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Jews and Judaism |
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The history of the Jews in Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan), can be traced back to the 18th and 19th centuries. The Jews of British India and Pakistan had a small community in what is now Bangladesh, particularly in the city of Dhaka. Jewish residents were also reported in Rajshahi. [1] The Jews of Bangladesh are reported to have been Baghdadi Jews, Cochin Jews and the Bene Israel. Most of these Jews emigrated by the 1960s. Now, only a few Jewish families live in Bangladesh very quietly (practicing Crypto-Judaism) due to government policy towards Israel.
Jews have been linked to the modern history of Bangladesh. Some of the prominent Jewish residents included Mordechai Cohen, a former television newsreader and actor; [2] and Alex Aronson, an academic who taught at the University of Dhaka. [3] Some foreign Jews who are prominently associated with the country include the American architect Louis Kahn, who designed Bangladesh's parliament; and J. F. R. Jacob, an Indian army general who served in the Bangladesh Liberation War.
Mesopotamian Jews, also known as Baghdadi Jews, settled in the cities of eastern Bengal. [4] During the Mughal period, eastern Bengal was a hub for Eurasian merchants due to the thriving muslin trade in Bengal. Baghdadi Jewish merchants may have settled in Dhaka during the 18th-century. [5] The region was later administered by the British Empire. A notable episode during the colonial period involved Alex Aronson, a German Jewish academic and friend of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. During the outbreak of the Second World War, Aronson was viewed as an enemy alien by the British colonial government. Despite being a Jew, he was suspected of being a spy of Axis Germany. Aronson was detained and placed under house arrest, which disrupted his work in Santiniketan University. His friend Tagore requested the British government to release him but Tagore's request was initially turned down. Tagore then secured the help of Prime Minister Khawaja Nazimuddin of Bengal to have Aronson released. After Tagore's death in 1941, Aronson began to teach in Dhaka University in the hometown of Sir Nazimuddin, a member of the Dhaka Nawab Family. [3] [6]
The Jews were mainly based in Kolkata of West Bengal. They managed to create a full community, built synagogues, schools, and hospital for the Jewish community, where the Jews of East Bengal, mostly migrants from Kolkata lived for commercial reasons. [7] The Jewish population in East Bengal was only about 135 Jews at the time of the Partition of British India in 1947. [7] Mordechai Cohen, who was born in Rajshahi, became an English and Bengali newsreader for Pakistan Television in Dacca, East Pakistan. [2] [1] Members of the Bene Israel community also resided in Dhaka in the 1960s. [5] By the late 1960s, much of the Jewish community had left for Kolkata. [4] According to historian Ziauddin Tariq Ali, a trustee of the Liberation War Museum, "There were two Jewish families in Bangladesh [after independence], but both migrated to India — one in 1973 and the other in 1975." [8] In 2018 4 Jews were in Dhaka [9]
The Polish-American Jewish architect Louis Kahn worked in East Pakistan and post-independent Bangladesh to design the Jatiyo Sangshad Bhaban. During the Bangladesh War of Independence, Major General J. F. R. Jacob played a key role in the surrender of Pakistan. According to a record of the Jewish Telegraph Agency on 7 February 1972, it is stated that "Israel has officially recognized the new state of Bangladesh. The announcement said that Foreign Minister Abba Eban informed Bangladesh Foreign Minister Abdus Samad Azad of the recognition in a cable Friday. The recognition decision was taken after telephone consultations with all members of the Cabinet Friday instead of waiting for today’s regular Cabinet meeting. Israeli recognition was first requested last April in a letter from Acting President Nazrul Islam and Foreign Minister Mostaq Ahmad of the Bengali provisional government which was then fighting a war of secession from Pakistan". [10]
There is no official diplomatic relationship between Bangladesh and Israel. [11]
Sir Khawaja Nazimuddin was a Pakistani politician and statesman who served as the second governor-general of Pakistan from 1948 to 1951, and later as the second prime minister of Pakistan from 1951 to 1953.
The Bene Israel, also referred to as the "Shanivar Teli" or "Native Jew" caste, are a community of Jews in India. It has been suggested that they are the descendants of one of the Ten Lost Tribes via their ancestors who had settled there centuries ago. Starting in the second half of the 18th century, after they were taught about normative Sephardi Judaism, they migrated from villages in the Konkan region where they had previously lived to nearby cities throughout British India—primarily to Mumbai where their first synagogue opened in 1796 but also to Pune, Ahmedabad, and Karachi, where they gained prominent positions within the British colonial government and the Indian Army.
Cochin Jews are the oldest group of Jews in India, with roots that are claimed to date back to the time of King Solomon. The Cochin Jews settled in the Kingdom of Cochin in South India, now part of the present-day state of Kerala. As early as the 12th century, mention is made of the Jews in southern India by Benjamin of Tudela.
