| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 1,000–2,000 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Ramla | |
| Languages | |
| Modern: Hebrew Historical: Judeo-Urdu, Sindhi, Judeo-Marathi, other South Asian languages and Jewish languages | |
| Religion | |
| Judaism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Others of the Jewish diaspora (e.g., Indian Jews) |
In Israel, there is a community of between 1,000 and 2,000 people consisting of Pakistani Jews and their direct descendants. Upon the partition of British India in 1947, many Jews emigrated from the Dominion of Pakistan and resettled in the Dominion of India, joining the local Indian Jews. Following the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948, most of the remainder of Pakistan's Jews fled from the country as part of the wider Jewish exodus from the Muslim world, immigrating primarily to Israel and the Western world; [1] Israel's Pakistani Jewish community is largely concentrated in the city of Ramla. Sharing their heritage with the Indian Jews in Israel, the country's Pakistani Jews are mainly identified as having belonged to the Bene Israel, a community of the Jewish diaspora that coalesced in northern India.
Records cite that major Pakistani Jewish migration to Israel occurred in the 1960s and 1970s from India, where many Jewish refugees from Pakistan eventually settled during the independence period. Magain Shalome, built by Solomon David Umerdekar and his son Gershone Solomon, Karachi's last synagogue, was demolished in 1988 to make way for a shopping plaza. Most of the Karachi Jews now live in Ramla and Lod, Israel, Toronto, Canada, Mumbai, India and in several states in the United States and built a synagogue they named Magen Shalome. [2]
Jewish immigrants from Pakistan have served with distinction in the Israel Defense Forces and helped revive the game of cricket in Israel. [3]
The Israeli authors, Yoel Reuben (Satamkar) and Eliaz Reuben-Dandeker are of Bene-Israel of Karachi descent.
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.
Jewish ethnic divisions refer to many distinctive communities within the world's Jewish population. Although "Jewish" is considered an ethnicity itself, there are distinct ethnic subdivisions among Jews, most of which are primarily the result of geographic branching from an originating Israelite population, mixing with local communities, and subsequent independent evolutions.
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.
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.
The history of the Jews in Iraq is documented from the time of the Babylonian captivity c. 586 BCE. Iraqi Jews constitute one of the world's oldest and most historically significant Jewish communities.
Satamkar is a Bene Israel family who lived for centuries in Kolaba in the Konkan region, India. Most members moved to Israel from the 1960s through the 1980s; some have settled elsewhere in the world.
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.
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.
The Magain Shalome Synagogue was a synagogue in Karachi, Pakistan. It was built by Solomon David Umerdekar in 1893, when the region was still under British rule as India. The synagogue was destroyed in 1988 by the orders of then President of Pakistan, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, following which a shopping plaza was built in its place.
The history of Jews in Myanmar,, begins primarily in the mid-19th century, when hundreds of Jews immigrated from Iraq during the British colonial period. Cochin Jews came from India and both groups were part of the development of the British Empire, becoming allied with the British in Burma. At its height in 1940 the community of Jews in the country stood at 2,500 members.
The Bani Israel Graveyard is the only Jewish cemetery in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. This cemetery is a part of the larger Mewa Shah Graveyard. Over the years, the area has been reduced. The graveyard currently holds about 5,000 graves.
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.
Antisemitism in Pakistan is the presence of hostility and discrimination against Jews in Pakistan based on prejudices against the Jewish people and/or the religion of Judaism. Alongside the prevalence of general stereotypes, Jews are commonly subjected to negative views, feelings and rhetoric in Pakistan, most of which overlap with and are directly related to the antisemitic views prevalent throughout the Islamic world. Widely regarded as miserly within Pakistani Muslim circles, Jews residing in Pakistan have also faced periodic intolerance by the state, which has intensified since the Islamization period of the 1980s under Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who propelled Pakistan towards the adoption of strict and highly-conservative Islamic practices and laws. The Jewish population of Pakistan has rapidly decreased since the state's founding and separation from neighbouring India in August 1947, and as of 2019 estimates, stands at less than 200 people amidst Pakistan's total population of over 200 million, the majority of whom are Muslims.
Magen David Synagogue is located at the junction of Brabourne Road and Canning Street in Kolkata. Magen David is the second operating synagogue in Kolkata, the other is the Beth El Synagogue at Pollock Street.
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.
Ezekiel Judah also known as Yehezkel Yehuda, or Yahuda, or Ezekiel Judah Jacob Sliman, was a Jewish communal leader, trader of indigo, muslin, and silk, philanthropist, and Talmudist from Baghdad. He migrated to India, where he led the Baghdadi Jewish community of Kolkata and established the city's first synagogues.
When in 1948 Israel came into being a lot of Jews migrated to Israel, and after the Arab-Israel war a majority of them left the city.
