History of the Jews in India


The history of the Jews in India dates back to antiquity. Judaism was one of the first foreign religions to arrive in the Indian subcontinent in recorded history. Rabbi Eliezer ben Jose of the 2nd-century AD mentions the Jewish people of India in his work Mishnat Rabbi Eliezer, saying that they are required to ask for rain in the summer months, yet make use of the format found for winter in the Amidah and cite it in the blessing "Hear our Voice". Desi Jews are a small religious minority who have lived in the region since antiquity. They were able to survive for centuries despite persecution by Portuguese colonizers and non-native antisemitic inquisitions.
The better-established Jewish communities have assimilated many of the local traditions through cultural diffusion. While some Indian Jews have stated that their ancestors arrived during the time of the biblical Kingdom of Judah, others claim descent from the Ten Lost Tribes of the pre-Judaic Israelites who arrived in India earlier. Still some other Indian Jews contend that they descend from the Israelite Tribe of Manasseh, and they are referred to as the Bnei Menashe.
The Jewish population in British India peaked at around 20,000 in the mid-1940s, according to some estimates, with others putting the number as high as 50,000, but the community declined rapidly due to emigration to the newly formed state of Israel after 1948. The Indian Jewish community now comprises 4,429 people according to the latest census.

Demographics

Population of Indian Jews in Israel

Jewish groups in India

In addition to Jewish expatriates and recent immigrants, there are seven Jewish groups in India.
  1. Among the many theories noted by Shalva Weil as to the origin of Malabar Cochin Jews, they claim to have first arrived in India together with the Hebrew king Solomon's merchants. The fair-complexioned component is of European-Jewish descent, both Ashkenazi and Sephardi.
  2. Madras Jews: The Spanish and Portuguese Jews, Paradesi Jews and British Jews arrived at Madras during the 16th century. They were diamond businesspeople of Sephardi and Ashkenazi heritage. Following expulsion from Iberia in 1492 by the Alhambra Decree, a few families of Sephardic Jews eventually made their way to Madras in the 16th century. They maintained trade connections to Europe, and their language skills were useful. Although the Sephardim mostly spoke Judaeo-Spanish, in India they learned Tamil and Judeo-Malayalam from the Malabar Jews.
  3. Nagercoil Jews: The Syrian Jews and Musta'arabi Jews were Arab Jews who arrived at Nagercoil and Kanyakumari District in 52 AD along with the supposed arrival of Thomas the Apostle, likely making them Christians in reality. Most of them were merchants and had also settled around the town of Thiruvithamcode. By the turn of the 20th century, most of the families made their way to Cochin and eventually migrated to Israel. In their early days, they maintained trade connections to Europe through the nearby ports of Colachal and Thengaipattinam, and their language skills were useful to the Travancore kings. As historians Daniel Tyerman and George Bennett cited, the reason for this group of Jews selecting Nagercoil as their settlement was the town's salubrious climate and its significant Christian population.
  4. The Jews of Goa: These were Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal who fled to Goa after the commencement of the Inquisition in those countries. The community consisted mainly of Jews who had been forcibly converted to Christianity but wanted to remain Portuguese subjects, instead of immigrating to countries where they could practice Judaism openly. They were the primary targets of the Goa Inquisition. As a result, its members fled to parts of India outside Portuguese control.
  5. The main branch of the Native Bene Israel community is said to have arrived at the Konkan Coast in ancient times. They are completely mingled in the native culture. They believe that their ancestors fled Judea during the persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes and arrived on Indian soil after seven people survived a shipwreck near the Nagaon village on the Konkan Coast in 175 BC.
  6. Another branch of the Bene Israel community resided in Karachi until the Partition of India in 1947, when they fled to India. Many of them also moved to Israel. The Jews from the Sindh, Punjab, and Pathan areas are often incorrectly called Bene Israel Jews. The Jewish community that used to reside in other parts of what became Pakistan also fled to India in 1947, similarly to the larger Karachi Jewish community.
  7. The Baghdadi Jews arrived in the city of Surat from Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan about 250 years ago, in the mid 18th and 19th centuries.
  8. The Bnei Menashe are Mizo and Kuki tribespeople in Manipur and Mizoram who are recent converts to Rabbinic Judaism but claim ancestry reaching back to the lost Ten Lost Tribes of Israel—specifically, one of the sons of Joseph.
  9. Similarly, the small Telugu-speaking group, the Bene Ephraim claim ancestry from Ephraim, one of the sons of Joseph and a Lost Tribe of Israel. Also called Telugu Jews, they have observed Rabbinic Judaism since 1981.
  10. European Jewish immigrants to India escaping persecution during World War II account for a small portion of Jewish Indians today. From 1938 to 1947, about 200 Jews fled from Europe and sought asylum in India. Over seventy years later, the descendants of these Jewish migrants have made their own Jewish-Indian mixed community and culture within India.

