Jewish people and their customs on the pictures below.
INDIA Jewish Woman 1910
This is a classic example of the Jewish Woman in India 1910.


Indian Jewish Communities
India had through the 21st century the largest number of Jews
of any country east of Iran. Their population peaked in 1950 at
around 30,000–35,000, after which immigration to Israel and
other places reduced their number to around 4,000–6,000 in
the early 2000s, more if the so-called B’nai Menashe and B’nai
Ephraim are counted.
There have been three major distinct Jewish communities
in India. The oldest group is found in and around Kochi
in the southwestern state of Kerala, who today number fewer
than 50. Perhaps 5,000 Cochinim, as they are called in Hebrew,
live in Israel. The largest group is known as *Bene Israel and
is found chiefly in and around Mumbai (previously Bombay),
with active communities in Pune, also in Maharashtra state,
in Ahmedabad in Gujerat state, and in New Delhi. All told,
there are 4,000–5,000 Bene Israel in India and 40,000–50,000
in Israel, where they make up a significant ethnic group (edah
in Hebrew) known as Hodi’im (“Indians”). The most recently
arrived group are known in India as Baghdadis, Middle Eastern
Jews, Arabic speakers mostly, who migrated to India during
the late 18th century, about the same time as the British arrived,
and who settled in India’s port cities, especially Mumbai
and Kolakata. Numbering about 5,000 at their peak, they declined
to around 100, most of whom are elderly. The Baghdadis
played a significant role in the development of British India’s
ports. Beginning as jewelers and in the opium trade, Baghdadi
entrepreneurs soon moved into textiles and shipping in
Mumbai, and real estate, jute, manufacturing, and tobacco in
Kolakata. Replicating Jewish experience in America, humble
boxwallahs (door-to-door salesmen) settled down and became
department store magnates. Of the three groups, only
the Bene Israel remains viable as a community.
While most Bene Israel live in Mumbai, the nearby
Konkan coast is their spiritual home. Bene Israel trace themselves
back to seven couples from Israel who survived a shipwreck
off Navgaon, in the unknown, distant past. Somehow
they clung to vestigial Judaic observances despite centuries
of isolation. Their tenacity in maintaining the Sabbath, ritual
circumcision, Jewish dietary codes, and the Hebrew Shema –
the affirmation “Hear O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord
is One” – set the stage for their unlikely transformation from
an anonymous oil-pressing caste in the remote Konkan into
modern, urban members of the world Jewish community.
This evolution occurred over 200 years ago, beginning in the
middle of the 18th century.
A Kochi merchant heard rumors of a Konkani caste that
rested on Saturday and circumcised their sons on the eighth
day, so David Rahabi visited them. After spending some time
with the community, examining their dietary habits as well as
eccentric (by Hindu standards) religious observances, he concluded
that they were lost Jews. He took three of them back
to Kochi where he educated them in Hebrew and the rudiments
of Judaism and sent them back with the title of kazi,
religious leader. This began a longstanding relationship between
Bene Israel and Kochi Jews; as Bene Israel prospered,
they hired Kochi Jews to be their cantors, teachers, ritual
slaughterers, and scribes. Bene Israel recall these events as
their “first awakening.” [Encyclopaedia Judaica]



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