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 state of Kerala. As early as the 12th century, mention is made of the Jews in southern India by Benjamin of Tudela. They are known to have developed Judeo-Malayalam, a dialect of Malayalam language.
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.
Paradesi Jews immigrated to the Indian subcontinent during the 15th and 16th centuries following the expulsion of Jews from Spain. Paradesi refers to the Malayalam word that means foreign as they were newcomers. These Sephardic immigrants fled persecution and death by burning in the wake of the 1492 Alhambra decree expelling all Jews who did not convert to Christianity from Spain and King Manuel's 1496 decree expelling Jews from Portugal. They are sometimes referred to as "White Jews", although that usage is generally considered pejorative or discriminatory and refers to relatively recent Jewish immigrants, predominantly Sephardim.
The Bnei Menashe is a community of Indian Jews from various Tibeto-Burmese ethnic groups from the border of India and Burma who claim descent from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel; some of them have adopted Judaism. The community has around 10,000 members.
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.
Several groups of people have claimed lineal descent from the Israelites, an ancient Semitic-speaking people who inhabited Canaan during the Iron Age. The phenomenon has become especially prevalent since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. The country's Law of Return, which defines Jewishness for the purpose of aliyah, prompted many individuals to claim Israelite ancestry with the expectation that it would make them eligible for Israeli citizenship through their perceived Jewish ethnicity. The abundance of these claims has led to the rise of the question of "who is a Jew?" in order to determine the legitimacy of one's Jewish identity. Some of these claims have been recognized, while other claims are still under review, and others have been outright rejected.
Desi Jews are Jews living in South Asia who belong to communities that had been integrated into South Asian culture and society.
Nevatim is a moshav in southern Israel. Located in the northern Negev desert around 8 km (5 mi) south-east of Beersheba, it falls under the jurisdiction of Bnei Shimon Regional Council. In 2021 it had a population of 1,068.
The Ten Lost Tribes were the ten of the Twelve Tribes of Israel that were said to have been exiled from the Kingdom of Israel after its conquest by the Neo-Assyrian Empire c. 722 BCE. These are the tribes of Reuben, Simeon, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Manasseh, and Ephraim---all but Judah, Benjamin, and some members of the priestly Tribe of Levi, which did not have its own territory. However, since the tribe of Simeon lived well within the territory of Judah, it is not clear why this tribe was never included in this list. Also, the tribes of Asher and Reuben were never mentioned as participating in anything after the conquest, living in either Phoenician (Asher) or Moabite (Reuben) controlled territory. By the middle 9th century BCE the territory of Gad was also (re)taken by the Moabites, so the Assyrians could at most have removed the other six tribes. Thus, the "10 tribes" appears to be a misnomer, meaning all of the Israelites that were living outside the Kingdom of Judah. The Jewish historian Josephus wrote that "there are but two tribes in Asia and Europe subject to the Romans, while the ten tribes are beyond Euphrates till now, and are an immense multitude, and not to be estimated by numbers".
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.
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.
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 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 a senior researcher at The Seymour Fox School of Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. In 2017, she was GIAN Distinguished Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, in New Delhi. She has researched Indian Jews, Ethiopian Jews, and the Ten Lost Tribes and specializes in femicide, qualitative methods, violence, ethnicity, education, religion, and migration.
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.
The Thekkumbhagam MattancherrySynagogue aka Thekkumbhagam Synagogue was a synagogue located in Mattancherry Jew Town, a suburb of Kochi, Kerala, in South India. It was built in 1647 AD. by the Malabar Jews, on land donated by the Maharajah of Cochin and was one of the oldest known synagogues in India. It was the fourth to be built in Mattancherry after they fled to Cochin from Muziris and it was one of three in the area, the others being the Kadavumbhagam Mattancherry Synagogue and the Paradesi Synagogue of the Paradesi Jews of Cochin.
The Kadavumbhagham Ernakulam Synagogue in Kerala, India, is the restored oldest synagogue of the Malabar Jews with a Sefer Torah scroll and offering occasional services. It was established in 1200 CE and restored several times through the centuries on the same site. It is modeled on the earliest synagogue of the Malabar Jews at Muziris, which dated from the time of ancient sea trade between the Mediterranean and Kerala.
For historical and contemporary Jewish populations by country, see Jews by country.
