The Jews of India

The chapter opens with a verse from the Hitopadeśha: 'This is mine, that is not mine' — so think the narrow-minded; for the noble-minded, the whole world is family. And with the last message of Sri Sarada Devi: 'No one is a stranger, my child; the whole world is your own.'

This chapter is about people who came to India from other parts of the world and settled here, adding to India's diversity. Some came to escape danger, some for a better life.

Who are the Jews? They are a people and community descended from the ancient Hebrews of Israel, traditionally linked to the religion of Judaism. A person may be Jewish by family descent or by conversion, so Jewish identity can be about religion, culture, history or ethnicity.

Jews came to India for safety in several waves. They had been persecuted (treated cruelly because of their faith) in many countries and had to flee. India proved a safe home where they could practise their faith without fear.

The Bene Israel lived on the Konkan coast, just south of Mumbai. Some scholars say they came around 175 BCE from the ancient Kingdom of Israel. On the way their ship was caught in a storm and wrecked near the coast; the survivors settled in India and started a new life.

They lost their holy books in the wreck, but remembered their prayer, which says there is only one God. Everything else went down with the ship; the prayer they carried in their memory. Over time the Bene Israel became India's largest Jewish community, numbering over 25,000 soon after Independence.

Other groups came much later, between the 12th and 19th centuries, again escaping persecution. Some settled near Cochin (Kochi). The Raja of Kochi gave them land free of cost 'as long as the world, sun, and moon endure'. They built a synagogue (a Jewish place of worship) and practised their faith while becoming part of Indian society.

In 1893, at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, Swami Vivekananda said he was proud to belong to a nation that had sheltered the persecuted and refugees of all religions and nations — including the Israelites who came to south India the very year the Romans destroyed their holy temple, and the remnant of the Zoroastrian (Parsi) nation.