The Bene Israel

The Bene Israel (“Children of Israel”) are the largest community of Indian Jews. They claim that their ancestors fled by ship from the Kingdom of Israel and were shipwrecked off the Konkan coast, perhaps in 175 bce. They lost all their holy books but remembered their faith in monotheism. From the eighteenth century, under the influence of the British, the Bene Israel began to move out of the Konkan villages to Bombay and further afield. By the twentieth century, the Bene Israel community included lawyers, professors, doctors, mayors, and authors who contributed to the cultural life of India. After Indian independence in 1947 and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the majority of the Bene Israel emigrated to Israel, particularly after they were declared “full Jews” by the Chief Rabbinate in the 1960s. Today, there are approximately 80,000 Bene Israel in Israel and about 3,000 in India.