Charting the Indian aliya

A fascinating study of the little-known saga of the immigration and absorption of Indian Jews in Israel.

By JOAN ROLAND
india (photo credit: GPO / Bruner Ilan)
india
(photo credit: GPO / Bruner Ilan)
ISRAELI JEWS OF INDIAN ORIGIN, estimated at around 70,000 people, are almost invisible on the local landscape. They are known, if at all, for maintaining a low profile and avoiding the public eye.
Dr. Maina Chowla Singh is an Indian sociologist from the University of Delhi, who lived in Israel for three years between 2005 and 2008 while her husband was the Indian ambassador: she is currently associated with American University in Washington. Her status enabled her to gain access to the community and conduct research via interviews and questionnaires. The result is an interesting and informed book that has enough theoretical content to satisfy specialists while appealing to a general readership.
She focuses on the first generation of Indians who arrived primarily in the l950s and l960s, and asks how issues of ethnicity, from language access to problems dealing with stereotypes of India, created barriers to assimilation 50 years ago. What are the markers of “Indian-ness” that are retained today in private and public?
Singh gives a good, brief background on the three distinct communities among the Indian Jews. She focuses mainly on the Bene Israel from Maharastra and Gujarat in western India (the largest of the groups), and the Jews from Kerala in southern India, often referred to as Cochinis: there is less material on the so-called Baghdadi (Iraqi) Jews from Bombay and Calcutta.
She contends that Israeli scholarship has taken little notice of Indian Jews as a community and she is critical, almost dismissive, of Western historical and anthropological scholarship about them, implying that the narrative is preoccupied with Jewish identities as they existed in India. In contrast, she wants to concentrate on Indian- Israeli identity, though in her effort to stress the dearth of research on this topic, she overlooks recent studies by Shalva Weil, Barbara Johnson and myself. She is also wrong in claiming that scholars have neglected the occasionally turbulent relations between the Baghdadi and Bene Israel communities.
However, she hits her stride when discussing the process of emigration and the juxtaposition between what the potential immigrants heard or imagined about Israel and what they actually encountered. She recounts how the Indian Jewish community began to consider emigration as a serious option, what held them back, and what spurred them on. Leaving strong social and cultural networks and emigrating to an unseen homeland was difficult for a community like the Bene Israel, who were comfortable in their “Jewish-ness” within the multi-religious culture of both British and post-colonial India.
JEWS WERE ACCEPTED and respected in India, never experienced the anti-Semitism and discrimination that their co-religionists in other countries did, and therefore maintained a deep attachment to their “motherland” (they refer to Israel as their “fatherland”) and appreciate its culture, with many returning home on frequent visits The push factors for Indians were not necessarily those that applied for Jews from Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia, but Singh needs to stress here the lack of persecution and discrimination in India as compared to the anti-Semitism and violence elsewhere. In mentioning that the pull factor of Israel’s independence in l948 coincided with the l947 partition of the Indian subcontinent, she gives a particularly good account of the Jews of Karachi in Pakistan who moved, mostly first to India but then to Israel, after partition.
Singh’s analysis of the major role of outreach of the Jewish Agency and the ORT schools in getting out the message about Israel and urging aliya, even in the most remote areas, is an important contribution. Because Indians were not refugees, the Jewish Agency had to focus on attractive economic prospects in Israel. Interestingly, Singh notes that in responding to “aggressive Zionist discourse of the Jewish Agency,” most of her interviewees claimed that they moved for Zionist reasons, but she managed to ferret out the existence of other motives.
Immigration strongly appealed initially, she argues, to avid Zionists, religious Jews, or those on the lower socioeconomic levels. Another reason, that Singh does not mention, is that having enjoyed some preference in employment under the British, some Bene Israel feared that their economic situation might deteriorate in an independent India. But Indian Jews were shocked at the consumer shortages and lack of infrastructure that they found in the transit camps and remote development towns of the young Israel compared with the bustling cities of Bombay and Calcutta.
Singh notes that what makes the experience of Indian aliya different from that of Indian origin communities who have migrated to Western countries was that the former encountered a state machinery, which decided where they would live and work. In fairness, the State of Israel paid for their passage and helped absorb them by providing housing and other facilities, which was not true elsewhere. There is a good discussion of how they were allocated to development towns and moshavim (collective farming villages) in remote locations in northern and southern Israel.
A key aspect of their experience was the discrimination they faced, although this was true of many immigrants, especially Mizrahi (Sephardi) ones. Darker skin-toned Indians suffered in particular: their color and India’s then-reputation as a poor and backward country were taken as indicators of incompetence and ignorance. They were surprised by racism and their marginalization in the “Jewish homeland.” Children were often taunted as being kushi (black). Those Indians who were light-skinned and had British-accented English faced less prejudice.
