they do exist
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=379402&sw=community
An unsung Jewish community finally writes its own history
By Daphna Berman
Anthropologist Shalva Weil is glancing around a crowded cafe in Jerusalem when she leans forward and declares: “Only about 30 percent of the people in this room have even heard of Indian Jews before.” Scanning the room again, she adds: “And these people look like a rather intellectual crowd.”
Weil, editor of the book “India’s Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art, and Life Cycle,” says that the quiet, and somewhat marginal, community of Indian Jews has gone largely unnoticed by mainstream Jewish communities in Israel and the Diaspora. “For a long time, it wasn’t a matter of dismissal; it was just total ignorance,” she says. “Whenever I told people that I study Indian Jews, they would say they didn’t even know there was such a thing.” Weil, however, says that the book, which was launched last week in Jerusalem, provides Indian Jews the chance to assert their history and culture in a public and somewhat academic forum. The book is a compilation of 11 essays, six of which are written by Indian Jews. “It gives external legitimacy to the existence of Indian Jews and their rich customs,” Weil says. “They are now on the Jewish map.”
The British-born anthropologist, who first met an Indian Jew in London, says that her original attraction to the community stemmed from an interest in “the exotic.” After immigrating to Israel in 1972, Weil moved to Lod, where she lived near the city’s largely insular Bene Israel community of Indian Jews. Weil lived among the Marathi-speaking Jews for three years, during which time she gave birth to her eldest daughter. “While I was pregnant, they [Indian Jews] used to come feed me laddus [sweet meats], because they said it would bring me a baby boy,” she reminisces. “When my husband went to synagogue to tell them we had a girl, people said they were so sorry to hear the news.” Thirty days later, the Bene Israel women of Lod arrived at her home for a baby-naming ceremony, and stuffed fruit into their colorful saris to bring “better luck” for her future pregnancies. “After that, I’ve only had boys,” laughs Weil, who also has three sons.
Weil’s fieldwork with the Bene Israel community left her surprised to see just how marginal the community really was. “Israeli Jewish society dismissed Indian Jewish customs as unimportant,” she says. Bene Israel’s customs, such as mehndi, which involves intricate decorations of henna, were viewed as a Hindu influences, while their tradition of making a pilgrimage to the site where Elijah the prophet is believed to have ascended to heaven was dismissed as a Muslim influence. But cultural crossovers are not unique to the Indian Jewish community, and those influences alone do not warrant their marginal status, Weil says. “Every Jewish community is influenced by the world around them,” says Weil, who is also a senior researcher at Hebrew University’s NCJW Research Institute for Innovation in Education.
The Bene Israel, which account for the largest population within India’s three indigenous Jewish communities, were based largely in Mumbai before their immigration to Israel, and though the community’s origins remain unknown, legend dates their arrival in India as early as 175 BCE. The approximately 60,000 Bene Israel residents are scattered among several Israeli development towns, while another 5,000 remain in India, according to Weil’s estimates.
The Jews of Cochin and the Baghdadi Jews, meanwhile, account for the remainder of India’s Jewish population. The Cochin Jews lived along the Malibar coast in the south of India and, according to legend, arrived on the subcontinent during the time of King Solomon. Like the Bene Israel, Cochin Jews have also resettled in Israel, and many of them live in agricultural settlements, such as the southern moshav of Nevatim.
The community of Baghdadi Indian Jews, which is scattered throughout England and Australia, settled in India at the end of the 18th century, and unlike the historically indigenous Bene Israel and Cochin Jews, the Baghdadis were largely associated with British colonial rule.
The three Indian Jewish communities remain just that, separate. “It’s a rare occasion to find them together in one room,” Weil says. She says that her new book, which explores the history, culture, art and architectures of Indian Jewry, and which already has been launched in India and England, also gives this diverse community self-legitimacy. Weil commissioned each of the book’s chapters, and tried, she insists, to include “as many Indian Jews as possible.”
Weil traveled to India to convince community leaders to contribute to the book, sought out Indian Jewish writers living in Israel, and tried to make sure that each community was adequately represented. “The book has given Indian Jews a chance to write their own history,” says Weil, who also founded the Israel-India Culture Association. “It’s politically correct to say that, but I also believe in it.”
Galia Hacco, a Cochin woman living in Israel, for example, wrote an essay entitled “The Ritual Cycle of Cochin Jewish Holidays: a Malabari Perspective,” while Ester David, a Bene Israel woman originally from Ahmedabad, wrote a chapter about styles of Indian Jewish dress entitled “Sari-Sutra: Bene Israel Costumes.” Cochin Jew Samuel Hallegua wrote a chapter on the marriage customs of his community, and Weil’s daughter, Ilana, who was born among the Bene Israel in Lod 30 years ago, contributed a chapter entitled: “The Architecture of the Paradesi Cochin Synagogue.”
The book also includes photographs of the three communities’ festivals, community gatherings, synagogues, and religious artifacts. Weil, in the meantime, has come a long way since she first met “a dark brown Jew.” Her academic interests have broadened to include Bedouin, Ethiopians and even aborigines in Australia, but insists that her heart remains in one place: “Indian Jews will always be my first love.”