In the 1930s and 1940s, India’s leaders were faced with a new and urgent task: welcoming Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in Europe. During the Holocaust, 5,000 Jews fled to India, a safe refuge. It was important in saving their lives.
Honor the past, safeguard the future, and use the hashtag #WeRemember to share your photo. Because we must educate the next generation, these stories must not be lost.
Jews have lived in India for ages. The three main factions of the Jewish population in India are the Bene Israel, Cochin Jews, and Baghdadi Jews, who have adapted their original cuisines to local products and influences while maintaining kosher regulations. The result is a delectable confluence.
The Jews of Cochin, India’s oldest Jewish community, who settled in Kerala and have been here for at least a millennium, demonstrate this strange mingling of cuisines. Because coconut and coconut oil are readily available in the area, they are frequently used in the community’s daily cuisine.
The Cochin Jewish aromatic coconut rice is one of their signature dishes. It’s made by combining cooked rice with thinly shredded coconut meat and spices, or by boiling the rice in coconut milk and then adding spices.
Chicken breasts are dipped in eggs, coated in crumbs, and deep-fried in the Cochin Jewish cutlet, which is similar to schnitzel. Signature meals include Hubba, which is akin to Arabic kibbeh, Dalia, onion, and minced meat croquettes, Spethi, or stewed beef, and the Rosh Hashanah delicacy, Cochin Jewish cake, which is prepared with semolina, eggs, and sugar.
Oren Rosenfeld, a Jewish filmmaker, and producer, is accompanying Moshe Holtzberg, 11, on his three-day trip to Mumbai, where he is filming a documentary about the city’s Jewish community. Moshe, his nanny Sandra Samuel, and the 26/11 terror assault, which killed 166 people in Mumbai in 2008, are featured prominently in his documentary.
Rosenfeld has been filming for the film for the past three years, and it is set to be finished by the end of this year. He’ll be shooting in Mumbai till January 27 before returning to Israel. While looking for entrepreneur Eddna Samuel, who organized an event to commemorate the 2008 attack, Rosenfeld came into Chabad House, a Jewish community center.
“Israel has at least 33,000 Indian immigrants. Many of them continue to return to India for celebrations, weddings, and to keep in touch with loved ones who live there. I’ve seen Jews who have come from other nations, but they don’t return to their homelands,” Rosenfeld explained.
Next Sunday, Mahatma Moses’ Comedy Caravan features award-winning, clean, and witty standup comedy with Indian-Jewish comic Mahatma Moses as Samson Koletkar and friends in two shows (June 23).
At 5 p.m., Koletkar will appear in a Marathi language show alongside Abhay Paranjape, Meg David, Shruti Nimkar, and Adwait Paranjpe. At 8 p.m., Koletkar will perform in English, with Abhay Nadkarni, the winner of the Desi Comedy Fest, as the opening act.
Source: https://www.pleasantonweekly.com/news/2019/06/16/indian-jewish-laughs-at-firehouse
On the Malabar coast in southwest India, the Jews of Cochin make up a small and distinct population. While any putative Jewish forebears of the community are thought to have arrived as early as biblical times (King Solomon’s era), a Jewish community on the Malabar coast has only been attested since the 9th century CE. We investigate the genetic history of Cochin Jews by genotyping 21 members of the community and comparing the results with data from 707 individuals from 72 other Indian, Jewish, and Pakistani groups, as well as individuals from other populations throughout the world. We used principal component analysis, FST, ADMIXTURE, identity-by-descent sharing, admixture linkage disequilibrium decay, haplotype sharing, allele sharing autocorrelation decay, and contrasting the X chromosome with the autosomes to conduct comprehensive genome-wide investigations. Several prior studies have found that the genetics of Cochin Jews are similar to that of indigenous Indian communities. However, we find significant Jewish genetic heritage in this community that is not found in any other Indian or Pakistani population (except the Jewish Bene Israel, which we characterized previously). Cochin Jews are descended from both Jewish and Indian ancestors. According to historical sources, we see a considerable recent Jewish gene flow into this group 13–22 generations (470–730 years) ago, with contributions from Yemenite, Sephardi, and Middle-Eastern Jews. High endogamy and a recent population bottleneck have also been discovered in this population, which could explain the elevated occurrence of various recessive disorders in Cochin Jews.
