Only 15 Jews Are Left in India — After 2,000 Years

A 2,000-year-old Jewish community in India is down to a handful of people, and almost none of them were ever driven out. This episode follows the Bene Israel, the Cochin Jews, and the Baghdadi Jews from their arrivals on India's coasts through centuries of rare, documented tolerance, into the mass departures for Israel that began in 1948. It visits the men who stayed behind — Elias Josephai lighting a lamp alone in a 12th-century synagogue, Keith Hallegua praying without a quorum in Jew Town — and the Muslim and Hindu neighbors now keeping their traditions alive. It also follows a newer departure underway right now, as the Bnei Menashe of Manipur and Mizoram board flights to Israel under a named government operation. You'll walk away understanding how a community can vanish not through persecution, but through the pull of a promise two thousand years old. CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro 2:26 Three Jewish Communities 5:39 A History Without Persecution 7:07 The Mass Emigration 11:21 The Ones Who Stayed 14:03 The Bnei Menashe 17:22 The Museum and the Lamp 19:43 Loss or Triumph TAGS jews of india, cochin jews, bene israel, paradesi synagogue, jew town kochi, elias josephai, keith hallegua, bnei menashe, operation wings of dawn, lost tribe of manasseh, law of return israel, indian jewish history, kerala synagogue, baghdadi jews india, jewish emigration to israel, vanishing communities documentary, kadavumbagam synagogue, jewish diaspora history