Choose another map, showing:

• India
• Asia
• Eurasia
• Eurasia, Africa & Pacific
• The World

Other entries in Alībāg

Jews in India

So Noah and I showed up in Mumbai at around 5 am on thursday morning, and decided to wait at the train station until it was an appropriate hour to find our childhood friend Max. As we sat there we wondered about what our passover (jewish holiday) seder would be like that evening. But no ammount of speculation could have prepared us.

After catching up with Max and a delicious lunch, we found out that we would be going as "volunteers" to a village a few hours north of Mumbai to help run the Seder for these Indian Jewish villagers. Max's friend, Sheroni, who is pretty active with the Chabad house in Mumbai, had set the whole thing up, and we were to meet our liason at the Gateway to India (the most famous british site in Mumbai) in order to catch a ferry north. There were 5 of us (all american. all jewish) myself, noah, max, sheroni, and max's friend Dave.

The ferry ride was hot and bright but not unpleasant, and when we arrived we ran to get onto a very full bus to alibag. At alibag we hired a moto rikshaw and took a long bumpy ride out to a village which I actually dont know the name of. After getting settled into a hotel room and resting for a few minutes, we were beckoned by Sheroni's friend, uncle rafi, who had organized the whole thing, to come to the synagogue. As it turns out we weren't volunteers, but now merely guests, accordingly. We sat and greeted some of the villagers who were showing up early.

In india though, communication is plagued, not by lack of english, but by the pure number of languages people speak. For example, uncle rafi spoke english, hindi, the local language, and hebrew all very well, but unfortunately I had no idea who was speaking what. To complicate the matter, max, Noah and I occasionally speak spanish to each other when we dont want other people to understand, so the mishmash of tongues was mind boggling. Did this person speak Hindi? the local language? Hebrew? or some english? COmmunication however was accomplished as is usual when caring people make an effort and we met many of these Indian Jews and their children.

Another complication was that the seder was done in the conservative indian fashion, which happens to be completely different from the conservative american brand of judaism, which is still confusing to me ( i need to be coached through religious rituals), so I was doubly confused. Yet, people tolerated our ignorance with grace and understanding, and eventually we learned some of the different customs. For example, in Indian synagogues, the jews take off their shoes to enter (just like in buddhism and hinduism). They also shake people's hands and then kiss their hand as a sign of respect, and finally in the synagogue, they make a lap around before they leave. Very interesting .

As for what these people were like, they were incredibly welcoming, mostly non-english speakers, and apparently poor enough to make a large seder like this impossible without a little extra money. This was strange to me, as I grew up in a very affluent Jewish community where the jews werent INDIAN VILLAGERS! Yet at the same time, because we all shared this common bond, it was fantastic. We all knew some of the same prayers, we all got tired of waiting to eat and started to chat during the seder, we all made an effort to accomodate each other, and we all enjoyed ourselves. Some of the most fun we had was sharing the fun of our camera's with the kids, who really enjoyed being able to see themselves in pictures. I even gave them my camera for about thirty minutes so that they could take pictures for themselves. As it turns out, these are some of the best pictures of the trip because the children were not afraid to photograph anyone or anything. another very fun thing was singing a traditional english song in front of everyone at the end. Though we stumbled through it (without the help of a haggadah) everyone sang the chorus with us and clapped at the end. All in all a fantastic experience.

Add to del.icio.us Add to reddit

Photos / videos of "Jews in India":