After the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, there have been numerous articles by Jews from different countries narrating their own wonderful experiences in Mumbai, and how much they loved the city. In this series, I am grateful to our colleague Holly for sending me yet another moving and informative piece.
Leila Bilick, who works for Pro Mujer (a nonprofit organization that gives small loans to Latin America’s poorest women), narrates a fascinating story of the Jews in India. She and her husband live in New York City.
She writes: “A couple of years ago, I knew nothing of a Jewish community in India. I had a vague notion that Jews came in all shapes, sizes and colors, but I did not understand the depth of differences. I also knew close to nothing about India.
“On the map of my mind, it was a distant land of colors and spices, rumored to have some of the worst poverty in the world. I would soon learn to call the country home, however inhospitable, and the Bene Israel my community, however foreign.
“In July of 2007, my husband, Reuben, and I left for Mumbai, India, where we would spend the next year in a program run by the Joint Distribution Committee called the Jewish Service Corps. Jewish Service Corps participants are sent to countries with under-resourced or needy Jewish communities, such as Moldova, Georgia, and Turkey.
“Jewish identity in India is not part of the Jewish timeline as we conceive of it.” Read the rest of this fascinating tale here…
Here is the Wikipedia account of the history of Jews in India…Please click here…
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.