The ‘Bene Israel’ in Israel

Abstract

The Bene Israel the largest Indian-Jewish community find themselves in a special position in relations to other Jews. They are a part of Jewry; but, having been isolated for centuries from the mainstream of Jewish life and influenced by a social system not usually associated with Judaism, neither they nor their co-religionists have been able to rid themselves of the impression that Bene Israel do not belong in quite the same way as do other Jews an impression buttressed by the recent irruption of the controversy about their acceptability for purposes of marriage. Many Bene Israel hoped that migration to Israel which in the absence of repressive measures against Jews in India might be interpreted as an expression of Jewish solidarity and love of the Holy Land -would result in complete acceptance by other Jews. But migration has so far failed in its goal. Many Bene Israel complain that they are as far as ever from attaining complete acceptance; and they castigate European Jews as 'whiteskinned snobs' who regard the Bene Israel as their inferiors. These complaints date from the very beginning of Bene Israel immigration. The New York Times,i 22 November 1951, reported the following statement: 'In Bombay we were told that there is no colour bar in Israel, but in a shop in Beer Sheba we were told that we should eat only black bread as we were black and the white bread was only for white Jews'. Indeed, in the early nineteen-fifties a number of Bene Israel, unable to come to terms with life in Israel because,