“‘Are you Jewish?’”: ethnography and Indian Jewish identities

ABSTRACT

This paper lies at the intersections of Jewish Anthropology, History, Diaspora Studies, and cross-cultural Jewish Studies. It intertwines two analytical trajectories. The first is the thematic core: extensive ethnographic research conducted among Indian Jewish communities living in Israel, some of whom made aliya over four decades ago. The second trajectory entails self-reflections on my subject-position as a non-Jewish, non-Israeli researcher conducting fieldwork among over 125 Indian Jews living across Israel. This paper delves into the process of doing Jewish Anthropology by identifying the spaces where shared cultural and linguistic “Indian-ness” intersected to dissolve boundaries of “difference” between my respondents and myself, facilitating community inroads and culminating not only in the successful accomplishment of extensive fieldwork but in creating enduring bonds of personal engagement. In stepping back to reflect on my own journey, I offer possibilities to understand certain nuances in the process of anthropological engagement, more specifically in doing Jewish Anthropology.

KEYWORDS:

• Jews
• India
• ethnography
• fieldwork

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Dr Rohee Dasgupta for her valuable comments and to Dr Yulia Egorova for her support. My deepest appreciation for the Indian Jewish communities in Israel whose generosity is sharing stories and connections has been enduring over the past decade as I have studied Indian Jewish identities.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Singh, Being Indian, Being Israeli.

2 These are examples of ‘Development towns’ which were created across Israel in the 1950s to absorb the huge influx of refugees and Jewish immigrants who poured into Israel after 1948.

3 Katz and Goldberg, Last Jews of Cochin; Katz, Who are the Jews of India?

4 Hallegua, The Jewish Community of Cochin.

5 Singh, Being Indian, Being Israeli.

6 Knauft, “Anthropology in the Middle,” 407.

7 Weingrod, Reluctant Pioneers.

8 Weingrod, Israel: Group Relations.

9 Semyonov and Lewin-Epstein, “Immigration and Ethnicity in Israel.”

10 Spiegel, New Towns in Israel; Smooha, Israel: Pluralism and Conflict.

11 Weingrod, “Reciprocal Change”; Ahroni, Yemenite Jewry; Shokeid, The Dual Heritage; Rebhun and Waxman, Jews in Israel.

12 Musleah, On the Banks of the Ganga; Weil, Bene Israel Indian Jews; Isenberg, India's Bene Israel; Hallegua, The Jewish Community of Cochin; Roland, Jews in British India; Semyonov, “Immigration and Ethnicity in Israel”; Mandelbaum, “Social Stratification among the Jews”; Slapak, The Jews of India; and Katz, Who are the Jews of India?

13 Katz and Goldberg, The Last Jews of Cochin; Katz Goldberg, “Kashrut, Caste and Kabbalah”; Katz, Studies of Indian Jewish Identity; Hyman, Jews of the Raj.

14 Elias and Cooper, The Jews of Calcutta; Silliman, Jewish Portraits, Indian Frames; David, The Walled City; Judah, Dropped from Heaven.

15 Hodes, From India to Israel.

16 Egorova and Perwez, The Jews of Andhra Pradesh.

17 Safran, “Diasporas in Modern Societies.”

18 Cohen, Theories of Migration.

19 Vertovec and Cohen, Migration, Diasporas and Transnationalism, 315–6; Reis, “Theorizing Diaspora.”

20 Ahmed, Uprootings/ Regroundings.

21 Mishra, “The Diasporic Imaginary.”

22 Singh, Gender, Religion, and the Heathen Lands.

23 Lewin-Epstein and Semyonov, “Local Labor Markets”; Giladi and Jilādī, Discord in Zion.

24 Giladi and Jilādī, Discord in Zion.

25 Although Bombay and Calcutta are now known as Mumbai and Kolkata, first-generation Indian Jews referred to the older names which they associated with the pre-aliya years. To maintain consistency in the discussion, this paper uses the older names of the cities.

26 Singh, “Where Have You Brought us, Sir?”

27 This study did not include the newly arrived Bene Menashe, a community from the North East of India which has been trickling into Israel since the early 2000s. For my study, the Bene Menashe aliya was too recent to provide a useful comparison with the three much older communities which began making aliya into Israel soon after the state was established.

28 Weingrod, Israel: Group Relations; Weingrod, Reluctant Pioneers; Deshen, “Political Ethnicity and Cultural Ethnicity”; Smooha, Israel: Pluralism and Conflict; Spiegel, New Towns in Israel; Ben-Zadok, “Oriental Jews”; Khazzoom, “Did the Israeli State”; Krausz, Studies of Israeli Society Migration; Kraus and Hodge, Promises in the Promised Land; Lewin-Epstein and Semyonov, “Ethnic Group Mobility”; Lewin-Epstein and Semyonov, “Migration, Ethnicity, and Inequality”; Levy and Weingrod, Homelands and Diasporas.

29 The Indian Ambassador in Israel hosts open-house receptions on the Republic Day of India (January 26) and on India’s Independence Day (August 15).

30 Ben-sion became a staunch enthusiast of my research and supplied all the photographs of community events. I learnt that he had made aliya on his own as a young man and had joined a Kibbutz and later the Israeli army.

31 Moshavim (s. moshav) are co-operative villages of smallholders which exist across Israel. These family farms constitute their own municipality. Some of them have thriving economies producing olives, fruit and grapes for winemaking.

32 Kushner, Immigrants from India in Israel.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maina Chawla Singh

Maina Chawla Singh Ph.D. is former faculty at Georgetown and American Universities. She has also taught at Tel Aviv and Bar Ilan Universities (Israel). Singh’s current research focuses on Gender, Migration and Indian Diaspora communities. She is the author of two academic books including Being Indian, Being Israeli (2009; 2014) and several other international published articles. Singh is currently affiliated to Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Brandeis University, USA pursuing two projects: Migration narratives of Indian Jewish women in Israel and Jewish Childhood in India.