Talk:History of the Jews in India

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 31 August 2021 and 15 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mtanaka77.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 23:41, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Terrorism

Recently an islamic terrorist cell of the lashkar-e-toiba was apprehended in Guntur district which was sent to find and eliminate the Bene Ephraim jews.^{[citation needed]}

Desi Jews

What is Desi Jew, no such term in use, invented here. This should not be merged with Desi Jew. The term is incorrect. Indian Jews is the right title. ~rAGU

I agree with you. Desi Jew is a bogus category. Fowler&fowler 20:37, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Concentration

The map lists areas of 'Jewish CONCENTRATION'. Is it just a coincidence? 59.183.163.124 18:49, 6 May 2007 (UTC)Vader1941

What about ethnic Indians who are Jewish?

The term, 'brown Jews' and 'black Jews', doesn't it refer to Jews who have dark skin? Aren't there native Indians who practice Judaism? It's said that The Jews with the darkest skin come from the tropics of India. Wouldn't the dark-skinned Jews be natives, too? Whenever I look at this page, I see things about Jews of Mesopotamian descent or Persian descent. However, I do agree that the Jewish Indians, along with all non-Hebrew Jews, are either the descendants of converts or they are converts. ---GooglePedia12 21:37, 2 November 2008 (UTC)GooglePedia12

Read the article again. In the intro, groups #4 and #5 are "native Indians" and not immigrants. Goup #4 probably doesn't fit your dark skin description considering that they're from the northeastern Indian states and are of Mongoloid stock, but Group #5 are Telugu (Andhra Pradeshi) people and tend to be dark. 24.184.166.238 (talk) 22:29, 27 April 2009 (UTC)Neel

Current Situation

Please, can some one add information about the current population count. My understanding is the current population is mostly old people left behind after kids migrated. Also can some one add links to famous synagogue in India like the one in Pune (largest in Asia). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.152.10.63 (talk) 05:54, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

This recent CNN article puts the population of Bagdhadi Jews in India at less than 100. (http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/03/29/india.jews/index.html?hpt=C1) It's probably a good resource to update this article more generally. Nathan McKnight -- Aelffin (talk) 15:10, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Cochin Jews section

I believe it is necessary to revert all the changes made to this section since 19 Feb. As there have been so many changes I didn't want to do this without an explanation, so here are my concerns:

• The wiki formatting is a huge mess. There are stray square brackets everywhere, red links to articles that are never going to be written ("Community of Malaysia and Singapore", "Father Catesson", "St Paul's Instituition"), needless bolding (Benjamin Meyuhasheem of the Mattancherry jewish by origin and lineage), a large section of randomly italicized text, and a random external link to a dead page inserted into the text [1].

• There are POV issues. Phrases like "Such priviledge and kindness of the Royal Hindu King Sira Primal were never enjoyed by Jews of Seremban in Malaysia"; "The conveniently forgotten jewish settlement due to social engineering and anti- jewish policies" are not neutral in tone.

• For no apparent reason, there is a paragraph about a Catholic boys school in Malaysia (St. Paul's Institution, Seremban).

• There is a lot of detail about a "Benjamin Meyuhasheem" — apparently a Malyasian Jew. Quite what he has to do with Jews in India I don't understand.

• None of the changes made since the 20 Feb have any references.

• The standard of grammar and spelling is very poor, and a lot of what has been written is incoherent to the point that copyediting isn't possible.

In light of all this I am reverting to the version of 28 January. I am happy to discuss this if the user or users who made the changes have any issues. Arthur Holland (talk) 20:08, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

To Mr Arthur Holand:

Jews are Children of Israel ther are not a caste.

Jews are Children of Yisrael or House of Judah.

Jews are not xtians.

Jews practice Judaism.

Jews have travelled and stayed in many other parts of the world, They have been subjected to abuse an ill treatment in many countries. Xtains and Muslims carry the sins on their history and heritage for having reduce jews to noting in some countries.

Am example would be, the case of Benjamin Meyuhasheem who is of the cochini origin in Malaysia .Two jewish families the Rabban and the Meyuhasheem migrated to Malaya from Kerala.There are also know as Jews of Seremban, who received their early education in catholic missionary schools, they had businesses and were land owners.The Seremban Jews were abuse and reduced by anti-zionist malaysian muslim governmental pressures. Many jews left Malaysia. Benjamin Meyuhasheem was orphaned at a young age and left behind and today Mr Benjamin has escaped to Singapore. These infromation in intended to record the connection of Cochini- Malabari Jews of Kerala the tribe of Judah that is traced to Malaysia.These infromation is not intended to put a pin on your anti-semetic heart. And stop bashing Benjamin Meyuhasheem.

Jews Studying in missionary schools is not a flowery picture in any way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.20.172.165 (talk) 10:02, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I never said Jews were a caste.

