The Beni Israel, or Sons of Israel, of the north and west say that their first ancestors in India were persecuted refugees from Persia, seven men and seven women who escaped from a shipwreck near Chaul, about thirty miles south-east of Bombay, and managed to save a Hebrew copy of the Pentateuch. Some assert that this happened eight hundred, others one thousand six hundred years ago. Their number is now reckoned as upwards of 5,000. They are said to resemble the Arabian Jews in features. They keep strictly the Mosaic fasts and feasts, yet in many houses visited by the ladies of the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission, the New as well as the Old Testament is studied.
For nearly half a century a principal man of the community has been in the service of the Free Church of Scotland at Alibag, about twenty-four miles to the south of the city of Bombay. For in this place, at one time famous as the centre of a small pirate kingdom, handsome, intelligent children, with marked Semitic features, and names familiar in the Book of Genesis, delight in attending school.
In Karachi the Beni Israel are also numerous. One of the missionaries of the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society, who work amongst them, was invited to a wedding in the synagogue. She noticed that, as a part of the ceremony, the bride received a cup, and after raising it to her lips threw it down and broke it. This, some of the guests explained, was a sign that even in the midst of their mirth they remembered Jerusalem with sorrow.
To many, such words and symbols are very real. During the present year a rich Jew of Karachi has left his adopted home to build a synagogue in Jerusalem, where the Sultan has shown the Jews great toleration.
(Photo supplied by the Zenana Bible Mission.)
INDIAN JEWISH CONVERTS AT BOMBAY.
But though the Turkish Empire has been a refuge for them, none can exceed the Mohammedans in cruelty and intolerance when they are roused to fanatical zeal for their Prophet. This has been specially manifest in Africa. Abyssinia, perhaps, has the oldest colony of Jews. They go by the name of Falashas, which means exiles or emigrants, and claim an ambitious origin. King Solomon, they believe, added the Queen of Sheba to his many wives, and their son Menelek was educated in Jerusalem. On his growing to manhood, the Jewish nobles foresaw political disturbances, and begged the king to send him to his mother. King Solomon consented on condition that each Jew should send his first-born son with Menelek to Abyssinia. There he became king of Abyssinia, and his Israelite companions married native women, so a new nation sprang into existence.
Traditions of noble descent are of less value than nobility of character in the descendants. The church amongst the Falashas has been sown in the blood of martyrs. When the followers of the Mahdi became masters of Western Abyssinia, they massacred or made captives all the inhabitants who had not secured safety by flight. Jews and Christians, whether men or women, had to choose between Mohammed and death. A Falasha family, converts of the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews, were overtaken by the Mahdists. They were told to say the Mohammedan creed, "Allah ilahu ill Allah wa Mohammed e rasah Allah." These few words would save their lives, but these words would deny their Master.
"Never will we deny Him Who died for us on the cross," they answered. "We are born Falashas, but have been converted to Christ. He is our Saviour, and not Mohammed."