Research context - The Jewish community

Numbering just 50 today, the Jewish community in Calcutta is far smaller than the Brahmo, Anglo-Indian and Chinese communities. The first Jew to settle in Calcutta came from Aleppo in 1798. By the 1940s, there were 1600 Jews in the city, comprising both Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews, as well as some Jews from Cochin (Ray, 2001). Most were Baghdadi Jews who, unlike the Cochin Jews and the Bene Israel, regarded themselves as ‘outsiders’ rather than ‘native’ Indians, and adopted European clothing, names and traditions over the course of the nineteenth century (Elias and Elias Cooper, 1974). Despite its varied socio-economic status, the Jews in Calcutta were, and are, a close-knit community that describes itself as a family. The community remains concentrated around Canning Street and Royd Street, where a number of organizations and institutions were established including three synagogues; the Jewish Girls School; the Jewish Ezra hospital; and charitable institutions such as the Jewish Women’s League. Calcutta Jews began to migrate to London in the nineteenth century, and did so in larger numbers after Independence. Since the 1970s, the Calcutta Jewish community in London has worshipped at two main synagogues: Gan Eden in Stamford Hill and the Lincoln Institute in Golders Green. The foundation of the state of Israel in 1948 also saw the large-scale migration of Calcutta Jews to join other Baghdadi Jews in Jerusalem, Ramleh and Lod. Although the community in Calcutta is very small today, memories of, and attachments to the city have become increasingly important across the wider diaspora, as shown by the publication of memoirs and a range of other cultural practices and representations, including Calcutta Kosher, a play first performed in London in 2004.

Annual Sports Day at the Jewish Girls School	Jewish Boys School Sports Day	The Jewish Hospital
The Jewish Cemetery	Park Street	Trincas restaurant on Park Street
the New Market, a central meeting place	the popular Nahoum's bakery in the New Market	Magen David Synagogue
	Beth El Synagogue, a major Jewish landmark

The Anglo-Indian community
The Brahmo community
The Chinese community

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