Delhi's last ten Jewish families guard an ancient heritage

(Reuters Life!) - In the capital of one of the world's most religiously-diverse countries, a Rabbi who has never been ordained bends ancient customs, ensuring New Delhi's ten Jewish families a place to worship.

Unlike most synagogues, there is no separation of men and women as Jewish-born worshippers, converts and followers of other faiths chant Psalms in perfect Hebrew, with doors thrown open to all. The service leader never asks attendees what religion they follow, and envisions his daughter becoming India's first female rabbi.

"Being a small community, we cannot be so rigid, so orthodox," says Ezekiel Isaac Malekar, honorary secretary of the synagogue whose unpaid job of thirty years has overlooked religious convention to keep this tiny group together.

"Our openness, our liberal approach is what allows us to survive. For reading the Torah, you must require ten men, a minyan. But I made radical changes, because why should we discriminate between women and men? I count the women."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/23/us-india-jews-idUSTRE74M0P820110523

That reminds me of the liberal scene in small red state towns. Hippy, punk rocker, wiccan, hip hop guys, you name it they are all part of the same scene. You go to a big city like Seattle, and the idea of punks hanging out with hippies with hip hop people is laughable. There something to be said for the inclusiveness that small communities breed.

I can feel this sort of vital energy in the world, something really positive we need to tap into. Honestly its non-partisan: The Tea Party's yearning for "independence" taps the same human emotions that leads liberals to install solar panels and windmills to make their homes carbon neutral. To me its the need to reconnect with the fundamental human enterprise of survival. Right now we all feel a little bit like pets, because we are dependent on our 'masters' so much. We feel it every time we go to the gas pumps or produce isle and don't like the prices - that sense of dependence on some distant entity to provide us with what we need. Its aggravating because it reminds us that we ourselves don't produce the means of our own survival. The era of people watching reality TV shows of people forming communities to survive in harsh conditions has come and gone, and still we are left yearning for that focus, that simplicity in our own lives.

People WANT the unity that comes from focusing on the fundamental human enterprise. My money says, the politicians who can tap this sentiment will OWN future elections. Lets see how it plays out.

The first Jews came to India as Traders and later as refugees fleeing the destruction of their temple. Hindus have welcomed the Jewish Diaspora with open arms and India was/is one of the very few countries where the Jewish people have never faced anti-semitism.

some info from the web/wiki

The Cochin Jews arrived in India 2,500 years ago and settled down in Kerala as traders.
The Bene Israel arrived in the state of Maharashtra 2,100 years ago.
The Baghdadi Jews arrived in the city Mumbai from Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, and Arab countries about 250 years ago.

The oldest of the Indian Jewish communities is in Cochin. The traditional account is that traders from Judea arrived in the city of Cochin, Kerala, in 562 BC, and that more Jews came as exiles from Israel in the year 70 C.E. after the destruction of the Second Temple.The distinct Jewish community was called Anjuvannam. The still-functioning synagogue in Mattancherry belongs to the Paradesi Jews, the descendants of Sephardim that were expelled from Spain in 1492

Unlike many parts of the world, Jews have historically lived in India without any instances of anti-Semitism from the local majority populace, the Hindus. However, Jews were persecuted by the Portuguese during their control of Goa.

In 379 CE, The Hindu king Sira Primal who was also known as Iru Brahman, issued what was engraved on a tablet of brass, his permission to Jews to live freely , build synagogue, own property without conditions attached and as long as the world and moon exist

In 1524, the Muslims, backed by the ruler of Calicut (today called Kozhikode), attacked these wealthy Jews of Cranganore (Kodungallur) on the pretext that they had an advantage with the pepper trade. The Jews fled to Cochin and went under the protection of Perumpadapu Swaroopam. The Hindu Raja of Cochin, Bhaskara Ravi Varman II (979— 1021) gave them asylum. Moreover, he exempted Jews from taxation but bestowed on them all privileges enjoyed by the tax-payers



Btw, here are some pictures of Indian jews

An Indian Jewish wedding



Lt General J.F.R Jacob


General Jacob, as the Indian Army's Eastern Command Chief of Staff watches on as Pakistan surrenders to India in 1971, Ushering in the new nation of Bangladesh from what used to be east Pakistan


Lt Gen Niazi(the one with the dark beret), Commander of the Pakistani Forces in East Pakistan (Now Bangladesh) signing the surrender document for Lt Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora. Watching the ceremony are Vice Admiral N Krishnan (FOC-in-C Eastern Naval Command), Maj Gen K V Krishna Rao (GOC, 8 Div - Behind the Vice Admiral), Air Marshal H C Dewan (AOC-in-C, Eastern Command) , Lt Gen Sagat Singh (GOC, IV Corps), Maj Gen J F R Jacob (Chief of Staff, Eastern Army Command) and Maj Gen Gandharv Nagra (GOC, 101 Communication Zone)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._F._R._Jacob


some of the earliest Bollywood actresses were also Indian Jews, especially int he 1920s,30s

Actress Sulochana ( Ruby Myers)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Myers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_the_Apostle

I'm only aware of that because I sold my house to an Indian Doctor twenty years ago whose family were Catholic, to my amazement, and he told me the story which stuck in my mind.

But I usually do not buy into most of the stories/legends attributed to him...especially his "martyrdom" for the simple fact that it is very very suspicious....especially in India..doubly so in southern India where religious tolerance is the norm.

and the

"So according to the Syriac version of the Acts of Thomas, Masdai, the local king at Mylapore, after questioning the apostle condemned him to death about the year AD. 72. Anxious to avoid popular excitement, “for many had believed in our Lord, including some of the nobles, ”the king ordered Thomas conducted to a nearby mountain, where, after being allowed to pray, he was then stoned and stabbed to death with a lance wielded by an angry Brahmin. A number of Christians were also persecuted at the same time; when they refused to apostatize, their property was confiscated, so some sixty-four families eventually fled to Malabar and joined that Christian community


^^ stoning to death? persecuted? in India? anyone who is knowledgeable about India's religious history would be aware that these claims would be patently false...this entire episode seems contrived to make a "martyr" out of someone in the Abrahamic-way. And I just love the way they claim that Hindus killed him (lol anyone not-Christian is the enemy I guess) when its a well known fact that Hindus not only welcomed people of different religions (Like the Jews, Parsees for example) but also allowed them to thrive.... the claims of persecution of Christians is blatantly false and reeks of the usual myth-building one sees around such saints...but they really ought to have made some changes to the age-old Christian "persecution narrative" when it came to India cos it reads exactly like the ones from the middle-east and is definitely not believable. But then again Christians are free to believe whatever they want, even if its far from the truth.



The Jewish people have thrived in India, and So have the Zoroastrians, who fled to India after the fall of Persia to the Islamic hordes. It beggars belief that somehow only the Christians were supposedly picked upon in India, while all these other foreign faiths were welcome.

btw on the other hand, the Jews of India were heavily persecuted by the Portuguese when they established colonies in India and started the spread of Christianity. Thus I would take any claim of "persecution" of Thomas (if he even came to India or did what he was supposed to have done in the first place) with a heavy dose of salt.

Pretty cool.