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 and antisemitic inquisitions.
The former communities of Jewish migrants and their descendants from Baghdad and elsewhere in the Middle East are traditionally called Baghdadi Jews or Iraqi Jews. They settled primarily in the ports and along the trade routes around the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.
David Sassoon was the treasurer of Baghdad between 1817 and 1829. He became the leader of the Jewish community in Mumbai after Baghdadi Jews emigrated there.
Since the 1990s, the Republic of India and the State of Israel have had a comprehensive economic, military, and political relationship. In 1947, India voted against the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, but nonetheless recognized Israeli sovereignty in 1950. Israel opened a consulate in Bombay in 1953. Collaboration gradually increased as Israel became a key Indian ally amidst the India–Pakistan conflict; Israel supplied India with armaments, ammunition, and intelligence during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1999. Full diplomatic relations were established in 1992, when India opened an embassy in Tel Aviv and Israel opened an embassy in New Delhi. Both countries are members of the I2U2 Group, formed in October 2021, and have stated that they have a strong bilateral relationship, sharing similarities in spirit and facing common challenges, increasingly cooperating in the industrial and technological sectors.
History of the Jews in Pakistan goes back to 1839 when Pakistan was part of British India. Various estimates suggest that there were about 1,000 to 2,500 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.
The Knesset Eliyahoo, also Knesset Eliyahu, is an Orthodox Jewish synagogue located in downtown Mumbai, India. It is the city's second oldest Sephardic synagogue. It was established in 1884 by Jacob Elias Sassoon, son of Eliyahoo David Sassoon and grandson of David Sassoon; the latter had immigrated from Baghdad to India in 1832 due to persecution and had settled in Mumbai, then known as Bombay. It is maintained by the Jacob Sassoon Trust. The building's significance is attributed to its Jewish traditions as well as Indian and English colonial influences.
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.
Esther David is an Indian Jewish author, an artist and a sculptor. She is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award.
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 Gate of Mercy Synagogue, Hebrew: שער הרחמים) is the oldest synagogue in Mumbai, India. The synagogue was built in 1796 by Samaji Hasaji Divekar, a Bene Israeli, near CSMT in South Mumbai. The synagogue was later rebuilt and moved to the present location at Mandvi in 1860. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the area was inhabited by a small but thriving Jewish community.
The Nariman House, designated as a Chabad house, is a five-storey landmark in the Colaba area of South Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. The building was home to a Chabad house, a Jewish outreach centre run by Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, who had owned the building since around 2006. The centre had an educational center, a synagogue, offered drug prevention services, and a hostel.
Gavriel Noach Holtzberg (Hebrew: גבריאל נח הולצברג; June 9, 1979 – November 26, 2008 was an Israeli American Orthodox rabbi and the Chabad emissary to Mumbai, India, where he and his wife Rivka ran the Mumbai Chabad House. He was also a religious leader and community builder for the local Jewish Indian community, and led the Friday-night Shabbat services at the Knesset Eliyahoo synagogue. Holtzberg and his wife were murdered during the 2008 Mumbai attacks perpetrated by the Islamic militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Sandra Samuel is an Indian nanny who gained international recognition for rescuing a two-year-old Jewish boy named Moshe Holtzberg in Mumbai, India, during the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. Samuel was employed as a caretaker at a Jewish outreach centre known as the Nariman House, which was targeted by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), both of Holtzberg's parents were killed by LeT militants during the attack on the building. Following the incident, Samuel relocated to Israel with Holtzberg and was honourably granted full Israeli citizenship in 2010. Samuel resides in West Jerusalem and works at the local centre of ALEH, an Israeli foundation that provides rehabilitation services for disabled children and adults.
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 history of the Jews in Bangladesh refers to the history of a tiny Jewish community in Bangladesh, previously known as East Pakistan. Jewish history in the country can be traced 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. The Jews of Bangladesh are reported to have been Baghdadi Jews and the Bene Israel. Most of these Jews emigrated by the 1960s. Now, only a few Jewish families live in Bangladesh very quietly due to government policy towards Israel.
