In our short time here, we've seen so many things that starkly contrast our lives back home. If one digs a little deeper it's easy to see that we are all just people and are very similar in many ways, but the immediacy with which I noticed parallels between the Jews and Jewish communities of Mumbai and Toronto really amazes me.
A first, on-the-surface connection came from our time at the Knesset Eliyahoo in Colaba on Friday night and Saturday morning. It eerily reminded me of my own shul in Toronto: Congregation Knesset Israel (aka the Junction shul, or the Maria Street shul). Both are housed in beautifully constructed relics that are over 100 years old, both are in neighbourhoods that are no longer centres for the Jewish community, and both feature a dwindling and aged population that commutes from far distances to come to shul.
I look at these amazing places, and I love their respect for history and strong sense of tradition. But I am forced to ask the same questions about their futures: what will happen to these places in the next 10 years? 20? Who will be the next generation? If these places do survive, will they look anything like what they do now? Are they worth preserving? Accounting for size would suggest that things may look more bleak for Knesset Eliyahoo due to the relatively tiny Jewish community of Mumbai, but I would still answer the last question with a resounding yes for both shuls. It's an interesting situation that both communities face concurrently, and one that will inevitably sort itself out in the very near future, for better or worse.
More parallels presented themselves upon visiting the local JCC on Sunday afternoon. We met a bunch of Mumbai's Jewish youth there, and participated in competitions in chess, table tennis, and a local game called Carom (the game is effectively billiards, but it is played with your hands on a square tabletop, and wooden discs the size of checkers pieces are substituted for balls).
The youths were very interested in us, and were eager to share their experiences of what it is like to be Jewish in Mumbai. Many seemed to be highly motivated academically and professionally; lots were either studying or young professionals, many engineers and lawyers. I fielded tons of questions that I didn't expect to, like 'what's it like for telecom engineers in Canada?' and other sector specific questions about the job market back home. On a very basic level, the impression I took away was that many of them reminded me of a lot of young people that I know back home. While these similarities are amazing and important, there were some major differences that stood out in my mind as I reflect after the fact.
Namely, I was surprised to discover that I was the first grandchild of Holocaust survivors that many of them had ever met. Moreover, some had never met anyone as closely related to someone that was effected by the Holocaust as me. One local named Effie said that he considered it an honour to have met me, but the pride in my family and heritage that I felt as I shared a few stories with him made the experience an unforgettable one for me as well.
Adversely, many of the Indian Jews said they were able to trace their roots back to the time that their families arrived in the city of Mumbai (mostly from other villages on the Konkan coast). For many, this was about 8 or so generations ago, and their families have been in the city for over 300 years (to say the very least, my family's story is very different). As an homage to their ancient, pre-Mumbai home villages, many Jews have last names that incorporate the name of their village. The formula basically works like this: [insert name of village]-kar (it's just the name of the village with 'kar' thrown on at the end. My grandfather was from Chmielnik in Poland, so if I apply this formula to myself, the name produced would be Chmielnikar... People from Chmielnik are referred to as Chmielnikers, so perhaps this concept isn't so foreign after all).
A final, notable difference relates to infrastructure associated with Kashrut. There are a few local people that are trained shoychets, but they rarely work for money and often do it on the side for family and friends. People must go out of their way to find an appropriate time (usually at odd hours due to the shoychets' jobs, families, etc) and take chickens to be slaughtered themselves. From there, they need to take the meat home and properly salt it before storing. Again, if we dig deeper, maybe this process isn't so foreign, as it was standard just a few short generations ago in Toronto. But it is an interesting sign that this small community within such a gigantic metropolis is strong, tight knit, and not going away any time soon.
A first, on-the-surface connection came from our time at the Knesset Eliyahoo in Colaba on Friday night and Saturday morning. It eerily reminded me of my own shul in Toronto: Congregation Knesset Israel (aka the Junction shul, or the Maria Street shul). Both are housed in beautifully constructed relics that are over 100 years old, both are in neighbourhoods that are no longer centres for the Jewish community, and both feature a dwindling and aged population that commutes from far distances to come to shul.
I look at these amazing places, and I love their respect for history and strong sense of tradition. But I am forced to ask the same questions about their futures: what will happen to these places in the next 10 years? 20? Who will be the next generation? If these places do survive, will they look anything like what they do now? Are they worth preserving? Accounting for size would suggest that things may look more bleak for Knesset Eliyahoo due to the relatively tiny Jewish community of Mumbai, but I would still answer the last question with a resounding yes for both shuls. It's an interesting situation that both communities face concurrently, and one that will inevitably sort itself out in the very near future, for better or worse.
More parallels presented themselves upon visiting the local JCC on Sunday afternoon. We met a bunch of Mumbai's Jewish youth there, and participated in competitions in chess, table tennis, and a local game called Carom (the game is effectively billiards, but it is played with your hands on a square tabletop, and wooden discs the size of checkers pieces are substituted for balls).
The youths were very interested in us, and were eager to share their experiences of what it is like to be Jewish in Mumbai. Many seemed to be highly motivated academically and professionally; lots were either studying or young professionals, many engineers and lawyers. I fielded tons of questions that I didn't expect to, like 'what's it like for telecom engineers in Canada?' and other sector specific questions about the job market back home. On a very basic level, the impression I took away was that many of them reminded me of a lot of young people that I know back home. While these similarities are amazing and important, there were some major differences that stood out in my mind as I reflect after the fact.
Namely, I was surprised to discover that I was the first grandchild of Holocaust survivors that many of them had ever met. Moreover, some had never met anyone as closely related to someone that was effected by the Holocaust as me. One local named Effie said that he considered it an honour to have met me, but the pride in my family and heritage that I felt as I shared a few stories with him made the experience an unforgettable one for me as well.
Adversely, many of the Indian Jews said they were able to trace their roots back to the time that their families arrived in the city of Mumbai (mostly from other villages on the Konkan coast). For many, this was about 8 or so generations ago, and their families have been in the city for over 300 years (to say the very least, my family's story is very different). As an homage to their ancient, pre-Mumbai home villages, many Jews have last names that incorporate the name of their village. The formula basically works like this: [insert name of village]-kar (it's just the name of the village with 'kar' thrown on at the end. My grandfather was from Chmielnik in Poland, so if I apply this formula to myself, the name produced would be Chmielnikar... People from Chmielnik are referred to as Chmielnikers, so perhaps this concept isn't so foreign after all).
A final, notable difference relates to infrastructure associated with Kashrut. There are a few local people that are trained shoychets, but they rarely work for money and often do it on the side for family and friends. People must go out of their way to find an appropriate time (usually at odd hours due to the shoychets' jobs, families, etc) and take chickens to be slaughtered themselves. From there, they need to take the meat home and properly salt it before storing. Again, if we dig deeper, maybe this process isn't so foreign, as it was standard just a few short generations ago in Toronto. But it is an interesting sign that this small community within such a gigantic metropolis is strong, tight knit, and not going away any time soon.
-Eric
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