Monday, May 13, 2024
Page 5

Who was the secret Jewish aunt of the Indian first family?

0
Who was the secret Jewish aunt of the Indian first family?

Shobha (“Fori”) Nehru was an aristocratic Indian lady who married BK Nehru, a former Indian ambassador to the United States and the nephew of India’s first prime leader Jawaharlal Nehru. She was born and raised a Hungarian Jew, despite being a member of the Indian nobility. Learn how she met Martin Gilbert, a young British student who went on to become a world-renowned historian, and how their friendship grew over time, eventually leading her to question him about her history – the history of the Jews. Gilbert ended up sending her letters, which were later published as Letters to Auntie Fori: The 5,000-Year History of the Jewish People and Their Faith, a book on Jewish history.

Source: https://www.jewishunpacked.com/who-was-the-secret-jewish-aunt-of-the-indian-first-family/

ERAISED HISTORY-The story of Cochin Jews

0

The Cochin Jews are India’s oldest Jewish community, with roots that are said to go back to King Solomon’s time. The Cochin Jews settled in the Kingdom of Cochin, which is today part of Kerala, in South India.

Recalling the Baghdadi music of India

0
Recalling the Baghdadi music of India

The Baghdadi Jews of India had their record labels in the cosmopolitan society of the 1930s, and the Iraqi-Jewish tunes performed by oud player Isaac David even found their way into Bollywood musicals. Sara Manasseh, a Mumbai-born ethnomusicologist, released Shir Hodu, a collection of 15 pieces in 2009. The following is an excerpt from a fascinating interview published in Scroll magazine (thanks to Dominique):

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 Middle Eastern flavor to it, and the adaptable Arabian stringed instrument is frequently used to express the whirling emotions as the plot twists and turns. The oud sobs, moans, and sings intensify the emotion on film when killings are ordered, betrayals occur, and Dilip Kumar falls in love with Meena Kumari. It could have easily devolved into kitsch. Perhaps the fact that the man plucking the strings, Isaac David, was well-versed in Middle Eastern music was the reason it didn’t.

Source: https://www.jewishrefugees.org.uk/2017/08/recalling-baghdadi-music-of-india.html

The Jews of India

0
The Jews of India

Many people may be aware of this. For over a millennium, India has had resident Jewish populations. Jewish merchants and sailors from West Asia have made regular visits for at least two millennia. This book tells the story of the three strands of Indian Jews—the ancient Bene Israel and Cochini Jewish communities, as well as the more recent (18th-20th century) community of West-India Jews, the ‘Baghdadis,’ and their interrelationships and interactions, both among themselves and with the Hindu and Muslim communities with whom they lived and worked in peace and harmony.

The number of Jews in India has dwindled, particularly among the Cochin is and Baghdadis, who now find it extremely difficult to maintain any community activity, religious or otherwise, without the support of the Bene Israel of Maharashtra, who, despite being a fraction of their original number, are still numerous enough to sustain viable community life.

Source: https://www.vedicbooks.net/jews-india-p-14791.html

Modi visit holds special meaning for Indian Jews in Israel

0
Modi visit holds special meaning for Indian Jews in Israel

Even before clients smell the wonderful aroma of spices drifting from the kitchen, a sign welcoming Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomes them at a curry eatery in downtown Israel.

Modi’s three-day visit to Israel, which begins on Tuesday and will be the first by an Indian prime minister, is a watershed moment for the Jewish state, which is looking for powerful allies and clients for its expensive military weapons.

However, for members of Israel’s small Jewish Indian community, the trip is a source of genuine excitement and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to raise their profile.