I never said Jews were xtians (I have no idea what "xtians" are).

I am aware that Jews practice Judaism -- I never said they didn't.

I don't dispute that Jews have been appallingly treated around the world. Again, where did I say that they hadn't?

Saying that "Xtians and Muslims have the sins on their history and heritage" isn't helpful, as it's massively POV, added to which you're not providing any sources.

We can't include non-notable individuals as examples in Wikipedia. And even if we could, you're not providing reliable sources.

I am most certainly not an anti-semite and I'd ask you not to throw that kind of abuse around.

I am not "bashing" Benjamin Meyuhasheem -- I'm simply saying that he is both non-notable (by Wikipedia's standards) and that you're not providing any reliable sources (again this is pivotal to inclusion in Wikipedia) to back up what you're saying. Arthur Holland (talk) 10:17, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Map of India is incorrect

The map of India is incorrect. It shows a large part of Kashmir in Pakistan. This is not correct since it is disputed. Can someone please upload a correct map of India here? Thank you. Katyare (talk) 01:52, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Kindly correct the map of India Vashisthapharma (talk) 17:26, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Orphaned references in History of the Jews in India

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of History of the Jews in India's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "thehindu.com":

• From Kerala: "Symbols akin to Indus valley culture discovered in Kerala". The Hindu. Chennai, India. 29 September 2009.
• From Paradesi Jews: Muthiah, S. (30 September 2002). "Will Chennai's Jews be there?". The Hindu. Retrieved 2016-05-24.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 11:37, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Levi Henriques De Castro & Rachel Halevi Cohen at Tiger Cave Mahabalipuram, Chennai, Paradesi Jews of Madras.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. Community Tech bot (talk) 23:18, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

This should be deleted Skylark95choppen (talk) 17:13, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Notables

I'm surprised the authors haven't mentioned Vice-Admiral Benjamin Abraham Samson of the Indian Navy. Tofindya (talk) 23:21, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Madras Jews; An unsuitable phrase and fact?

Is there actually a jewish community called Madras Jews existed in India?They were just sephardim Jews expelled from Iberian peninsula settled in Madras.They were called Paradesi Jews in Cochin Kingdom.There is not records of calling them paradesi jews in Madras then.Paradesi Jews had migrated to Cochin and Bombay apart from Madras.Madras never had any unique Jewish Identity like Cochin and Bombay.These grouos were random settlers.There should be a rethinking in the Phrase Madras Jews. Skylark95choppen (talk) 17:13, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:History of the Jews in Abkhazia which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 05:07, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Incorrect Map of India

Arunachal Pradesh,Ladakh,Jammu and Indian administered Kashmir is a part of India. ShikaDikaMika (talk) 12:11, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Holocaust Refugees

I’m looking to add a “Holocaust Refugees” section to this article and add them as group number “9” under the “Jewish groups in India” section. This Wikipedia page details the members of the main Jewish groups in India, but is not as detailed in regards to how those groups arrived in India. I believe that inputting information in this respect will greatly add to the educational value of this already interesting and important page. Jewish Holocaust refugees who migrated to India between the late 1930s and 1940s were small in number - roughly 2,000 according to some estimates - but they have a distinct and significant identity within the topic of “Jews in India.” “Framing the Refugee Experience: Reflections on German-Speaking Jews in British India, 1938–1947” will serve as my source for this addition, as it is an academically reviewed bulletin article written by Joseph Cronin, a lecturer at Queen Mary University London with a background in studying German-Jewish history.

For this article, I would add a brief description of the refugees’ population, their countries of origin (mainly Germany and Austria), and the complications surrounding their time in or migrating India (changes in British imperial visa policies and internment). My new subcategory of “Holocaust Refugees” would expand upon those details, noting the disproportionately high percentage of Jewish medical workers who migrated to the area, the overwhelmingly empathetic writings on the refugees, by literate Indian natives, and the push from two Jewish aid organizations (the Jewish Relief Association and the Council for German Jewry) for the British Imperial government to loosen their restrictions on incoming Jewish refugees. I plan on adding about 15-20 sentences total. If anyone has any input on this idea or wants to discuss it further, please feel free to comment on this Talk page or on my own Talk page. ZoeJJohnson (talk) 20:11, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion:

• Mr.Cohen his German wife and kids, Paradesi Jews of Madras.jpg
• Rabbi Salomon Halevi and Rebecca Cohen, Paradesi Jews of Madras.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 17:23, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

antisemetism

One of the first sentences of this article is "They were able to survive for centuries despite persecution and antisemitic inquisitions". Following the source, it seems that there was antisemetism by the Portuguese (not native Indians) for only a short time during their long history in India.

Why is this sentence front and center? It should be moved down to the section on Kochin and it should have the status of a sidebar. Kapelner (talk) 04:58, 19 March 2024 (UTC)