Desi Jews are

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

s living in

South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...

(or originally from this region, also known as the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...

) who belong to communities that had been integrated into South Asian culture and society. The term

Desi Desi ( or or ; Hindustani language, Hindustani: देसी , , ) also Deshi, is a loose term used to describe the ethnic groups in South Asia, peoples, culture of South Asia, cultures, and products of the Indian subcontinent and their Sout ...

, found in most South Asian languages, is used by the South Asians to refer to themselves. It means "one of us, of our land", alluding to a common culture (the opposite is Paradesi or ''Videshi'' aka non-Desi, "foreigner", see

Paradesi Jews Paradesi Jews refer to Jewish immigrants to the Indian subcontinent during the 15th and 16th centuries following the expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal. ''Paradesi'' means ''foreign'' in Malayalam and Tamil language, Tamil. These Sephar ...

). After the 1947 partition, the term is also employed when it is intended to avoid any allusion to the specific state of origin, also when the topic involves all the

. Many outsiders also tend to use the word "Indian" for South Asian people and culture. This might be considered offensive by non-Indian Desi (the state of

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

is just a part of the Indian subcontinent). Unlike other areas of the world, the Jewish communities were accepted and integrated in the local society of the Indian subcontinent. Also, similar to the

Parsis The Parsis or Parsees () are a Zoroastrian ethnic group in the Indian subcontinent. They are descended from Persian refugees who migrated to the Indian subcontinent during and after the Arab-Islamic conquest of Iran in the 7th century, w ...

, and other (originally) foreign communities, the preservation of group identity was facilitated by the

caste system A caste is a fixed social group into which an individual is born within a particular system of social stratification: a caste system. Within such a system, individuals are expected to marry exclusively within the same caste (endogamy), foll ...

. In Desi society, a person's allegiance to a group, part of its fabric, is presumed and respected. The Desi Jewish communities are some of the oldest in world, with more than 2000 years of continuity in the Indian subcontinent (such as the

Cochin Jews Cochin Jews (also known as Malabar Jews or Kochinim from ) are one of the oldest groups of History of the Jews in India, Jews in India, with roots that are claimed to date back to the time of King Solomon. The Cochin Jews settled in the King ...

and the

Bene Israel The Bene Israel (), also referred to as the "Teli, Shanivar Teli" () or "History of the Jews in India, Native Jew" caste, are a community of Jews in India. It has been suggested that they are the descendants of one of the Ten Lost Tribes via t ...

). Most of them lived on the coast of the

Arabian Sea The Arabian Sea () is a region of sea in the northern Indian Ocean, bounded on the west by the Arabian Peninsula, Gulf of Aden and Guardafui Channel, on the northwest by Gulf of Oman and Iran, on the north by Pakistan, on the east by India, and ...

. They were involved in trade in the Malabar area, also in the production of oil. A turning point was the arrival of the Portuguese in the 16th century. They introduced the

Inquisition The Inquisition was a Catholic Inquisitorial system#History, judicial procedure where the Ecclesiastical court, ecclesiastical judges could initiate, investigate and try cases in their jurisdiction. Popularly it became the name for various med ...

on the west coast of the Indian subcontinent, persecuting the Jewish and

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

communities. The arrival of the Europeans facilitated the immigration of Jews with

Sephardi Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...

and

Mizrahi ''Mizrachi'' or ''Mizrahi'' () has two meanings. In the literal Hebrew meaning ''eastern'', it may refer to: * Mizrahi Jews, Jews from the Middle East and North Africa * Mizrahi (surname), a Sephardic surname, given to Jews who got to the Iberia ...

backgrounds. In the times of the

British Raj The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani language, Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent, * * lasting from 1858 to 1947. * * It is also called Crown rule ...

, the arrival of the Sephardim and Mizrahim who were to be considered "Europeans" by the British authority, hence their name of

("White Jews") created some friction with the shunned older Desi communities. After the mid-20th century, when the Indian subcontinent was partitioned and

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

was created, most Desi Jews

immigrated Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short- ...

mainly to Israel.

References

* Dicţionar enciclopedic de iudaism, Editura Hasefer, București, 2000,

External links

Emigrants in New York

Large collection of quotes by Hindu philosophers and writers against Anti-Semitism
{{Jews and Judaism in Pakistan Jews and Judaism in India Jews and Judaism in Pakistan South Asian Jews

See also

References

External links