The history of the Jews in India dates back to antiquity. Judaism was one of the first foreign religions to arrive in the Indian subcontinent in recorded history. Desi Jews are a small religious minority who have lived in the region since ancient times. They were able to survive for centuries despite persecution by Portuguese colonizers and nonnative antisemitic inquisitions.
Abul Kasem Fazlul Huq, popularly known as Sher-e-Bangla, was a Bengali lawyer and politician who presented the Lahore Resolution which had the objective of creating an independent Pakistan. He also served as the first and longest Prime Minister of Bengal during the British Raj.
Baghdadi Jews or Iraqi Jews are historic terms for the former communities of Jewish migrants and their descendants from Baghdad and elsewhere in the Middle East. They settled primarily in the ports and along the trade routes around the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.
Desi Jews are Jews living in South Asia who belong to communities that had been integrated into South Asian culture and society.
East Bengal was the eastern province of the Dominion of Pakistan, which covered the territory of modern-day Bangladesh. It consisted of the eastern portion of the Bengal region, and existed from 1947 until 1955, when it was renamed as East Pakistan. East Bengal had a coastline along the Bay of Bengal to the south, and bordered India to the north, west, and east and shared a small border with Burma to the southeast. It was situated near, but did not share a border with Nepal, Tibet, the Kingdom of Bhutan and the Kingdom of Sikkim. Its capital was Dacca, now known as Dhaka.
Nawab Sir Khwaja Salimullah Bahadur was the fourth Nawab of Dhaka and one of the leading Muslim politicians during the British rule in India.
The Nawab of Dhaka, originally spelt in English Nawab of Dacca, was the title of the head of one of the largest Muslim zamindar in British Bengal and Assam, based in present-day Dhaka, Bangladesh. The title of nawab, similar to the British peerage, was conferred upon the head of the family by Queen Victoria as a recognition of the first Nawab's loyalty and contribution to the social welfare activities.
The history of the Jews in Pakistan goes back to 1839 when Pakistan was part of British India. Various estimates suggest that there were about 50,000 to 60,000 Jews living in Karachi at the beginning of the 20th century, mostly comprising Iranian Jews and Bene Israel ; a substantial Jewish community lived in Rawalpindi, and a smaller community also lived in Peshawar.
There are many synagogues in the Indian subcontinent, although many no longer function as such and today vary in their levels of preservation. These buildings dating from the mid-sixteenth through the mid-20th century once served the country's three distinct Jewish groups—the ancient Cochin Jews, and Bene Israel communities as well as the more recent Baghdadi Jews.
Indian Jews in Israel are immigrants and descendants of the immigrants of the Indian Jewish communities, who now reside within the State of Israel. Indian Jews who live in Israel include thousands of Cochin Jews and Paradesi Jews of Kerala; thousands of Baghdadi Jews from Mumbai and Kolkata; tens of thousands from the Bene Israel of Maharashtra and other parts of British India and the Bnei Menashe of Manipur and Mizoram.
The history of the Jews in Mumbai, India, began when Jews started settling in Bombay during the first century, due to its economic opportunities. The Jewish community of Bombay consisted of the remnants of three distinct communities: the Bene Israeli Jews of Konkan, the Baghdadi Jews of Iraq, and the Cochin Jews of Malabar.
The Bengal Armenians were ethnic Armenians who lived in what is now called Bangladesh. Their numbers have gradually diminished and there are now no Armenians in the country.
Zamindars of Natore were influential aristocratic Bengali Zamindars, who owned large estates in what is today Natore District in Bangladesh .
The history of the Jews in Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta, in India, began in the late eighteenth century when adventurous Baghdadi Jewish merchants originally from Aleppo and Baghdad chose to establish themselves permanently in the emerging capital of the British Raj. The community they founded became the hub of the Judeo-Arabic-speaking Baghdadi Jewish trading diaspora in Asia.
Shalva Weil is Senior Researcher at The Seymour Fox School of Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and Life Member at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, UK. In 2017, she was GIAN Distinguished Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, in New Delhi. She has researched Indian Jews, Ethiopian Jews, Baghdadi Jews, the Ten Lost Tribes and Femicide.
Jews started settling in Bombay in the 2nd century. The Jewish community of Bombay consisted of three distant groups, the Bene Israeli Jews, the Baghdadi Jews, and the Cochin Jews.
The Bengal Legislative Assembly was the largest legislature in British India, serving as the lower chamber of the legislature of Bengal. It was established under the Government of India Act 1935. The assembly played an important role in the final decade of undivided Bengal. The Leader of the House was the Prime Minister of Bengal. The assembly's lifespan covered the anti-feudal movement of the Krishak Praja Party, the period of World War II, the Lahore Resolution, the Quit India movement, suggestions for a United Bengal and the partition of Bengal and partition of British India.