Bene Israel

  • Israel 60,000 (estimated)
  • Mumbai Area 4000 ( estimated)
  • Kolkata <200 (estimated)
  • Delhi <200 (estimated)
  • Ahmadabad <200 (estimated)
  • Other English-speaking countries in 2000 (estimated)

Jewry

The Bene Israel (also Benai Israel, B'nai Israel or Bani Israel, the sons of Israel ') are a group of Jews, the middle of the 20th century lived mainly in Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Kashmir and Ahmedabad. The language of the Bene Israel is Marathi, while the Cochin Jews speak in southern India Malayalam.

The Bene Israel claim descent from Jews who have fled to the persecutions of the 2nd century BC in Galilee. The Bene Israel resemble the non- Jewish people of the Marathas in appearance and customs, which implies with the Indians to a mixing of the Jews. The Bene Israel abide by the Jewish dietary laws, circumcision and to keep the Sabbath as a day of rest.

The Bene Israel say their ancestors were oil pressers in the Galilee, and came from the survivors of a shipwreck. In the 18th century, they were "discovered" by traders from Baghdad. At that time practiced the Beni Israel only a few outward forms of Judaism ( because they were recognized as Jews ) and had no own scholars. Their religion was also Christian-Islamic strikes. Scholars from Baghdad and Cochin taught them then the principal directions of Judaism in the 18th and 19th century.

Jewish merchants from Europe traveled to India in the Middle Ages, but it is not clear whether they settled permanently in the south of Asia. The first reliable evidence of Jews in India dates back to the 11th century. It is certain that the first settlements along the west coast were. Abraham ibn Daud, the reference to Jews in India from the 12th century is rather vague. For the next few centuries the documentation is missing. For the 1830s, 6,000 Bene Israel are assumed for the turn of the century 10,000 and 1948, when they reached the summit in India, there were 20,000. Since then ( mainly because of emigration to Israel), the population dropped to less than 5,000 in India. Some scholars ( Afzal Khan Khattak, Hafez Rahmat Khan, Sir William Jones, and others), the theory that the Bene Israel from the people of the Pashtuns had arisen.

1964 declared the Israeli rabbinate that the Bene Israel Jews are full in every respect.

Marathi language Shabbat Shipwrecking
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