The Jews of India are one of the least well-known and fascinating Diaspora populations. The religious lives of the Jewish community in Cochin, the Bene Israel from the remote Konkan coast near Bombay, and the Baghdadi Jews, who migrated to Indian port cities and flourished under the British Raj, are examined in depth in this readable study, which is full of vivid details of everyday life. Who Are the Jews of India? is the first book to look at all three of India’s Jewish communities in one place.
Nathan Katz uses an interdisciplinary approach to analyze the tactics each community developed to sustain its Jewish identity, drawing on methodologies and insights from religious studies, ritual studies, anthropology, history, languages, and folklore. This research gives a remarkable new view of the Jewish Diaspora and Hindu civilization as a whole, based on extensive fieldwork throughout India and critical reading of historical texts.
Source: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520213234/who-are-the-jews-of-india
