The history of the Jews in India dates back to antiquity.The Jews of India: A Story of Three Communities by Orpa Slapak. The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. 2003. p. 27. .Weil, Shalva. India's Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art, and Life-Cycle. Mumbai: Marg Publications [first published in 2002; 3rd edn.]. 2009. Judaism was one of the first foreign religions to arrive in the Indian subcontinent in recorded history.Weil, Shalva. "Indian Judaic Tradition" in Sushil Mittal and Gene Thursby (eds) Religions in South Asia, London: Palgrave Publishers, 2006. pp. 169–183. Rabbi Eliezer ben Jose of the 2nd-century AD mentions the Jewish people of India () in his work Mishnat Rabbi Eliezer,Mishnat Rabbi Eliezer 3:7 saying that they are required to ask for rain in the summer months (during their regular rainy season), yet make use of the format found for winter in the Amidah and cite it in the blessing "Hear our Voice" ()., s.v. Desi Jews are a small religious minority who have lived in the region since antiquity. They were able to survive for centuries despite persecution by Portuguese colonizers and non-native antisemitic inquisitions.
The better-established Jewish communities have assimilated many of the local traditions through cultural diffusion.Weil, Shalva. "Bene Israel Rites and Routines" in Shalva Weil (ed.) India's Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art and Life-Cycle, Mumbai: Marg Publications, 2009. [first published in 2002]; 3Arts, 54(2): 26–37. While some Indian Jews have stated that their ancestors arrived during the time of the biblical Kingdom of Judah, others claim descent from the Ten Lost Tribes of the pre-Judaic Israelites who arrived in India earlier.Weil, Shalva. (1991) "Beyond the Sambatyon: the Myth of the Ten Lost Tribes." Tel-Aviv: Beth Hatefutsoth, the Nahum Goldman Museum of the Jewish Diaspora. Still some other Indian Jews contend that they descend from the Israelite Tribe of Manasseh, and they are referred to as the Bnei Menashe.
The Jewish population in British India peaked at around 20,000 in the mid-1940s, according to some estimates, with others putting the number as high as 50,000, but the community declined rapidly due to emigration to the newly formed state of Israel after 1948. The Indian Jewish community now comprises 4,429 people according to the latest census.
Demographics
Jewish groups in India
In addition to Jewish expatriates and recent immigrants,Weil, Shalva. "From Persecution to Freedom: Central European Jewish Refugees and their Jewish Host Communities in India" in Anil Bhatti and Johannes H. Voigt (eds) Jewish Exile in India 1933–1945, New Delhi: Manohar and Max Mueller Bhavan, 1999. pp. 64–84. there are a number of Jewish groups in India: Among the many theories noted by Shalva Weil as to the origin of Malabar Cochin Jews, they claim to have first arrived in India together with the Hebrew king Solomon's merchants. The fair-complexioned component is of European-Jewish descent, both Ashkenazi and Sephardi.Weil, Shalva. "Cochin Jews", in Judith Baskin (ed.) Cambridge Dictionary of Judaism and Jewish Culture, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. pp. 107. Madras Jews: The Spanish and Portuguese Jews, Paradesi Jews and British Jews arrived at Madras during the 16th century. They were diamond businesspeople of Sephardi and Ashkenazi heritage. Following expulsion from Iberia in 1492 by the Alhambra Decree, a few families of Sephardic Jews eventually made their way to Madras in the 16th century. They maintained trade connections to Europe, and their language skills were useful. Although the Sephardim mostly spoke Judaeo-Spanish (i.e., Ladino), in India they learned Tamil and Judeo-Malayalam from the Malabar Jews.Katz 2000; Koder 1973; Thomas Puthiakunnel 1973. Nagercoil Jews: The Syrian Jews and Musta'arabi Jews were Arab Jews who arrived at Nagercoil and Kanyakumari District in 52 AD along with the supposed arrival of Thomas the Apostle, likely making them Christians in reality. Most of them were merchants and had also settled around the town of Thiruvithamcode. By the turn of the 20th century, most of the families made their way to Cochin and eventually migrated to Israel. In their early days, they maintained trade connections to Europe through the nearby ports of Colachal and Thengaipattinam, and their language skills were useful to the Travancore kings. As historians Daniel Tyerman and George Bennett cited, the reason for this group of Jews selecting Nagercoil as their settlement was the town's salubrious climate and its significant Christian population. The Jews of Goa: These were Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal who fled to Goa after the commencement of the Inquisition in those countries. The community consisted mainly of Jews who had been forcibly converted to Christianity but wanted to remain Portuguese subjects, instead of immigrating to countries where they could practice Judaism openly (e.g. Morocco and Ottoman Empire). They were the primary targets of the Goa Inquisition. As a result, its members fled to parts of India outside Portuguese control. The main branch of the Native Bene Israel community is said to have arrived at the Konkan Coast in ancient times. They are completely mingled in the native culture. They believe that their ancestors fled Judea during the persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes and arrived on Indian soil after seven people survived a shipwreck near the Nagaon village on the Konkan Coast in 175 BC.Tudor Parfitt, Yulia Egorova, 'Genetics, History and identity: The case of the Bene Israel and the Lemba Culture,' Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry vol.29 pp193–224, 2005 p.206. Another branch of the Bene Israel community resided in Karachi until the Partition of India in 1947, when they fled to India (in particular, to Mumbai). Many of them also moved to Israel. The Jews from the Sindh, Punjab, and Pathan areas are often incorrectly called Bene Israel Jews. The Jewish community that used to reside in other parts of what became Pakistan (such as Lahore or Peshawar) also fled to India in 1947, similarly to the larger Karachi Jewish community. The Baghdadi Jews arrived in the city of Surat from Iraq (and other Arab states), Iran and Afghanistan about 250 years ago, in the mid 18th and 19th centuries. The Bnei Menashe ("children of Manasseh") are Mizo and Kuki tribespeople in Manipur and Mizoram who are recent converts to Rabbinic Judaism but claim ancestry reaching back to the lost Ten Lost Tribes of Israel—specifically, one of the sons of Joseph.Weil, Shalva. "Lost Israelites from North-East India: Re-Traditionalisation and Conversion among the Shinlung from the Indo-Burmese Borderlands." The Anthropologist, 2004. 6(3): 219-233. Similarly, the small Telugu-speaking group, the Bene Ephraim ("children of Ephraim") claim ancestry from Ephraim, one of the sons of Joseph and a Lost Tribe of Israel. Also called Telugu Jews, they have observed Rabbinic Judaism since 1981. European Jewish immigrants to India escaping persecution during World War II account for a small portion of Jewish Indians today. From 1938 to 1947, about 200 Jews fled from Europe and sought asylum in India. Over seventy years later, the descendants of these Jewish migrants have made their own Jewish-Indian mixed community and culture within India.
