About 25 Indian Jews met the Israeli PM in Mumbai, and gave ideas about how to improve their own lives, and the two countries’ relations.
Mumbai: More cultural exchanges between India and Israel, easier and faster travel between the two countries, and a national minority status for India’s Jews. These were a few ideas that members of Mumbai’s Jewish community, one of India’s largest, voiced to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he met them Thursday during his visit to Mumbai.
About 25 members of the community met Netanyahu at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in south Mumbai for nearly 40 minutes.
Jonathon Solomon, chairman of the Indian Jewish Federation, said: “We gave a suggestion that there can be a continuous, more permanent exchange between India and Israel if we can establish Indo-Israel cultural centres in both the countries.”
The centre in India could give information about the history of Israel as well as present-day Israel, on the lines of how the British Council functions, he said.
“At the centre in India, there can be books about Israel, newspapers and films from Israel. There can be classes for those who wish to learn Hebrew,” Solomon said.
“Similarly, at the centre in Israel, there can be information about India, books from India, classes to learn Hindi, Marathi or any other Indian language,” he said, adding Prime Minister Netanyahu took note of the suggestion and seemed positive.
Community leaders also expressed the need for a direct Air India flight between India and Tel Aviv, which the Israeli PM said had been discussed with his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, and is in the works.
The Jews also expressed the need to have a national minority status for the community in India. So far, only West Bengal and Maharashtra have accorded a minority status to their Jewish populations. There are three sects of Jews in India – the Bene Israelis, the Cochin Jews and the Baghdadi Jews.
As per the 2001 Census, there are 4,650 Jews in India, down from about 30,000 in 1948. Nearly 2,500 of these are in Maharashtra.
Rabbi Abraham Benjamin of the Thane synagogue said: “The prime minister noted everything. Our leaders also spoke about the love that we get in this country, and how our community has survived in India for the past 2,000 years.”