The marriage controversy of the l960s, which Singh mentions, needs fuller coverage. The then-Sephardi chief rabbi Yitzhak Nissim issued a directive that rabbis functioning as marriage registrars were to investigate the ancestry of a Bene Israel applying to marry a Jew from another community. In the absence of proof that no infractions of Jewish marriage or divorce laws had occurred, the Bene Israel party would have to be ritually converted. The issue was one of marital law, since there were no rabbis or batei din [Jewish religious courts] in India; it was not just a question of “purity and devotedness” as Singh states. The directives were eventually modified, but the event left a bitter taste.
The author’s analysis of the employment experience of the first-generation Indian Jews might have been equally applicable to the Russian immigration of the l990s. Readers will enjoy her presentation of several personal stories, which show that they occupied a wide range of professions with huge differences in class and status. She does acknowledge, however, that high achievers, such as medical practitioners, successful businessmen, women accountants and marketing consultants are few; they live in wealthy suburbs with other upper-class Israelis, mainly Ashkenazi.
Because of their English language skills, Indian Jews had a huge advantage compared to Sephardim. If they had college degrees, entry to the job market in Israel was easy; El Al and the Israel Aircraft Industry hired many of them. Nevertheless, some Indian degrees, and professional certifications, were not recognized; Israel preferred Western degrees. Many Indians who did not want to take additional training were thus given subordinate positions, and their standard of living dropped.
The majority of first generation immigrants in the l950s and l960s were not on professional fast-tracks. Trained mechanics, electricians, craftsmen and carpenters found work easily as these skills were then in great demand. Since in India, such skills ranked fairly low in the job market and lower-level technical work was poorly paid, these workers did much better in Israel. Experienced textile mill workers fared well in Dimona, where they were offered housing, jobs, schooling and higher salaries. But most of the development towns did not witness the economic growth that was expected. Even the second generation living there became plumbers, electricians, mechanics, clerks, low-level government employees, and so forth.
Although very few Bene Israel worked in agriculture in India, most of the immigrants from Cochin were placed in moshavim in the north and in the Jerusalem corridor. Some 600 Cochinis now live in Moshav Nevatim in the south, where they have been successful growing greenhouse flowers for export.
SINGH ARGUES THAT THE AGE at which an individual immigrated into Israeli society was an important factor, which shaped his or her professional life. If they completed education in India, had skills to offer, and could be absorbed as productive members in the economy, or if they came as young children and grew up in Israel, it was easier.
But the fate of younger and older immigrants was different. Teenagers suffered from emotional dislocation and the difficulties of mastering a new language and school curriculum. They did not get adequate attention from teachers. Many dropped out of high school in order to join the workforce to supplement family incomes. High school graduates rarely pursued higher education after the army. These young people wanted to become economically independent. (This reviewer discovered in the l990s that they had lower university graduation rates in Israel than their parents had in India.) Many of the older immigrants experienced severe cultural displacement. If they came in their late 40s or older, often leaving behind salaried jobs, they got stuck in manual or very low paid work.
Singh highlights the unique employment difficulties facing Indian women in the l960s and l970s. While some were professionals with successful careers, more were relegated to low-paying, semi-skilled jobs. Women who had never worked outside the home now had to work for wages, often in menial jobs under exploitative conditions. However, women with a good high school education in India and the English language skills that went with it found it easy to get secretarial jobs in Israel. This was especially true of Baghdadi women who consequently moved up economically and socially, often marrying into well-established Ashkenazi families in the center of the country.
Other Israelis soon formed stereotypes of the Indian community. They were “good workers,” “gentle,” “polite” – qualities, which did not rank high as virtues in a society which valued assertive, aggressive personalities and mistook their reserve and dislike of pushiness for a lack of ambition. This lack of fight, Singh contends, was responsible for Indian Jews being poorly represented in Israel, even in those professions in which Indian-origin communities have excelled in other diasporas in the Western world.
Indians had mixed feelings about this clash. Some Indians felt their values were superior and wanted to inculcate them in their children, but knew their politeness, reserve, “shyness,” deference and considerateness prevented them from getting what they deserved. Others wanted to inculcate an “Israeli” spirit in the children so they could push their way forward. “Our children are very much Israelis and not at all Indian,” one claimed. (This reviewer found the second generation solved this problem by being bi-cultural, Indian at home, but Israeli outside).
Singh is especially interesting in her survey of first-generation Indian women, and how aliya affected their lives and outlook. In India, men were breadwinners and women homemakers and mothers. Women married in their late teens and husbands were 8-14 years older. Marriages could be arranged or love marriages. The women led protected lives in an extended family, unless the husband’s job took him to another city. Divorces were rare.
Ahuge change occurred when the Jewish Agency offered independent homes to lower or middle-income couples who could not have afforded them in India. Thus, nuclear families of young couples separated from the extended family networks they were used to. Young married women gained more autonomy from older women in the family, especially the mothers-in-law, but had to raise their infants themselves along with attending to housework and other children, without a grandparent generation to help, while their husbands worked. Often they had to join the labor force, even though they had never worked outside the home in India.
