India launched Operation Ajay to remove its residents who want to leave Israel’s unstable situation and return home. This operation was announced by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, who emphasized the security and welfare of Indian nationals living overseas.
Operation Ajay
- Evacuation Plan: In order to facilitate the return of Indian citizens from Israel, special chartered planes, as well as other preparations, are being made.
- Second Evacuation: This is the second evacuation operation of the year, after the success of Operation Kaveri in April and May, which returned several thousand Indian people from the war-torn Sudan.
Significance: Indian Jewish Community
- The Jewish community in India has a distinct history, having roots dating back more than two millennia.
- India has been a special place on the world map because it has been a warm place for them to live and prosper without running into anti-Semitism.
- But when Israel was founded in 1948 and India gained her freedom in 1947, the terrain shifted.
- With this shift, the relationship between India and Israel entered a new phase and Indian Jews began to migrate back to their holy homeland.
Diverse Indian Jewish Groups
Indian Jews can be categorized into four main sects, each with its own historical origins and cultural traditions:
1. Cochin Jews: Tracing their arrival to India back to 50 CE, they primarily settled in the southern region.
2. Bene Israel: The largest group among Indian Jews, they settled in and around Maharashtra and Konkan.
3. Baghdadi Jews: This group, part of the most recent wave of Jewish migration, established communities in port cities like Calcutta, Bombay, and Rangoon.
4. Bnei Menashe: Settled in the North East, they are another significant segment of Indian Jews.
Complex Reception in Israel
The migration of Indian Jews to Israel was not without challenges. Israeli society struggled to embrace them due to several factors:
- Internal Divisions: There were significant disparities and conflicts among the four Indian Jewish communities. The reception of Indian Jews was complicated, particularly in the early years of migration, by these internal divides as well as prejudice from Jews of European descent.
- Discrimination: When the Bene Israel, who were mostly from Maharashtra, arrived in Israel, they encountered a great deal of discrimination. Reports from the 1950s brought to light incidents of racism and unfair treatment, such as discrimination in employment and housing.
- Different Reasons: Indian Jews had a variety of reasons for moving abroad.
- Different treatment resulted from presumed motives: the Bene Israel were viewed as wanting better economic possibilities, whereas the Cochin Jews were seen as motivated by religious reasons.
- Economic Disparities: Anger was stoked by the disparities in wealth between the four groups. Some blamed poverty for the messianic ambitions of the Cochin Jews, while the Baghdadi Jews believed that the Bene Israel lacked adequate theological traditions.