Source: https://www.france24.com/en/20170704-modi-visit-holds-special-meaning-indian-jews-israel

Israel and India — 30 Years Of Close Friendship

0

India’s Most Famous Jewish Poet

0
India’s Most Famous Jewish Poet

Nissim Ezekiel’s biography has a familiar feel to it. He returned to his native city after a sojourn in the metropolis, bound to his city by complex ties: work, loves, family, and intimate knowledge of a culture to which he would always be to some degree an outsider. He was the son of a modestly bourgeois Jewish family, a generation or two removed from the traditions of rural village life; a young writer living on the margins of a great European empire in dissolution; a young writer living on the margins of a great

Berlin? Prague? The empire was British, and its declining moment came decades later for Ezekiel, the most famous Jewish poet to be raised speaking Marathi, a language of Western India. The pilgrimage took place at the close of World War II to London’s Birkbeck College, and the poet’s home was always, immutably, Bombay. In “Background, Casually” (1965), he wrote in English of his return to Bombay:

Source: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/indias-most-famous-jewish-poet

Bene Israel genetically descended from Jews, scientific study finds

0
Bene Israel genetically descended from Jews, scientific study finds

A Tel Aviv University study discovered genetic evidence to support the allegation that the Bene Israel minority in India has Jewish roots.

The research was published in the journal ‘PLoS One.’ It examined the genomes of 18 members of the Bene Israel community and discovered that they were of Jewish and Indian origin. The group descended from a few Jewish shipwreck survivors on the Indian coast up to 2,000 years ago, according to Bene Israel tradition.

The Bene Israel are a people who inhabit the Konkan region of India’s west coast. From a community that formerly numbered as many as 20,000 people, only a few thousand people remain now. Since the state’s founding in 1948, Israel has absorbed the majority of it.

In a news release, the study’s first author, Yedael Waldman, noted, “Beyond vague oral history and hypotheses, there has been no independent support for Bene Israel claims of Jewish lineage, claims that have remained buried in folklore.” “We discovered that while Bene Israel folks are genetically similar to local Indian communities, they form a distinct and distinct group in India.”

Source: https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/bene-israel-genetically-descended-from-jews-scientific-study-finds-5-4-2016?print=true

 

Inside Indian Jew’s promised land

0
Inside Indian Jew’s promised land

The small but visible Jewish diaspora in India is steadily dwindling as Maharashtra’s close-knit community of Bene Israeli and Baghdadi Jews permanently plans to migrate to their holy country. Over time, a large number of 65,000 Jews who came to India has declined.

According to several reports, the Bene Israelis have lived in Maharashtra for the past 2,200 years. Their forefathers were shipwrecked in Maharashtra’s Raigad district, in Navigation. The majority of the community lived on the outskirts of Maharashtra and were introduced to the oil-pressing business.

Baghdadi Jews, unlike Bene Israelis, migrated in the eighteenth century, according to historians. Iraqi, Afghani, Arabic, and Persian-speaking Jews from Iraq, Basra, Mosul, and Syria have settled in the community.

Source: https://www.routedmagazine.com/indian-jews-migration-israel

The Baghdadi Jews in India: Maintaining Communities, Negotiating Identities and Creating Super-Diversity

0
The Baghdadi Jews in India: Maintaining Communities, Negotiating Identities and Creating Super-Diversity

“The amazing differentiation of the Baghdadi Jewish community in India from the end of the eighteenth century till their dispersal to Indian diasporas in Israel and English-speaking countries around the world following India’s independence in 1947 is explored in this book. The book’s chapters on schools, institutions, and culture show how Baghdadis in India managed to keep their communities together by juggling several identities in a stratified and complex society. The super-diversity of the Baghdadis is explored through a variety of disciplinary viewpoints, as well as how they effectively adapted to new settings throughout the Raj while maintaining certain traditions and changing and assimilating others. The contributions to the book provide a comprehensive overview of this community, demonstrating that the Baghdadi Jews’ legacy lives on for Indians today through landmarks and monuments in Mumbai, Pune, and Kolkata, and for Jews through memories woven by members of the community living in various diasporas. This book will be of interest to students studying South Asian Studies, Diaspora and Ethnic Studies, Sociology, History, Jewish Studies, and Asian Religion, as well as those studying South Asian Studies, Diaspora and Ethnic Studies, Sociology, History, and Jewish Studies.”

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44127949-the-baghdadi-jews-in-india

1...456...80Page 5 of 80
© Copyright 2015 - The Jews Of India | Developed By Sam T.