From Dalits to Bene Ephraim

Judaism in Andhra Pradesh

Authors

  • Yulia Egorova Durham University Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.v4i1.105

Keywords:

caste system, conversion, India, Judaism, untouchability

Abstract

The community of Bene Ephraim was established in the late 1980s in Andhra Pradesh by a group of Christianized Madiga who declared that they belonged to one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. The paper explores the extent to which Bene Ephraim narratives of origin have been and are being shaped by the responses of others on the level of national and international politics. It is demonstrated that while in the beginning the leaders of the community were keen to stress their affinity to the scheduled castes of India and portrayed their social and economic problems in terms of the upper and lower caste dichotomy, later on they modified their story of origin to dissociate the community from the untouchables. Their self-representation as victims of caste domination gave way to expressions of concern about the possibility of becoming victims of anti-Jewish terrorist attacks. The paper argues that this change in the way the Bene Ephraim chose to frame the socio-political problems that the community is facing was linked to their attempts to be recognized as a Jewish group and be accepted in the State of Israel. At the same time, it is also suggested that this tactic provides yet another example of a Dalit group attempting to attract the attention of the international community to their condition of discrimination by reinterpreting their plight in the terms that foreign audiences would be more familiar with and could relate to more easily.

Author Biography

  • Yulia Egorova, Durham University

    Department of Anthropology Durham University, Dawson Building South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK

References

Ben-Dor Benite, Zvi. 2009. The Ten Lost Tribes: A World History. New York: Oxford University Press.

Bhupati, R. K. 2004. ‘AP Dalits Claiming to be Jews.’ Dalit Voice, 1 September 2004.

Charsley, S. 2004. ‘Interpreting Untouchability: The Performance of Caste in Andhra Pradesh, South India.’ Asian Folklore Studies 63: 267–90.

Deliège, R. 1993. ‘The Myths of Origin of the Indian Untouchables.’ Man 3: 533–49. doi:10.2307/2804238

Dirks, N. B. 2001. Castes of Mind: Colonialism and Making of Modern India. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Egorova, Y. 2006. Jews and India: Perceptions and Image. London: Routledge.

— 2009. ‘De/geneticizing Caste: Population Genetic Research in South Asia.’ Science as Culture 18(4): 417–35. doi:10.1080/09505430902806975

Francisco, J. 1997. ‘Lost Tribe.’ The India Magazine of Her People and Culture (December): 46–51.

— 1998. ‘ “Discovering” the Telugu Jews of India.’ In K. Primack (ed.), Jews in Places You Never Thought Of: 253–63. Hoboken: Ktav.

Gorringe, H. 2005. Untouchable Citizens: Dalit Movements and Democritisation in Tamil Nadu. New Delhi: Sage Publications.

Halkin, H. 2002. Across the Sabbath River: In Search of a Lost Tribe of Israel. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Hardtmann, E. 2009. The Dalit Movement in India: Local Practices, Global Connections. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Isenberg, S. B. 1988. India’s Bene Israel: A Comprehensive Inquiry and Source Book. Bombay: Popular Prakashan.

Katz, N. 2000. Who Are the Jews of India? Berkeley: University of California Press.

Katz, N., R. Chakrabarty, B. Singh and S. Weil. 2007. Indo-Judaic Studies in the Twenty-First Century: A View from the Margin. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9780230603622

Markowitz, F., S. Helman and D. Shir-Vertesh. 2003. ‘Soul Citizenship: The Black Hebrews and the State of Israel.’ American Anthropologist 2: 302–12. doi:10.1525/aa.2003.105.2.302

Moore, G. 1861. The Lost Tribes and the Saxons of the East and of the West with New Views of Buddhism and Translations of Rock-records of India. London: Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts.

Muthaiah, P. 2004. ‘Dandora: The Madiga Movement for Equal Identity and Social Justice in A.P.’ Social Action 2: 184–209.

Nanjundayya, H. V. 1909. The Ethnographic Survey of Mysore. V.18. Madiga Caste. Bangalore: Government Press.

Oddie, G. A. 1975. ‘Christian Conversion in the Telugu Country, 1860–1900: A Case Study of One Protestant Movement in the Godavery-Krishna Delta.’ Indian Economic and Social History Review 61: 61–79. doi:10.1177/001946467501200103

Parfitt, T. 2002. The Lost Tribes of Israel. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

Parfitt, T., and E. Trevisan Semi. 2002. Judaising Movements: Studies in the Margins of Judaism. London: RoutledgeCurzon.

Prashad, V. 2000. ‘Afro-Dalits of the Earth, Unite!’ African Studies Review 43: 189–201. doi: 10.2307/524727

Rauschenbusch-Clough, E. [1899] 2000. While Sewing Sandals: Tales of a Telugu Paraiah Tribe. New Delhi: Asian Educational Services.

Reddy, D. 2005. ‘The Ethnicity of Caste.’ Anthropological Quarterly 78: 543–84. doi:10.1353/anq.2005.0038

Roland, J. 1999. The Jewish Communities of India. New Brunswick: Transactions Publishers.

Sabir, S. 2003. ‘Chimeral Categories: Caste, Race and Genetics.’ Developing World Bioethics 2: 170–77. doi:10.1046/j.1471-8731.2003.00073.x

Samra, M. 1992. ‘Judaism in Manipur and Mizoram: By-Product of Christian Mission.’ Australian Journal of Jewish Studies 1: 7–23.

— 1996. ‘Buallawn Israel: The Emergence of a Judaising Movement in Mizoram, Northeast India.’ In L. Olson (ed.), Religious Change, Conversion and Culture: 105–32. Sydney: Association for Studies in Society and Culture.

Singh, T. R. 1969. The Madiga: A Study in Social Structure and Change. Lucknow: Ethnographic and Folk Culture Society.

Still, C. 2008. ‘Blackness, the Buffalo and the Palli: Madiga as an Identity.’ Paper presented at the South Asian Anthropology Group meeting, Durham University, September 2008.

Sussman, B., and G. Sussman. 2007. ‘India Journal.’ Kulanu Newsletter 3&4.

Times of India. 2004. ‘Let it be Known we are Jewish.’ Times of India (Hyderabad), 8 September.

Veer, P. van der. 1994. Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Venkateswarlu, D. 1990. Harijan-Upper Class Conflict. New Delhi: Discovery.

Weil, S. 1997. ‘Double Conversion among the “Children of Menasseh”.’ In G. Pfeffer and D. K. Behera (eds), Contemporary Society: Tribal Studies: 84–103. New Delhi: Concept.

— 2002. India’s Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art and Life Cycle. Mumbai: Marg.

Yacobi, S. 2001. ‘The History of Telugu Jewish Community of A.P. India.’ Typescript.

— 2002. The Cultural Hermeneutics: An Introduction to the Cultural Transactions of the Hebrew Bible among the Ancient Nations of the Thalmudic Telugu Empire of India. Vijayawada: Hebrew Open University Publications.

Zelliot, E. 1996. From Untouchable to Dalit. New Delhi: Manohar.

Published

2011-02-22

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Egorova, Y. (2011). From Dalits to Bene Ephraim: Judaism in Andhra Pradesh. Religions of South Asia, 4(1), 105-124. https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.v4i1.105