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5020127/
Jael Silliman, an Indian Jewish writer, has a dazzling collection of epic fiction, moving memoirs, and cultural histories.
Jael Silliman, an Indian Jewish writer, is a scholar, academic, activist, novelist, anthropologist, and archivist. (Perhaps a few more than Morris, the title character of her odd debut novel, The Man with Many Hats.) While her latest novel, The Teak Almirah, prompted us to speak with her, we quickly found ourselves happily drifting at the intersection of history and memory, until we came to the subject of books, at which point Silliman provided us with a glittering list to take home.
Silliman grew up in 1960s Calcutta, when the city’s close-knit and vibrant Jewish community, nearly entirely made up of Baghdadi Jews, had already fled – or were about to leave. The Jewish Girls’ School was no longer exclusively for Jewish girls (Silliman attended Loreto House rather than Jewish Girls’ School, as her mother and grandmother had done), and the oldest synagogue, the Neveh Shalome on Canning Street, where Silliman’s family worshipped, was no longer packed on festival days.
Fans of early Bollywood will notice that Sulochana—born Ruby Myers—and Pramila have a lot in common in their lives and professions. Both became superstars in the Indian cinema industry during a time when Indian women were rarely seen outside the home, both were known for their incredible dancing abilities, and both had unparalleled control over their careers.
But, perhaps most importantly, both actresses were members of India’s small but influential Jewish community – a community that would revolutionize the country’s burgeoning film industry.
“Sulochana was paid better than the Governor of Bombay at one point,” according to Elisabeth M. Stevens, curator of the new exhibit “Baghdadis & the Bene Israel in Bollywood and Beyond” at the Center for Jewish History in New York, a fact that was breathlessly reported in the Indian press at the time about the actress who would go on to appear in 72 films throughout her career.
It’s a small community with surnames so intertwined that it’s difficult to distinguish an Indian Jew by their name, clothes, or outward appearance. But what about Aditya Roy Kapoor from Bollywood? Anish Kapoor, a British artist? Admiral Samson, the naval commander? Those are all sons of India with Jewish ancestors, and their names should ring a bell. But when and how did the first Jews come to India, and why did they do so? Padma Rao, the senior international editor, takes us back in time.
WION (World is One News) investigates global issues in depth. We offer a lot more than just the latest headlines. Our goal is to encourage individuals to learn more about the world around them.
Anish Kapoor (born March 12, 1954, in Bombay [now Mumbai], India) is a British sculptor of Indian ancestry who is recognized for his use of abstract biomorphic forms, as well as his use of rich colors and polished surfaces. He was also the first living artist to have a solo exhibition at London’s Royal Academy of Arts.
Kapoor was born in India to Punjabi parents and Iraqi-Jewish grandparents. He went to Hornsey College of Art (1973–77) and Chelsea School of Art (1977–78) in London to study art. In 1979, he returned to India and gained new insights into the country where he was born. In works like 1000 Names, he used vivid paints and strong architectural forms to express these feelings. This series of abstract geometric forms were created between 1979 and 1980 and comprised of arrangements of loose powdered colors that flowed beyond the item and onto the floor or wall.
PUNE: Since the British landed in this area, Jews have been a part of Camp’s diaspora. They arrived in the Cantonment area almost two centuries ago, from a variety of backgrounds. However, nothing is known about the burial sites of the first inhabitants.
The number of functioning Jewish cemeteries in India is declining.
One such cemetery, in the Koregaon Park region of Pune, is still operational. The famed David Sassoon’s remains are supposed to be interred at the Ohel David Synagogue site.
Over the years, combing through rubbish and outgrowth has led to the discovery of two Jewish graves in the city.
