This collection analyzes the affinities and interactions between Indic and Judaic civilizations from ancient to contemporary times. The contributors propose a new, global understanding of commerce and culture, to reconfigure how we understand the way great cultures interact, and present a new constellation of diplomacy, literature, and geopolitics.

Indo-Judaic Studies has been gathering momentum ever since India and Israel established full diplomatic relations some ten years ago. It contains hitherto unpublished material gleaned mainly from public and private archives in India and Israel.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.

During the early 21st century, the study of Indian Jewish communities has become mainstream as scholars of religions have become fascinated by the persistence and cultural adaptations of India's tiniest community, and as Jewish studies scholars have sought more inclusive paradigms for understanding the Jewish Diaspora. A similar surge of interest among scholars of South Asia is just beginning, but knowledge about Judaism and Indian Jewish communities remains undeveloped, although Indian scholars have begun to contribute in significant ways to Indo-Judaic Studies.--

This volume in the Studying World Religions series is an essential guide to the study of Judaism. Clearly structured to cover all the major areas of study, including historical foundations, scripture, worship, society, material culture, thought and ethics, this is the ideal study aid for those approaching Judaism for the first time. Studying Judaism offers readers the chance to engage with a religious tradition as a diverse, living phenomenon. Its approach is 'critical' in two major respects: its use of the dimensional approach to the study of religions as an interpretive framework, and its focus on matters perceived as problematic by insider and/or outsider commentators, such as gender, demography, geo-politics, the 'museumization' of Jewish cultures and its impact on religion and identity. This book is the perfect companion for the fledgling student of Judaism.

The contemporary phenomenon of people’s attraction to Judaism around the world is remarkable. Additionally, millions of people who are not of Jewish descent are increasingly identifying themselves as Jews or are converting. In this volume, scholars and practitioners from a wide variety of disciplines explore multiple sources and meanings of this new shaping of modern Jewish identities in Africa, the United States, and India.