Shrinking population, dating back some 2,000 years, hopes the Israeli PM's week-long visit will boost its profile
Members of the Indian Jewish community attend a morning prayer service at the Magen David Synagogue in Mumbai, January 9, 2018. (AFP Photo/Indranil Mukherjee)
MUMBAI, India (AFP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will make an emotional visit this week to a Jewish center targeted in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, in a trip that India’s tiny and shrinking Jewish community hopes will boost its profile.
Netanyahu will talk trade in New Delhi and marvel at the Taj Mahal before rounding off his visit in Mumbai, where the majority of India’s estimated 4,500 Jews live.
There he will accompany 11-year-old Moshe Holtzberg as the boy returns for the first time to the house where his parents were killed in the 2008 terror attacks that left 166 people dead.
At Mumbai’s Magen David synagogue, worshipers were excited about the first visit to India by an Israeli leader in almost 15 years.
“It’s very good news for us. We’re very lucky to get to see the prime minister over here,” Joel Gershon Awaskar told AFP after concluding his morning prayers.
Members of the Indian Jewish community attend a morning prayer service at the Magen David Synagogue in Mumbai, January 9, 2018. (AFP Photo/Indranil Mukherjee)
Netanyahu will be only the second Israeli prime minister to visit India and the first since Ariel Sharon in 2003. The visit comes six months after Indian leader Narendra Modi toured Israel.
Jonathan Solomon, chairman of the Indian Jewish Federation, said the reciprocal visits and warm ties between the two countries are of the “utmost importance” to Jews in India.
“The closer the cooperation, the closer the Jewish community in India feels to Israel. So we feel recognized and we feel secure,” he said.
It is not just recognition from abroad that many Indian Jews crave.
Although historians believe Jews first arrived in India 2,000 years ago, their descendants today say they are virtually unknown in a country where they are hugely outnumbered by Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains and Zoroastrians.
Nor are Jews officially recognized as a minority community by India’s government.
‘We’ll become well known’
India is in fact home to several distinct Jewish groups.
These include Bene Israelis, who have the longest history in India, and Baghdadi Jews, who fled persecution in the Middle East in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Although there are no official figures, academics say India’s Jewish population peaked at around 20,000 in the mid 1940s.
Numbers have dwindled rapidly because of emigration since the creation of Israel in 1948.
Members of the Indian Jewish community attend a morning prayer service at the Magen David Synagogue in Mumbai, January 9, 2018. (AFP Photo/Indranil Mukherjee)
“Many people here don’t know about the Jewish community, about our customs and festivals,” said Awaskar, who hopes Netanyahu’s visit will help increase awareness among Indians about the Jewish faith.
“It will be good for us, we’ll become well known,” he added, a black-and-white checked, round cloth “kippah” resting on the top of his head.
Magen David, light blue in color and situated in Mumbai’s historic Byculla district, is one of eight synagogues in India’s financial capital and surrounding suburbs.
Every morning some 15 men — a few swaying back and forth — recite prayers there, in a space that could easily hold hundreds.
Afterward they sit down for a breakfast consisting of bread, eggs and cheese, washed down with a cup of milky Indian tea.
Members of the Indian Jewish community attend a morning prayer service at the Magen David Synagogue in Mumbai, January 9, 2018. (AFP Photo/Indranil Mukherjee)
More prayers are read and then bananas and slices of apple are served.
“This whole area used to be Jewish,” recalls Ellis Jacob David, an official at the synagogue. “But many migrated to Israel, UK, Canada, Australia and the USA.”
Emotional return
India’s Jewish community hasn’t experienced the discrimination seen in other countries, a fact that Jewish historian Leora Pezarkar partly attributes to its adoption of Indian customs, dress and language.
“The community has mixed really well with the local population while not deviating from who they are as Jews,” she said.
David, whose parents fled persecution in Iraq to come to India 125 years ago, says he has never experienced or heard of anyone being a victim of anti-Semitism in India.
Mumbai’s Chabad House, were Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, 29, and his 28 year old wife Rivka, were killed by Islamist terrorists attack, seen here on December 25 2008. (Serge Attal/Flash90)
“There was just one attack and that took place from outside the country, not internal, at all,” he told AFP, referring to November 2008.
Six people were killed at the Chabad House, a Jewish center in south Mumbai, when Pakistani terrorists carried out coordinated attacks across the city.
Indian Prime Minister, left, embracing 11-year-old Moshe Holtzberg, whose Chabad emissary parents were killed in a 2008 terror attack in Mumbai, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on left in Israel, July 5, 2017 . (Haim Zach/Israeli Government Press Office)
Moshe Holtzberg was just two years old when his parents, who ran the center, were gunned down. He was saved by his nanny, who managed to escape and now lives in Israel.
On Thursday, Moshe, along with Netanyahu, will visit his former home, where a memorial to the victims is to be unveiled.
“His visit is going to be very emotional for us. This is the place where he got his last hug from his father and mother,” Israel Kozlovsky, the center’s rabbi, said.
Netanyahu will also travel to Modi’s home state of Gujarat and host a party for Bollywood producers where he will trumpet Israel as a filming location.
Jewish leaders hope the visit will help persuade India’s government to officially recognize them as a minority community, meaning they would be included in the census.
Chabad Mumbai Director Rabbi Israel Kozlovsky and his wife his wife and co-director Chaya Kozlovsky speak about the forthcoming memorial for the victims of the 2008 terror attack in Mumbai, January 12, 2018. (AFP Photo/Indranil Mukherjee)
In 2016, Maharashtra state granted Jews minority status, making it easier to register marriages and acquire funding for institutions, but the central government is yet to follow suit.
“Although it is just a symbolic recognition it is important for the community,” said Solomon.
14/01/2018 by TIMES OF ISRAEL
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