BENE ISRAEL

BENE ISRAEL The largest and, perhaps, the oldest of the India's Jewish communities is known as the Bene Israel (children of Israel). Though in numbers they rank among the smallest of Indian minority groups, their long history on Indian soil, their dispersion throughout the subcontinent, their steadfastness in preserving their identity for centuries—much of that time beyond the perimeters of Jewish learning and law—and the peace in which they lived amidst their neighbors make the Bene Israel unique among the Jewish diasporas. The use of the term "Israel," rather than "Jew," to self-designate may be an indication of the antiquity of their presence in India. Israel was the name of the northern kingdom, which broke away from Solomon's kingdom in the tenth century b.c. It was subsequently conquered and absorbed by the Assyrians in 723 b.c., leaving the smaller Kingdom of Judah to survive until it was conquered by the Babylonians in the early sixth century b.c. The term "Jew" came into use only after the Babylonian exile. There are biblical and Talmudic references to India (Hodu) and evidence of loanwords in Hebrew from Sanskrit and Tamil, indicating familiarity with the region as early as the first millennium b.c., when the Hebrew texts were canonized. The lack of Hanukkah celebrations in the traditional Bene Israel annual holiday cycle suggests that the founders of their earliest community might have left ancient Israel prior to the Maccabean Revolt of 165 b.c.

Disaster, Deliverance, and Discovery

According to their oral traditions in Marathi tales—which were later recorded, translated, and studied by visitors, missionaries, and scholars—the ancestors of the Bene Israel reached the shores of the Konkan coast after having been blown off course by a storm. The seven couples who survived the shipwreck struggled ashore near the village of Navgaon, having lost all their belongings in the sea. These fourteen founding fathers and mothers were able to survive by adopting a trade that they had, perhaps, plied before arriving in the Konkan: oil pressing. Since oil was a commodity very much in demand, and since the necessary ingredients were not difficult to obtain, providing a needed service and maintaining a low profile proved a successful method of adapting to the Indian environment. Jewish oil pressers alongside Hindu, Muslim, and even Christian craftspeople were not unusual in the Konkan. Over time the Bene Israel tradesmen came to be known as the Shanwar Teli (Saturday oilpressers), indicating that they refrained from work on that day. Certain striking similarities to Hindu tales and practices are evident in elements of the traditional Bene Israel origin story. There are resonances with the origin tale of the Chitpavan Brahmans of the Konkan and Shani (the deity of the planet Saturn whose day of observance is Saturday) holds special significance for people in the region.

Despite their accommodation to life in the Konkan villages, another tale relates that the Bene Israel were different enough from their neighbors so that a visiting Jew from abroad, known as David Rahabi, could recognize them as such. The local Bene Israel women took him to the market to assure him that the meal they were preparing in his honor would conform with the laws of kashrut ( Jewish dietary requirements). Rahabi was so impressed with their fastidiousness and by their repetition of the Hebrew phrase Shemah Israel, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad (the Hebrew credo "Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God is One") that he took these Konkan oil pressers to be preservers of cultural ties to a Jewish past. So, the tradition relates, Rahabi selected three heads of families from among the teli folk and taught them the Torah Laws from which, he concluded, they had been estranged for a long time. Although his identity, place of origin, and date of arrival remain subjects of controversy, it is acknowledged that Rahabi initiated the first religious revival among the Bene Israel.

Life in Konkan Towns and Villages

Gradually the Bene Israel population extended throughout the northern Konkan, settling in villages and towns, earning their livelihood, along with oil pressing, in country trade and military service with the Hindu forces of the Marathas and the Muslim forces of the Siddis (the rulers of Janjira). The tax files of the local Konkan administrators (the Peshwah Daftar) contain names such as Eloji (Elijah) teli, Samsen and Abhram teli, along with Aron and Sileman Israil in the record for the mid-eighteenth century. Toward the end of the century, surnames are linked to villages with a suffix -kar such as Naogaonkar, Waskar, and Chordekar. By the late twentieth century, there were over 140 village-linked surnames. Subdivisions within the Bene Israel village communities, perhaps reflecting accommodation to Indian patterns of endogamy, recognized two groups: the Gora (fair) and Kala (dark) Israel, the distinction based on descent from either two Bene Israel parents, in the former case, or only one in the latter. These patterns were brought to the cities when, in the eighteenth century, the Bene Israel began migrating first to the Maratha capital, Pune, in the plain beyond the Western Ghats and then to Bombay, which had been acquired by the British East India Company and was being developed as a factory and port for goods procured by company agents.

