India

LEARN ABOUT THE JEWS OF INDIA!

The first Jews to arrive in India are said to have come from the “Ten Lost Tribes” of Israel which scattered following the Assyrian conquest of Israel. For centuries, Jews from Europe traveled to India for trading purposes, but the first record of a permanent Jewish community there dates back to the 11th century. Historically, the country’s Jewish population has been divided into three distinct groups: the Baghdadi Jews, the Cochin Jews, and the Bene Israel, respectively. Jews from Persia and Afghanistan settled in northern India while Bene Israel and Baghdadi Jews settled in Bombay.

The Bene Israel first made contact with their coreligionists when Iraqi Jews came upon them in India. They claimed to be descended from Galilean Jews and were observant of some Jewish customs, though they had no rabbis or religious leaders. In 1964, the Israeli rabbinate confirmed that the Bene Israel were, in fact, Jewish and many of them have since moved to Israel.

As of 1996, India was home to a Jewish community numbering 5,000 to 7,000. Today, the Indian Jewish community is served by the Mumbai-based Council of Indian Jewry, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), and the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, which runs four Chabad Houses in the country.

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