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| Identity Transformed: The Bene Israel of India In the middle of the eighteenth century, the community we now know as the Bene Israel were an obscure caste of oil-pressers scattered along the Konkan Coast of India, south of Bombay. Today they live in Indian cities, Bombay mostly, as professional, urban, cosmopolitan Jews. They are accepted as such everywhere by everyone, and their community has more than a dozen synagogues, JCCs, community organizations, schools, kosher markets – all the infrastructure of a modern Jewish community. At the same time, most of them have made aliyah to Israel. In India, they were first oil-pressers, later “Jews.” In Israel, they are “Indians.” How did it happen? What accounts for this incredible transformation of identity? Learn their secrets, hear about the role played by Cochin Jews, Christian missionaries, British imperialists, Baghdadi Jews, Gandhian revolutionaries, and Zionists. Learn about a singular, inspiring, vibrant Jewish community. | 
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