Shattered tombstone fragments incised with Stars of David and Hebrew inscriptions can be seen scattered around the streets of Panvel, India.
A cluster of homes was built just up the road from where the Jewish cemetery of the Bene Israel community used to lay.
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A shattered tombstone emblazoned with a Star of David in Panvel, India
(Photo: Golan Chariker Shriker)
This unfortunate sight isn't uncommon. The erasure of Jewish cemeteries in the Indian subcontinent has been ongoing for years as the historical burial grounds gradually give way to landfills, homeless hubs and real estate.
Over the weekend, activists stage a demonstration in front of the Indian Embassy in Tel Aviv, demanding these sites be regulated to preserve more than 2,000 years of Jewish history in the country.
"We were asked why we were doing this in front of the embassy", Golan Chariker Shriker, a prominent figure in the Israeli Indian community, told Ynet in an interview. "...We won't do this in front of city hall. The address is, of course, the Indian leadership.
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Activists protesting in front of the Indian Embassy in Tel Aviv for the preservation of Jewish cemeteries in India
(Photo: Yoram Blumenkrantz)
There are many Bene Israel cemeteries in India, about 90 in fact, and we see the state of abandonment and neglect. You see the pictures, it looks horrible."
"My grandfather, Moshe Shmuel Nagauker, no longer has a grave", he said. "For some reason, they built a building on top of his grave. This is erasure. Every time my mom and I visit Mumbai, she weeps when she sees this. We don't have where to light a candle. Does it seem reasonable that there's a building over the grave? Or that others were buried on top? It's absurd."
Chariker Shriker stresses that unlike other places around the world, Jewish cemeteries in India are not necessarily desecrated due to anti-Semitism, but due to indifference of the authorities and the greed of real estate sharks.
"Our demand from the Indian government is to turn these sites into preserved areas of national importance", he said. "When you preserve these places, put fencing around them and address them, you don't see such sights. We don't buy stories about 'private lands,' this issue can be solved, through legislation and preservation of the places that are holy to us."
As of 2022, only some 5,000 Jews remain in India and about 3,000 of them are concentrated around the Mumbai area.
"Even after immigrating [to Israel], or anywhere else around the world, we allow the erasure of the places we left behind," Chariker Shriker said. "This is cultural erasure. We demand these sites be regulated and supervised. It's not supposed to be a market, it's supposed to be regulated."
Bene Israel is one of three historical Jewish communities in India.
According to their tradition, they arrived in India sometime in the first or second century when their ancestors were shipwrecked in western India while on a trading voyage to the far east.
Some historians speculated their ancestors may have belonged to one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, but the Bene Israel have never been officially recognized by Jewish authorities as such.
After migrating to India the Bene Israel gradually assimilated to the people around them, while keeping some Jewish customs.
by the mid-20th century, the Bene Israel community numbered about 24,000 members. With the establishment of the State of Israel, a majority of them made Aliyah.
Today, the community is estimated to number 85,000 members in Israel, 3,000 in the Mumbai area and another 5,000 dispersed around the world.