Many single women migrated to Israel through the Jewish Agency; parents of all socioeconomic backgrounds let them go because they were anxious about intermarriage. Upper middle-class women from Bombay or Calcutta, who usually ended up in the central cities, enjoyed the freedom from protective parental supervision, especially regarding finances and marriages, but some found adjusting to this freedom and the lack of domestic help difficult.
Those from urban upper middle-class families with a good education in English ended up learning Hebrew in ulpans (intensive language course) with other Englishspeaking immigrants from the US, South Africa, or Australia and met future husbands. The ulpans, as well as secretarial work, became their entry points into much higher social strata.
It was easier for them than for women who started life in Israel in development towns and moshavim and ended up in semiskilled jobs. They had little access to eligible young men in well-placed professional jobs and tended to marry within their own socioeconomic, usually Indian, circles. Singh believes that the perception about Indians in Israeli society that they don’t intermarry with non-Indians was true for this group, who were born in the l930s and l940s, especially among the Bene Israel, who felt the cultural gaps between themselves and other ethnic groups were too wide to bridge.
AMONG THE BENE ISRAEL, LIFE cycle rituals, especially weddings, show a distinctiveness and cultural character, which is a blend of Jewish and Indian customs. Singh describes the mendhi (henna) ceremony (also held by North African and some other communities) as a catered affair sometimes managed by Indian family firms, held a day before the wedding with young Indian-Israeli girls dressed in Indian clothes dancing to Bollywood music, the Hindi words of which they barely understood. The wedding itself, however, is Western, reflecting the impact of contemporary Israeli culture.
In Nevatim, weddings still maintained more of an ethnic flavor because of the small Cochini synagogue on the moshav and the strong presence of a large Cochini community. In India, Baghdadi Jews often had Westernized weddings so post-migration weddings did not undergo major transformations.
Singh found that among the Bene Israel, religious observances vary, though they have maintained their distinctive Eliahu Hanavi or malida ceremony in honor of the prophet Elijah. Many first-generation immigrants became more secular, especially those who had achieved high levels professionally and socially, and lived away from concentrations of Indians or had married Ashkenazi Jews; but others became more observant and stricter about dietary laws, now that it was easier. In a family where a child became religious for some reason, other family members often followed. Afew Bene Israel became deeply religious and joined yeshivas.
Singh did not come across Indian Jews who were ultra-Orthodox, but there are some. They tend to merge into an Ashkenazi haredi community and distance themselves from other Indian Jews. Singh also does not mention the interesting phenomenon of the participation of many Bene Israel in pilgrimages to the tombs of Baba Sali in Netivot and of Shimon Bar-Yochai in Meron and to the Cave of Elijah near Haifa.
Singh details the population of Indian Jews in various cities and enumerates the synagogues, restaurants, sweets and spice shops, and video stores that serve the communities and their cultural programs. The largest concentration, perhaps 15,000, is in Ashdod, where Indian Jews settled in the early 1960s. Another important center is Beersheba, with about 10,000 Indians, although she does not seem to have interviewed people there. She also looks at ethnicity-based Indian organizations in Israel: how they function, their effectiveness, and why they are not more politically visible than they are.
THE AUTHOR FOUND THAT THE community has not been marked by political views deviant from mainstream opinion. In the south, some secondgeneration Indians have been politically active. A few have been elected, on local Indian tickets or as members of national parties, to the municipal councils of Yeruham, Dimona and Ashdod. Dimona has had deputy mayors of Indian origin, usually Sabras, but never an Indian mayor. A large number of first generation Indians stated they were not actively interested in politics and did not belong to a political party, characteristic of their outlook when living in India.
The vast majority echo today what she refers to as mainstream Israeli media discourse on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, that Israel has been making efforts to make peace but the Palestinians don’t respond. “We can’t trust the Arabs,” they say, despite having lived peacefully among Muslims in Bombay and Ahmedabad.
Singh makes the important point that as the global (and Israeli) perception of India has improved, so has the perception of the Indians in Israel. Developments in bilateral trade and collaborations between India and Israel, which she summarizes, “have reshaped and given a significant boost to collective self-perceptions of the Indian Jewish community in Israel,” and promote more expressed ethnicity and new levels of ethnic pride. Also, the 40,000 or so Israelis who visit India each year come home with favorable impressions and are interested in the culture.
As Singh recognizes, a follow-up book on the second generation, which has Hebrew as its first language and which is only tangentially involved in Indian organizations, would be an important contribution.
General readers, who are interested in Indian Jews or in immigration and absorption in Israel, will find this book, with its fascinating life histories, accessible. It will also appeal to academics interested in Israeli ethnicity and pluralism as well as those who focus on South Asian, Jewish and Diaspora studies. The maps are confusing: it is not clear on the map of India where the Jews were located. Nor is it clear on the map of Israel where the Indian Jews are concentrated. The bibliography, however, is very helpful. Good editing would have eliminated a great deal of repetition and numerous typographical errors.
Joan Roland is Professor of History at Pace University in New York and the author of ‘The Jewish Communities of India: Identity in a Colonial Era.