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Introduction To many people in the outside world and even in India itself it is a matter of surprise to learn that for long centuries there have been Jews settled in India who, to a large degree, have entered fully into the variegated pattern of Indian life. The first mention of Jews in connection with India occurs in the Bible itself. In the Book of Esther, which probably dates from the second century B.C.E., mention is made of decrees of the Persian monarch Xerxes (Ahasuerus in the Bible) relating to the Jews dispersed throughout the 127 provinces of his empire stretching 'from India even unto Ethiopia'. It is known that at its height the Persian Empire extended well into Baluchistan, then geographically regarded as part of India and now partly in Pakistan and partly in Iran. It is quite likely that there were Jews settled in the area named India in the Book of Esther. When we speak of India Jews, we mean Jews who were to be found settled in India much later. Indian Jewish Communities The Jews of India, properly so called, fall into three distinct groups.
The Bene Israel At the present moment it is the Bene
Israel who predominate the Jewish presence in India. Their story is an old one.
How old? It is and will continue to be a scholarly dispute. Some say that from
the ancient Kingdom of Israel, they were defeated by the Assyrian King in 722
B.C.E. Some believe that when the Kingdom of Judah was destroyed and Jerusalem
taken by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E, some of the Jews reached the West Coast
of India. Oral tradition and probably the most favored view is that they
descended from the Jews who fled in 175 B.C.E from the Syrian ruler Antiochus
Epiphanes, were ship wrecked at Navgaon near the port of Cheul on the Konkan
coast, 30 miles south of Bombay. 7 men and 7 women survived and from there the
Bene Israel spread to many of the surrounding villages in the Konkan. Most of
the Bene Israel have surnames ending with "kar" identifying the
village where they resided. There are more then 142 such surnames. Each of the 3 groups maintained its
separate identity with little admixture. The story of the Jews of India has in
the whole been a happy one where Jews dwelt in complete security and have been
accorded an honorable place in the social structure of the land. The Cochin Jews These Jews originated by settling in Cranganore in the Malabar district in the South of India arund the 2nd century B.C.E. They lived there for centuries.In the 15th century C.E they took shelter in Cochin further South after being attacked first by the Moors and later by the Portugese. They never numbered more then 2500. Today there are not more then 17 in Cochin, mainly elderly men and women.Of the original 8 synagogues, only one is still in use in Cochin which was built in 1568. The Baghdadi Jews This sect consist of Jews from West Asia, mainly from Baghdad and Syria, who came in the late 18th and 19th century as traders. They settled in Bombay, Calcutta and Pune. They first arrived in Surat which was the most important port,on the West Coast. They spoke Arabic or Persian and English. At one time, there were about 5000 of them, today less then 200, most of them having emigrated to U.K , Australia and Canada. References
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