Jewish life in India has long historyMagazine helps followers forge religious tiesENID WEISS
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 Lavina Pearlman (then Lavina Solomon) feeds sugar to cousin Yigal Verulkar just before his wedding in Israel. It is an Indian tradition, before a wedding, for female relatives of the groom to feed him some sugar, symbolizing their wish for the groom to enjoy a sweet beginning to his new life, says Pearlman. She was 15 when the photo was taken. |
Corley lives in Bombay and works as editor of the magazine Kol India, a quarterly for Jews in India, published by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. This summer, she put two issues together early so she could spend six months visiting her son, Johannes, director of pesticide research projects at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.
Rizpah Corley, along with more than 2,000 of India's 5,000 Jews, lives in Bombay. But even so, it takes her more than two hours to get to her synagogue because of the country's poor transportation system. There are nine synagogues in Bombay and 99.9 percent of the Jews are affiliated with a congregation, she said.
"Most of us know each other," she added.
Indian culture has influenced Judaism several ways, she said. India's Jews, who are predominately middle class, wear saris and other Indian garments. Corley herself wears a Punjabi-style outfit. It includes a long tunic, or Khmeez, and trousers, which are like pajamas or loose leggings, called salwas. Often the Jewish women will even wear a pierced nose ring.
But as Indian fashions become more modern, more women and more Jewish women are wearing western-style clothes, she said. The Indian influence is also noticeable in the kitchen.
"Jewish dishes tend to have merged with Indian dishes," she said. One common practice is to make and serve puris, puff pastries stuffed with coconut or cream of wheat, at the Yom Kippur break-the-fast. "Even though there's nothing religious about it, everyone does it religiously," she added. "It's fun."
They also eat regional ethnic foods, but with a Jewish twist. One example is traditional Indian Tandoori cooking. Usually it is made by marinating meat in yogurt. Instead, Corley uses lime juice and vinegar to achieve a similar taste.
And Johannes fondly recalls stirring the pot to make halva, a Rosh Hashana treat. The Indian version incorporates bleached flour, sugar and dried fruits. The mixture becomes very thick and requires hours of stirring. People make big pots of it and give it to friends and relatives, he said.
The Corleys are part of the Bene Israel population of Indian Jews. There are several stories about how they got to India, Johannes said. The tales vary on whether the Jews were fleeing persecution or were slaves escaping from the Middle East following the fall of the First Temple more than 2,000 years ago. "The one thing we're sure of is we escaped in a boat that was shipwrecked," Johannes said. The boat washed ashore off a small town near Bombay, he said. Then, legend has it that the Jews took up professional oil pressing.
| Religious roots stretch from Bombay to Valley |
The Bene Israel are the earliest Jews in India. Then about 200 years ago, Iraqi Jews fled to India. Another community is the Cochin Jews, but their community almost completely immigrated to Israel.
The Joint Distribution Committee aims to help communities become self-sufficient Jewish communities, Polen explained. The New York-based organization began developing programs including holiday celebrations and after-school and weekend classes for children and parents in India in 1964.
The magazine Kol India was started in 1991 by a volunteer who wanted to connect the Bombay Jewish community together, according to Polen. Since then it has been written and edited by members of the local community and grown to a national distribution. "It's a way for everyone to feel part of one community," Polen explained.
The Indian Jewish community is dwarfed by the surrounding population and widely scattered in the Bombay/Thane area "in a country where urban transportation is problematic at best," according to Joint Distribution Committee literature. But the biggest challenge facing Indian Jews, according to both Polen and the Corleys, is finding a rabbi. Despite the presence of Orthodox, Conservative and Reform synagogues, there is no full-time, permanent rabbi in India.
The Joint Distribution Committee had sent a rabbi for several years and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations has sent a student rabbi to conduct High Holiday services at the Corleys' Reform synagogue. Now the Joint Distribution Committee is looking for another rabbi to send to India and a volunteer to help teach people there to be Jewish educators, Polen said.
Meanwhile, the Corleys and their fellow Jews enjoy their heritage, which is celebrated in the JDC's magazine. In one section each community submits brief articles about their activities. Another regular column explores opinions on various topics, including the controversial "Should women be included in a minyan?" Another section includes a telephone survey exploring patrilineal descent.
But Rizpah Corley doesn't have to think about her magazine for another few months. She's enjoying her visit to the United States, exploring Highland Park and surrounding communities. They are attending Sabbath services at different synagogues. She's helping her son find a new spiritual home. In October, the editor also plans to visit relatives in the Valley
Wherever she goes, the editor tells stories. She tells a story of how Jews became aware of the Indian Jewish community: A traveler from Yemen, she said, named Moshe Rahabi came to India (sometime between 400 and 800 years ago) and saw a community who observed some Jewish traditions, but didn't know Hebrew. So Rahabi tested them by buying several different varieties of fish to give to the women of the community.
The women threw out the non-kosher fish. That's when Rahabi realized the Indians were a Jewish community, she said. That was the first time the Diaspora knew about the Indian Jews.
Enid Weiss is a staff writer for The Jewish State, an independent weekly newspaper based in Highland Park and covering Central New Jersey.