Cochin Jews
The oldest of the Indian Jewish communities was in the erstwhile Cochin Kingdom.Weil, Shalva. "Cochin Jews", in Carol R. Ember, Melvin Ember and Ian Skoggard (eds), Encyclopedia of World Cultures Supplement, New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2002. pp. 78-80. The traditional account is that traders of Judea arrived at Cranganore, an ancient port near Cochin in 562 BC, and that more Jews came as exiles from Israel in the year 70 AD, after the destruction of the Second Temple. Many of these Jews' ancestors passed on the account that they settled in India when the Hebrew King Solomon was in power. This was a time when teak wood, ivory, spices, monkeys, and peacocks were popular in trade in Cochin.
There is no specific date or reason mentioned as to why they arrived in India, but Hebrew scholars date it to up to around the early Middle Ages. Cochin is a group of small tropical islands filled with markets and many different cultures such as Dutch, Hindu, Jewish, Portuguese, and British. The distinct Jewish community was called Anjuvannam. The still-functioning synagogue in Mattancherry belongs to the Paradesi Jews, the descendants of Sephardim who were expelled from Spain in 1492, although the Jewish community in Mattancherry adjacent to Fort Cochin had only six remaining members as of 2015.
Central to the history of the Cochin Jews is their close relationship with Indian rulers, and this was eventually codified on a set of copper plates granting the community special privileges. The date of these plates, known as "Sâsanam",Burnell, Indian Antiquary, iii. 333–334 is contentious. The plates themselves provide a date of 379 AD, but in 1925, the tradition was setting it as 1069 AD, Joseph Rabban by Bhaskara Ravi Varma, the fourth ruler of Maliban granted the copper plates to the Jews. The plates were inscribed with a message stating that the village of Anjuvannam belonged to the Jews and that they were the rightful lords of Anjuvannam and it should remain theirs and be passed on to their Jewish descendants "so long as the world and moon exist". This is the earliest document that shows that the Jews were living in India permanently. It is stored in Cochins main synagogue.
The Jews settled in Kodungallur (Cranganore) of the Malabar region, where they traded peacefully until 1524. The Jewish leader Rabban was granted the rank of prince over the Jews of Cochin, given the rulership and tax revenue of a pocket principality in Anjuvannam, near Cranganore, and rights to seventy-two "free houses".taken from WP article on Rabban, which appears to rely on Ken Blady's book Jewish Communities in Exotic Places. Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson Inc., 2000. pp. 115–130. Weil, Shalva. "Symmetry between Christians and Jews in India: the Cnanite Christians and the Cochin Jews of Kerala." Contributions to Indian Sociology, 1982. 16(2): 175–196. The Hindu king permitted in perpetuity (or, in the more poetic expression of those days, "as long as the world and moon exist") for Jews to live freely, build synagogues, and own property "without conditions attached".Three years in America, 1859–1862 (pp. 59–60) by Israel Joseph BenjaminRoots of Dalit history, Christianity, theology, and spirituality (p. 28) by James Massey, I.S.P.C.K.
A link back to Rabban, "the king of Shingly" (another name for Cranganore), was a sign of both purity and prestige. Rabban's descendants maintained this distinct community until a chieftainship dispute broke out between two brothers, one of them named Joseph Azar, in the 16th century. The Jews lived peacefully for over a thousand years in Anjuvannam. After the reign of the Rabban's, the Jewish people no longer had the protection of the copper plates. Neighboring princes of Anjuvannam intervened and revoked all privileges that the Jewish people were given. In 1524, the Jews were attacked by the Moors brothers (Muslim Community) on suspicion that they were tampering with the pepper trade and the homes and synagogues belonging to them were destroyed. The damage was so extensive that when the Portuguese arrived a few years later, only a small amount of impoverished Jews remained. They remained there for 40 more years only to return to their land of Cochin.