Megillah,' the congregation will witness a slice of Marathi Jewish history at sundown this...
Malayalam Zionist songs, which incorporate melodies and rhetoric from Indian cinema and political music from the twentieth century, are a noteworthy example of Jewish integration and contribution to Kerala's diverse culture. Kerala Jews composed songs in Malayalam right up...
On the music of Yahudi, Bimal Roy's unexpected Bollywood historical about the persecution of Jews in ancient Rome, the dulcet ring of the oud is impossible to miss. The background score, produced by Shankar and Jaikishan, has a slightly...
Another famous Jewish Israeli Indian is Samson Khamkar, a first generation Israeli Indian sitar and violin player. He belonged to a popular ethnically mixed Israeli musical group whose name translates to "The Natural Gathering". One of their more well...