CoverStory Jews of Two Worlds: Indians in Israel India is one of the rare countries in the world where Jews have never experienced anti-Semitism. Indian Jews now living in their “fatherland” of Israel share nostalgic memories of their rich history and culture in India. By ROBERT HIRSCHFIELD “I am happy to have had the recog- nition in my life of my two countries, India and Israel, my motherland and my fatherland,” said eighty-two year old Eliyahu Bezalel, winner of India’s Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award (2006) for overseas Indians. Remembering a day in Cochin when he was a boy of 10, he said, “I got up in class and shouted anti-British slogans. The teacher beat me and threw me out of the class.” The old man laughed, and in laugh- ing became a young man. The Indian- radio-technician-turned-Israeli-farmer, famous for his achievements in green- house flower gardening, marveled that his greenhouse in Israel was visited both by former Indian Prime Minis- ter H.D. Deve Gowda and Israeli Prime Minister and legendary first leader David Ben-Gurion. Eliyahu left Cochin in 1954, at age 25, excited by the thought of becoming a new man in the new Jewish state. There are an estimated 70,000 In- Eliyahu Bezalel, winner of India’s Pravasi Bharatiya The origins of the Cochini Jewish dian Jews living in Israel today (the great majority of them Bene Israel), a little less Samman Award (2006) for community are said by some to date overseas Indians. back to the time of King Solomon’s spice than one percent of Israel’s population. trade. The Bene Israel of Maharashtra, In India, few remain. The Bene Israel washed ashore on the Konkan Coast as are now barely 5,000, if that, where once a result of a shipwreck that is believed they numbered upwards of 50,000. The to have occurred sometime between the Baghdadis, maybe 5,000 before Partition, first and the third century BC, are pre- have dropped to the low double digits in Fearful that the heritage of Indian Judaism will die out with the death of the last Jew in the subcontinent, Ruth Greenfield, 51, a Bene Israel, recently decided to collect, catalog, and digitize information on India’s Jews for future generations. sumed to belong to the tribe of Levi, be- Calcutta, with handfuls still hanging on ing oil pressers as the Levites were. in Western India. The Cochinis, also in The Baghdadis, India’s most recent the low double digits, totter on the rim of Jewish community, came from Syria, extinction. Never very large, virtually all Iraq, and Iran as traders in the late 17th 2,000 of them left for Israel in the years and early 18th centuries. Shalom Co- following its creation in 1948. hen, the first Jew of Calcutta, docked in Fearful that the heritage of Indian 1685 to become the court jeweler of the Judaism will die out with the death of Nawab of Oudh. A better known Bagh- the last Jew in the subcontinent, Ruth dadi was David Sassoon, builder of the Greenfield, 51, a Bene Israel, recently de- Sassoon Docks in Bombay in the 19th cided to collect, catalog, and digitize in- century. The Baghdadis settled primarily formation on India’s Jews for future gen- in Calcutta, Bombay, and Pune. erations. (Eventually, this will include >> CoverStory Pakistani and Burmese Jews.) Her efforts together with the flag of Israel, dismisses led to the founding of the Indian Jewish the rabbinate’s historic rigidity with char- Heritage Center. acteristic Indian tolerance. “My father was an architect in Delhi “The Bene Israel may not have had who was working on preserving our peo- rabbis, but we also didn’t have divorce. In ple’s history in India. When he died in India, poor people don’t get divorced. In 2005, I was inspired to do the work that the rare case of someone wanting a di- he began.” vorce, they went before the elders to re- Sophie Judah, a 63-year-old Bene Is- solve the matter.” In time, the rabbinate rael author whose book of short stories, backed off, and today the Bene Israel mar- Dropped from Heaven, was published by ry freely with non-Indian Israelis, though Shocken (2007), is a gracious woman who they tend to do so to a lesser extent than with impeccable hospitality offers her either the Cochinis or Baghdadis. Mas- guest a chicken curry and something cold sil, president of the Central Organization to drink. Her book, a rare work of story- of Indian Jews, admits cheerfully that all telling about the Bene Israel in India, is of his four children have married out. unusual for yet another reason: the Bene “My associates tease me. They say, ‘You Israel (also the Cochinis) existed outside can’t