Baghdadi Jews

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Baghdadi Jews


Total population	4,000 (est.)
Regions with significant populations	India 250 (chiefly Mumbai and Calcutta) Europe, Australia, Canada, Israel and the USA.
Language	Traditionally, Arabic, now mostly English
Religion	Judaism
Related ethnic groups	Jews Bene Israel Cochin Jews Baghdadi Jews Other Jewish groups

The Baghdadi Jews are one of the main Jewish communities of India.

The Baghdadi Jewish community consist chiefly of expatriate Iraqi Jews, but there are also Syrian, Yemenite and Persian Jews among them. The community developed as a result of Jews fleeing religious persecution in Muslim lands to the northwest of India during the British imperial era. Unlike other Jewish communities in India whose oral tradition attest to a presence in India going back as long as 2000 years, the Baghdadi communities were established relatively recently (in the past few centuries). While the Baghdadi Jews are known primarily from their presence in India, they also established themselves in trading ports further east, notably in Yangon (Rangoon), Singapore, Penang, Melaka, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Shanghai.