Indo-Judaic Studies: Some Papers

Indo-Judaic studies has been gathering momentum ever since India and Israel established full diplomatic relations some ten years ago. If this trend continues, it could be recognised as a major field of study at a university in the not too distant future. This book is an important historical contribution to the subject as it contains hitherto unpublished material gleaned mainly from public and private archives in India and Israel. The author presents Mahatma Gandhi and C.F. Andrews in a new light. He traces the "lost" periods of the Bene Israel sojourn in India: their early settlement; the medieval and Moghul periods; and their heyday under the Marathas. The section on art deals with a fabulous collection that contains Indian miniatures and manuscripts taken by Nadir Shah when he took the Koh-i-noor and the Peacock throne. The diary kept by the Zionist emissary to India in 1936, Dr. Olsvanger, is published in full in English translation together with his correspondence with Pandit Nehru. The reader is introduced to the papers of Hermann Kallenbach, Gandhi’s soul friend, and gets a peep into Indian and Israeli archives with one document going back to 1826.