be president anymore.’” the Jewish norm of a written tradition. Israelites have experienced cruel forms of anti-Semitism in many countries, but India has been an anomaly. Everyone you talk to will tell you, with voices that sometimes break with gratitude, that they have never known anti-Semitism in India, that there has never been anti-Semi- tism in India. Around the year 1000, the Jews of Cochin were granted the Copper Plates of Privilege by Mal- abar ruler Bhaskara Ravi Varman, which among other things, ex- empted Jews from taxation. Top: Sophie Judah, The Baghdadis alone author of Dropped from have sojourned in India Heaven, a book about the with a written tradition Bene Israel in India. brought with them from Right: Noah Massil, the crossroads of the president of the Central Middle East. Organization of Indian When the Bene Isra- Jews, dismisses the el began arriving in the rabbinate’s historic early 1950s, the Israeli rigidity regarding not rabbinate was reluctant having rabbis amongst to accept them as Jews, them, with characteristic as they had no rabbis. Indian tolerance. So how then was Jewish divorce and the Jewish lineage established, Judaism being matri- Linda Rivkind, a Baghdadi from Cal- lineal? Noah Massil, 65, on whose lawn cutta, is the rare Indian with a direct con- in Jerusalem the Indian tricolor waves nection to the Holocaust. Her father, a >> CoverStory Polish refugee, wound The Jews of India, like everyone in India, up in Calcutta some- took their faith seriously. “We were al- time around 1940, ways facing Jerusalem in prayer,“ Ju- when his ship devel- dah said, “and praying, ‘Next year in oped engine trouble. Jerusalem.’” When the Jewish state was The Jewish community formed, we had to go.” of Calcutta took him in, One who did not go was Brigadier and he stayed on. “He David Abraham, Judah’s father. She re- bought a lot of books members him cursing her, saying, “Why about the Holocaust,” do you leave India? This is our country. Rivkind recalled over It’s given us so much.” coffee in Jerusalem’s The synagogues were the center legendary Smadar café of Cochini life. When the Bene Israel and movie theater, left for Israel, there were still no rabbis with its the dramatic and no rabbinical laws. They practiced posters appropriate to a pared down Judaism: they prayed the her story. “One book I Shema, the central prayer of Judaism, happened to pick up, practiced circumcision, kept kosher, and Linda Rivkind, a The Black Book of Poland, as mentioned before, kept the Sabbath. Baghdadi from Calcutta, was quite horrifying. I understood then There were more mundane issues is the rare Indian with a that this was what happened to my fa- involved in the Jews leaving India. A direct connection to the ther’s family. It was so grotesque, I was disproportionate number of Bene Is- Holocaust. completely unprepared for it. I think I rael served as officers in the British was 12 at the time.” Army. They had acquired a reputation Why did India’s Jews leave their na- for loyalty. As a result, according to his- tive country for a land born in warfare torian Nissim Moses, an Indian Jew, the and hemmed in by a hostile Arabia? Bene Israel were treated as a favored Why did India’s Jews leave their native country for a land born in warfare and hemmed in by a hostile Arabia? The Jews of India, like everyone in India, took their faith seriously. “We were always facing Jerusalem in prayer,“ Judah said, “and praying, ‘Next year in Jerusalem.’” When the Jewish state was formed, we had to go.” A Cochini synagogue at Moshav Nevatim in Israel. (Photo: Tirza Lavi) >> CoverStory Left: Nissim Moses believes they were treated as a favored community in India. Right: Ephry Yona comments on how the Baghdadis were the most insular and British-influenced of the three Jewish communities in India. community. While they continued to duringly humbled by the fact that his serve in the Army of India, inevitably the grandfather’s cousin, Dr. Solomon Abra- plum jobs that had been given to them ham Erulkar, was Gandhi’s physician. By by the British went mainly to Hindus. and large, they wound up doing those The Baghdadis were the most insu- same jobs in Israel. Similarly, a number lar and British-influenced of the three of the English-speaking Baghdadis who communities. “Our first language was were clerks in India found themselves English,” laughed Ephry Yona, a 72-year- employed as clerks in the Israeli cus- old Jerusalemite in a multi-colored skull- toms offices, at the airport in Lod. cap, who in his working days was a char- With the Cochinis it was different.