History of the Jews in India
The history of the Jews in India reaches back to ancient times.
Judaism was one of the first foreign religions to arrive in India in recorded history.Indian Jews are a religious minority of India, but unlike many parts of the world, have historically lived in India without any instances of antisemitism from the local majority populace, the Hindus. The better-established ancient communities have assimilated a large number of local traditions through cultural diffusion. The Jewish population in India is hard to estimate since each Jewish community is distinct with different origins; while some allegedly arrived during the time of the Kingdom of Judah, others are seen by some as descendants of Israel's Ten Lost Tribes. In addition to Jewish expatriates and recent immigrants, there are five Jewish groups in India:
Jews
The Jews (/dʒuːz/;Hebrew: יְהוּדִים ISO 259-3 Yehudim, Israeli pronunciation [jehuˈdim]), also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Israelites, or Hebrews, of the Ancient Near East. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation, while its observance varies from strict observance to complete nonobservance.
The Jews trace their ethnogenesis to the part of the Levant known as the Land of Israel. The discovery of the Merneptah Stele confirms the existence of the people of Israel in Canaan as far back as the 13th century BCE. Since then, while maintaining rule over their homeland during certain periods—such as under the Kingdom of Israel, the Kingdom of Judah, the Hasmonean Dynasty, and the Herodian Kingdom—Jews also suffered various exiles and occupations from their homeland—from Ancient Egyptian Occupation of the Levant, to Assyrian Captivity and Exile, to Babylonian Captivity and Exile, to Greek Occupation and Exile, to the Roman Occupation and Exile. These events subjected Jews to slavery, pogroms, cultural assimilation, forced expulsions, genocide, and more, scattering Jews all around the world, in what is known today as the Jewish diaspora.
