AHMEDABAD— “Nobody has ever heard of our religion,” Avishai Mazgaonkar was saying as he sat in the Magen Abraham Synagogue in Ahmedabad. A member of the small Jewish population in Gujarat, a western state of India, he says he always has to explain his faith to the mostly Hindu population around him. “So whenever I tell them, they start with questioning, and the main question is ‘Who is your God?’ and that’s the hardest to explain for us, because we don’t worship any kind of statue or something,” he said. “Wherever I go, my religion becomes my icebreaking point.”
People in India are understandably unfamiliar with Judaism. Magen Abraham is the only synagogue in the western state of Gujarat and one of only a handful in all of India.
India’s 4,500 Jews represent a tiny minority in this largely Hindu country of 1.5 billion people. Of those 4,500, only about 200 live in Ahmedabad. There is no rabbi to lead the service and no kohanim to perform the traditional priestly blessing.
Built in 1934, during British Rule, the Synagogue is an unassuming building tucked into a side street in the bustling city. The walls inside are stark white, with brown benches surrounding the raised platform in the center of the space, the Tevah. The seats far outnumber the people at services so the balcony, traditionally where women sit, is not used regularly. The men and women simply sit on different sides on the ground level. The Torah scrolls stand behind pastel curtains of blue, white and purple patterns. Lights are strung behind the Tevah, in front of the torah scrolls, which light up in varying patterns of different colors. In the front on the right side of the space sits Elijah’s chair, covered with a purple cloth.
The origins of the Indian Jewish community, according to Dr. Joan Roland, a scholar of Indian Judaism and professor at Pace University, are not clear. There are different theories, but none can be proven or disproved. What is known is that there are three communities: Bene Israel in the west, Cochin in the south and Baghdadi in the east. The largest remaining community is the Bene Israel, of which the Magen Abraham Synagogue is a part.
Magen Abraham is the only synagogue in the western state of Gujarat and one of only a handful in all of India.
The Bene Israel community understands its origin story to begin with a shipwreck off the coast of Maharashtra, in a place called Navgaon, in the 2nd century BC. According to community legend, their ancestors, possibly from Palestine or Yemen, were killed in the wreck, except for seven men and seven women. They lost most of their holy books, bibles and liturgy. They stopped speaking Hebrew and began speaking Marathi and they took on Marathi names. Despite this assimilation, they maintained dietary laws and observed holidays using the prayer they remembered, maintaining a separate identity from people of other faiths around them. In the 19th century, according to Roland, Protestant missionaries recognized the Jewish practices of the community and, in their efforts to convert them, helped them return more to their Jewish practices.
In the first half of the 20th Century, there were as many as 30,000 Jews in India, but the numbers have dwindled since India became independent in 1947, only a year before the creation of the state of Israel. After a life of economic advantage under the rule of the British, who liked to hire minorities, many Indian Jews left for better economic prospects in Israel, said Roland. “I would say it was a combination of the almost simultaneous emergence of India and Israel, the gradually developing Zionist feelings amongst the Bene Israel and the changing economic situation in India” she said.
The Jewish community in Gujarat experienced the same population shift as the rest of the country, and many members of the community have family in Israel. “Almost my whole family is in Israel, they were born in Israel,” said Mazgaonkar, 19. “My first cousins, I haven’t even met them yet, we just Skype.” He says he would like to visit Israel, but plans to live in India.
Those who stayed are happy to be in India. “We are living happily here, peacefully,” Menasseh Solomon, a leader in the synagogue, said. “This is the only country where we have never been persecuted.”
Indian Jews have also moved to the United States, where Rabbi Romiel Daniel is working to keep Bene Israel traditions alive. Daniel grew up in Bombay and lived in Ahmedabad for 25 years, serving as the president of the synagogue there, before moving to New York. He now leads a Bene Israel congregation of about 300 in the United States, with 120 in the New York area that come together for festivals and holidays like Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Simchat Torah in a rented space.
“We have tried to maintain the rituals and the traditions as they were practiced back home in India,” said Daniel. “We haven’t changed a thing. In fact, I tried to introduce a couple of the Ashkenazi melodies, they almost killed me,” he said with a laugh. People come from as far as California for Yom Kippur services, he said, which he has been organizing for the last 20 years.
Beyond immigration, intermarriage is another potential threat to the size of the community. Daniel says that many Indian Jews move to Israel simply to have more options for Jewish marriage, but that if they stay in India, marrying outside the faith further contributes to the shrinking population of Indian Jews, though Solomon emphasizes that those outside the faith are welcome to convert if they marry someone who is Jewish.
In fact, intermarriage is the only situation in which conversion is allowed, said Solomon. “We want people to come, to accept from the heart, the religion,” he said. In the past, he says, there was a problem of some people who wanted to convert to Judaism only to be able to move to Israel, and get a visa easily.
Though conversion is discouraged, the Jewish community members maintain friendly relationships with their Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and Parsi neighbors. In fact, Magen Abraham Synagogue is located across the street from a Parsi fire temple. “The thing is, we believe in tolerance and peace so we don’t differentiate people in the name of religion or community,” said Solomon. He said that the congregation welcomes non-Jewish people who want to attend their prayers and that they attend the weddings and festivals of friends of other faiths.
The Malida ceremony is one tradition that is unique to India’s Jews and likely reflects their practice being shaped by their location in India. “We have a different type of ceremony which is not found anywhere in the world, so that has been adopted from Hindu customs,” said Solomon.
A paper plate holds a date, an apple slice, a lemon wedge, rose petals, a slice of banana, grapes, and a piece of pear. A prayer is said for the rose, and the members congregation, each holding matching paper plates, smell their rose petals. A prayer is said for the date, and they each eat the date. The prayer is said again, and they eat the banana. In this manner, they finish the plate of fruits. Following the fruits, there is the sweetened rice, ritual food which shares the name of the ceremony, Malida.
On a Saturday evening in March, this ceremony, invoking the protection of the prophet Elijah and offering thanks to God, is performed in honor of a first birthday, but it is also performed for weddings, bar mitzvahs and other celebrations. Elijah holds a particular place of honor for Bene Israel, as their protecter since, according to legend, he revived their ancestors when they were shipwrecked.
“I don’t think any Bene Israel family would go ahead with any auspicious ceremony unless they invoke the presence of Elijah the prophet, and that’s essentially the Malida ceremony,” said Daniel.
Solomon knows that reality that the shrinking community is at risk of slowly dwindling away. He says the community has donated some older items to museums in order to maintain its heritage and on April 13 it was announced that the synagogue would be added to the heritage list in Ahmedabad, protecting the building. “I think this population, if it lasts another 25 years, I’d be more than happy,” Daniel said. “I’m sure it will be there, but it will not be the same even as it is today.”
Members of the congregation are proud of the education opportunities they provide for young people. A few teenage boys take classes to learn Hebrew and lead the weekly Friday night services, which about 20 people attend. On a recent Friday evening, three boys stood in the Tevah, the altar in the center of the space. Their backs to the congregation, facing the torah scrolls which remain in the ark, they recited prayers in Hebrew for the Friday evening service, welcoming the Sabbath, and, for the Jews of Ahmedabad, symbolizing hope in the next generation.