Dozens of scholars from Israel, India and beyond gathered this week in New Delhi for what organizers said was the first-ever scientific conference on the history of Jewish life along the shores of the Indian Ocean.
The conference, which coincided with the announcement of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel later this month, featured 47 scholars, including 21 Israelis, 14 Indians and others from Singapore, the United States and Europe, said organizers of the Maritime Connections: Jews Across the Indian Ocean conference.
The period covered at the conference ranged from biblical times and antiquity to modern ones, Assaf Avraham, one of the conference’s organizers and head of the research division at the Jerusalem-based Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, told JNS on Tuesday.
Avraham, an Israeli Ph.D. in archaeology who is descended from Indian Jews from the Kochin region, said organizers were surprised by the interest of Indian researchers who applied to participate and present at the conference, which the Shazar Center co-produced with the Eeleh BeTamar Association of Yemenite Jews and India’s O.P. Jindal Global University.
“We got many, many applications by Indian researchers, non-Jewish ones,” said Avraham, adding that the organizing team couldn’t accommodate all the applications due to time constraints.
The World Jewish Congress estimates that India has about 5,000 Jews, who account for 0.00034% of India’s population of approximately 1.4 billion. Yet, despite Indian Jewry’s tiny size, their centuries-long presence has left a mark both in the Subcontinent and in World Jewry, Avraham argued.
India’s Baghdadi Jewish community was better connected to the rest of the Jewish world than others in India, such as the Bnei Israel community of Mumbai, according to Avraham. The more distant communities developed unique customs, he added.
At the conference, Avraham presented archeological evidence that the place named Ophir, mentioned in the Bible (Kings Chapter 11) as a source of King Solomon’s gold, is India, as posited already in the first century C.E., and not Africa, as some scholars argued later.
Avraham connected Ophir to India through precious stones listed in the Bible as coming from Ophir, including agate and carnelian. Additionally, the Bible suggests that a return maritime journey to Ophir from the Land of Israel took three years.
In addition to connecting scholars and facilitating international cooperations, the conference organizers sought to inspire scholarly interest in exploring the relatively unknown histories of Jewish communities in the region, Avraham added. Geopolitical realities mean that many archeologists and other scientists are prevented from researching the former homes of countless ancient Jewish communities, most notably in Yemen, Iraq and Iran.
In India, state-funded projects are underway to preserve and document Jewish heritage sites in Kerala and beyond.
Amid widespread hostility in academia toward projects with Israeli scientists, the visiting Israelis in New Delhi encountered “absolutely no unpleasantness” in or around the conference, “and we have been received with incredible warmth at O.P. Jindal Global University,” said Avraham.
Additional speakers at the conference included Khinvraj Jangid/Suthar, professor and director of O.P. Jindal Global University’s Centre for Israel Studies, and Rachel Yadid, CEO of the Eeleh Betamar association.