The British: Military, Missionaries, and Renewal

After the defeat of the Marathas in 1818, the British were in control of much of the Konkan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra, and the ensuing policy changes brought new opportunities to the Bene Israel. Even prior to British hegemony, some Bene Israel had begun enlisting in the British East India Company's Native Regiments, continuing the tradition of military service they had maintained in the Konkan. This brought Bene Israel families to the cities. (Samuel) Hassaji (Ezekiel) Divekar, a captain in the company army who had been taken prisoner in the Mysore wars, came in contact with the Jews of Cochin. Upon his release, he built the first Bene Israel (Gate of Mercy) Synagogue in Bombay in 1796. Subsequently synagogues were constructed in a dozen towns and villages throughout the Konkan.

By the early nineteenth century, the company lifted its ban on missionaries, which led to the arrival of American missionaries in Bombay and the Konkan. The education now made available to the Bene Israel launched the second religious revival in the community. The Old Testament was translated into Marathi, and the Hebrew taught to them at Mission schools enabled the brothers Haeem Samuel Kehimkar and Joseph Samuel Kehimkar to open the first Bene Israel school in 1875. Jewish instructors there taught Hebrew and Bible classes to Bene Israel children. By mid-century, Iraqi Jewish merchants and entrepreneurs began arriving in Bombay, providing a further boost to the Bene Israel community there and in Pune. The Bene Israel were eager to send their boys and girls to school. Dr. Rebecca Reuben (1889–1957) studied at the High School for Native Girls at Pune, while teaching herself Hebrew. She went on to study at Bombay University, graduating first in her class, the first Indian female to do so, and continued her studies in England. After her return to India, she contributed greatly to the fields of education and community service. Dr. Jerusha Jhirard (1890–1984) obtained her medical degree in England, returning to serve as superintendent of Bombay's Cama hospital. She also founded the Bene Israel Women's Association and, in 1925, brought Liberal Judaism to Bombay—introducing modern Western ideas into traditional Bene Israel identity. Dr. Jhirard was honored with the prestigious Padma Shri Award (the fourth-highest civil award for national distinction) in 1966.

By 1948 both India and Israel had won independence from Britain, emerging as new nations in the world community. In the aftermath, some Bene Israel found themselves in Pakistan, where the surroundings were hostile both to Israel and to India. Many Bene Israel began to emigrate from their ancient homeland: some found their way to Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and the United States. Others went to Israel. The Bene Israel community, which had reached its peak in the decade between 1941 and 1951 at approximately 20,000, has declined dramatically. As of 2004 approximately 4,000 Bene Israel remained in India.

Brenda Ness

See alsoJews of India

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Goodman, Hananya, ed. Between Jerusalem and Benares: Comparative Studies in Judaism and Hinduism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.

Isenberg, Shirley Berry. India's Bene Israel: A Comprehensive Inquiry and Sourcebook. Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, 1988. Includes voluminous bibliography with complete texts of rare sources.

Israel, Benjamin D. The Bene Israel of India: Some Studies. London: Sangam Books, 1984. Most scholarly work by a Bene Israel author.

Kehimkar, Haeem Samuel. The History of the Bene Israel of India. Tel Aviv: Dayag Press, 1937. First history of the Bene Israel written by a member of the community (in 1897, published in 1937).

Ness, Brenda Joseph. "The Saturday Oilpressers: The Bene Israel of Maharashtra." In Charisma and Commitment in South Asian History: Essays Presented to Stanley Wolpert, edited by Roger Long. New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2003.

Samuel, Shellim. Treatise on the Origin and Early History of the Beni-Israel of Maharashtra State. Mumbai: Iyer and Iyer, 1963. Important as a Bene Israel view of the community's history.