Mumbai acted as a reunification point for India’s disintegrated Jews. Almost everyone in the Jewish community who has ever resided in India can trace their ancestors to Mumbai. Wearing a saree to a synagogue and loudly declaring to be Indian first and subsequently a Jew is becoming increasingly rare.
The Jews of Cochin are thought to be the oldest in India. In 562 BC, they began arriving in waves from Judea. They were largely traders who resided on Kerala’s southernmost state’s Malabar coast. The settlement of the second unique group of Jews in the Mumbai area was prompted by an unlucky shipwreck off the coast of Maharashtra in the 18th century. They were members of the Bene Israel community who had lost contact with their families in Israel and were forced to relocate to India. The Baghdadi was a third distinct Jewish group, most of them were immigrants who considered India to be a haven and settled primarily in Mumbai and Calcutta.
Source: https://www.theculturetrip.com/asia/india/articles/jews-in-mumbai-their-home-away-from-the-homeland/