    Cochin Jews

The oldest of the Indian Jewish communities was in the erstwhile Cochin Kingdom. The traditional account is that traders of Judea arrived at Cranganore, an ancient port near Cochin in 562 BC, and that more Jews came as exiles from Israel in the year 70 AD, after the destruction of the Second Temple. Many of these Jews' ancestors passed on the account that they settled in India when the Hebrew King Solomon was in power. This was a time when teak wood, ivory, spices, monkeys, and peacocks were popular in trade in Cochin.
There is no specific date or reason mentioned as to why they arrived in India, but Hebrew scholars date it to up to around the early Middle Ages. Cochin is a group of small tropical islands filled with markets and many different cultures such as Dutch, Hindu, Jewish, Portuguese, and British. The distinct Jewish community was called Anjuvannam. The still-functioning synagogue in Mattancherry belongs to the Paradesi Jews, the descendants of Sephardim who were expelled from Spain in 1492, although the Jewish community in Mattancherry adjacent to Fort Cochin had only six remaining members as of 2015.
Central to the history of the Cochin Jews is their close relationship with Indian rulers, and this was eventually codified on a set of copper plates granting the community special privileges. The date of these plates, known as "Sâsanam", is contentious. The plates themselves provide a date of 379 AD, but in 1925, the tradition was setting it as 1069 AD, Joseph Rabban by Bhaskara Ravi Varma, the fourth ruler of Maliban granted the copper plates to the Jews. The plates were inscribed with a message stating that the village of Anjuvannam belonged to the Jews and that they were the rightful lords of Anjuvannam and it should remain theirs and be passed on to their Jewish descendants "so long as the world and moon exist". This is the earliest document that shows that the Jews were living in India permanently. It is stored in Cochins main synagogue.
The Jews settled in Kodungallur of the Malabar region, where they traded peacefully until 1524. The Jewish leader Rabban was granted the rank of prince over the Jews of Cochin, given the rulership and tax revenue of a pocket principality in Anjuvannam, near Cranganore, and rights to seventy-two "free houses". The Hindu king permitted in perpetuity for Jews to live freely, build synagogues, and own property "without conditions attached".
A link back to Rabban, "the king of Shingly", was a sign of both purity and prestige. Rabban's descendants maintained this distinct community until a chieftainship dispute broke out between two brothers, one of them named Joseph Azar, in the 16th century. The Jews lived peacefully for over a thousand years in Anjuvannam. After the reign of the Rabban's, the Jewish people no longer had the protection of the copper plates. Neighboring princes of Anjuvannam intervened and revoked all privileges that the Jewish people were given. In 1524, the Jews were attacked by the Moors brothers on suspicion that they were tampering with the pepper trade and the homes and synagogues belonging to them were destroyed. The damage was so extensive that when the Portuguese arrived a few years later, only a small amount of impoverished Jews remained. They remained there for 40 more years only to return to their land of Cochin.
Today it also attracts tourists as a historic site. Cochin synagogue at Ernakulum operates partly as a shop by one of the few remaining Cochin Jews. It is recorded that currently only 26 Jews live in Kerala, located in different parts of Kerala such as Cochin, Kottayam and Thiruvalla. Dr. John Jacob was one of Kerala's most senior Jews, who lived in Kaviyoor village, Thiruvalla, Pathanamthitta District died on 25th May 2025. His body is buried at his Kaviyoor family church.
In Mala, Thrissur District, the Malabar Jews have a Synagogue and a cemetery, as well as in Chennamangalam, Parur and Ernakulam. There are at least seven existing synagogues in Kerala, although not serving their original purpose anymore.

Madras Jews

Jews also settled in Madras soon after its founding in 1640. Most of them were coral merchants from Livorno, the Caribbean, London, and Amsterdam who were of Portuguese origin and belonged to the Henriques De Castro, Franco, Paiva or Porto families.
Jacques de Paiva, originally from the Amsterdam Sephardic community of Amsterdam, was an early Jewish arrival and the leader of the Madras Jewish community. He built the Madras Synagogue and Jewish Cemetery Chennai in Peddanaickenpet, which later became the south end of Mint Street.
De Paiva established good relations with those in power and bought several mines to source Golconda diamonds. Through his efforts, Jews were permitted to live within Fort St. George.
De Paiva died in 1687 after a visit to his mines and was buried in the Jewish cemetery he had established in Peddanaickenpet, which later became north Mint Street. In 1670, the Portuguese population in Madras numbered around 3000. Before his death he established "The Colony of Jewish Traders of Madraspatam" with Antonio do Porto, Pedro Pereira and Fernando Mendes Henriques. This enabled more Portuguese Jews from Livorno, the Caribbean, London and Amsterdam, to settle in Madras. Coral Merchant Street was named after the Jews' business.
Three Portuguese Jews were nominated to be aldermen of the Madras Corporation. Three – Bartolomeo Rodrigues, Domingo do Porto and Alvaro da Fonseca – also founded the largest trading house in Madras. The large tomb of Rodrigues, who died in Madras in 1692, became a landmark in Peddanaickenpet, but was later destroyed.
Samuel de Castro came to Madras from Curaçao and Salomon Franco came from Leghorn.
In 1688, there were three Jewish representatives in the Madras Corporation. Most Jewish settlers resided in Coral Merchants Street in Muthialpet. They also had a cemetery, called Jewish Cemetery Chennai in the neighbouring Peddanaickenpet.