JEWISH CASTAWAYS IN INDIA:

Bene Israel descended from shipwrecked Jews (Canadian Jewish News)

By SHELDON KIRSHNER

Samson Joseph Isaac Talkar, a member of Mumbai�s venerable Bene Israel community, was talking about the long history of his people in India. �We have been here for 2,000 years,� said Talkar, a formal and earnest man of 68 who was an assistant police commissioner in Mumbai, India�s biggest city, before his retirement in 1995. Talkar, a policeman for 38 years who specialized in homicide, added, �We observed our religion and we did not forget our Shabbat and our Shema. In the course of time, we forgot some of our prayers, but not the essentials of the Judaic faith.�

Like all Bene Israel, the predominant sub-group of Indian Jewry today, Talkar is familiar with the broad outlines of his people�s historical narrative. His forefathers, Jews from ancient Palestine, migrated to India before the destruction of the Second Temple, and have been here ever since. �We�re the descendants of seven families,� explained Joshua Aaron Shapurkar, a 30something tourist guide who shows foreigners the sharply contrasting sights of his pulsating metropolis.

The story that Talkar and Shapurkar tell, though shrouded in legend, is identical. Around the second century BCE, a vessel from the Land of Israel was shipwrecked off India�s tropical Konkan coast. The survivors, seven men and seven women, swam safely to shore, settled in the village of Navgaon and began working in agriculture, mainly as oil pressers. �We mingled with the locals,� said Talkar, whose physical features and speech rhythms are exactly the same as dusky-complexioned Hindus. �There was a change in our colour.�

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I don't know what, if any, historical evidence there is for the legend of the shipwreck 2000 years ago, but this group clearly had a Jewish consciousness going back a very long time. Interesting story.