Judaism in India:

(i) The followers of Judaism are known as Jews. The ancient Indian settlements of Jews are in Cochin and Maharashtra. Both the settlements are small in number having a combined population of not more than twenty thousand individuals.

(ii) The Jews of Cochin have firmly maintained their religious identity for at least a millennium. It was around 1020 A. D. that the King of Cochin gave the Jews the right to live and enjoy privileges, such as the right to ride elephants and to go with a state umbrella, etc. Later, the Jews came to be divided into two groups - the White Jews, who were generally lighter in their skin colour and traced their kinship to the original migrants, and the Black Jews, who were dark skinned. There existed no relationship of marriage or eating food together between these two groups.

(iii) By comparison to the Jews of Cochin, those in Maharashtra are large in number. Today, these Jews are known as Bene Israel, i.e., the Sons of Israel. They live in several Konkani-speaking villages as oil-pressers. Since oil-pressing is not a prestigious occupation, they do not rank high in their villages. As they do not work on Saturdays, they are also known as Saturday Oilmen. They observe Jewish festivals. There is also evidence that they have tried to improve upon their status by purifying their diet and prohibiting the re-marriage of widows. Like those in Cochin, these Jews are also divided into White Jews, those who claim pure Jewish ancestry, and Black Jews, who are of mixed origin. The White Jews place themselves above the Black. Some scholars say that these two groups are like the two castes.