Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to India

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India: its ancient Jewish communities and their emigration, the Israeli state's largest arms customer, the Pegasus spyware affair, Adani's Haifa port and drone ventures, and Indian links in the Epstein and Barak files

India had about 4,800 Jews in 2020, according to the World Jewish Congress (WJC), from three historic communities, the Bene Israel, the Cochin Jews and the Baghdadi Jews, together with the Bnei Menashe and Bene Ephraim.[1] India upgraded its relations with "Israel" to full diplomatic level in 1992,[2] and it is by far the largest recipient of Israeli major arms: 24 per cent of all Israeli deliveries recorded by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) for 1950–2025.[3] According to The New York Times, India bought the NSO Group's Pegasus spyware in 2017 as part of a $2 billion package.[4] The Adani group owns 70 per cent of Haifa port and builds Elbit's Hermes 900 drones in Hyderabad.[5][6]

Jewish community and religious life

History

The WJC describes three historically distinct communities. The Cochin Jews settled around modern Kochi and were protected by the local Hindu raja; the Pardesi synagogue there holds copper plates granted to the community. The Bene Israel settled mainly in modern Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Karachi, adopted the Marathi language and local customs, and founded Bombay's first synagogue, Shaar Rahamim, in 1796. Baghdadi Jews, including the Sassoon family, arrived in the 19th century, many fleeing persecution in Iraq and other Muslim lands, and settled in Bombay and Calcutta. The Bnei Menashe and Bene Ephraim resumed Jewish practice in the 1970s.[1]

The WJC states that after independence in 1947 "many Jews" left India, and that "the majority of Jews who emigrated from India in the 1940s made this decision based on the influence of Zionism and a love for Israel, rather than a disdain for India". About 5,000 Jews found refuge in India during the Holocaust years. Lieutenant General J. F. R. Jacob, chief of staff of the Indian Army's Eastern Command, negotiated the surrender of more than 90,000 Pakistani soldiers in Dhaka in 1971.[1]

The community today

Most Indian Jews live in Mumbai and Thane, with smaller communities in Kolkata, Kochi, New Delhi and Bangalore. Synagogues include Shaar Hashamaim in Thane, Ohel David in Pune and the Pardesi synagogue in Kochi; the Bene Ephraim opened their first synagogue in Kottareddipalem in 1992. In 2016 Maharashtra state granted Jews minority status.[1] The WJC lists these organisations:[1]

  • Council of Indian Jewry (Mumbai), the WJC's Indian affiliate, also affiliated to the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress. It works to organise and represent the scattered communities, and runs educational programmes and youth groups. How far is it Zionist? The available evidence is its affiliation to the WJC and EAJC; no statements or activity of its own on "Israel" were found in the sources reviewed.
  • Zionist Association. How far is it Zionist? Explicitly Zionist by name; no further details of its activity were found.
  • Women's International Zionist Organization (WIZO). How far is it Zionist? Explicitly Zionist by name.
  • Hadassah. How far is it Zionist? No India-specific evidence of its activity was found.
  • B'nai B'rith, a Jewish Club in Mumbai and Bikur Cholim. How far is it Zionist? No India-specific evidence of Zionist activity was found.
  • American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), which runs a community centre in Mumbai providing welfare aid and Jewish education. How far is it Zionist? No India-specific evidence of Zionist activity was found.
  • ORT, which runs the Bombay ORT school offering technical and vocational training; according to the WJC, many of its graduates emigrate to "Israel" "with a solid understanding of Hebrew". How far is it Zionist? Its India school is described as a route to emigration to "Israel".
  • Hazon Eli Foundation for Jewish Life in India (Thane), which teaches Torah, Hebrew and Jewish life. How far is it Zionist? No evidence of Zionist activity was found.

The Bnei Menashe

On 23 November 2025 the Israeli government approved a plan to bring the remaining 5,800 Bnei Menashe from north-eastern India to "Israel": 1,200 by the end of 2026 and about 4,600 more by 2030. They are to be settled in Nof HaGalil and other northern towns. Benjamin Netanyahu called it an "important and Zionist decision" and said the immigrants would settle in the north "as part of the government's policy to strengthen and develop the North and the Galilee". A delegation including the Chief Rabbinate, the Conversion Authority and the Jewish Agency was to assess eligibility under a 2007 government decision that lets groups enter "Israel" for conversion and naturalisation.[7] In 2005 the Sephardi chief rabbi, Shlomo Amar, recognised the Bnei Menashe as "descendants of Israel", opening the way to their immigration.[8]

Chabad

Main article: Chabad Lubavitch of India

According to the WJC, Chabad runs four houses in India. During the 2008 Mumbai attacks the Chabad House in Mumbai was targeted, and Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka were killed there along with Israeli and American nationals.[1]

Israeli state and commercial ties

Diplomacy

The Israeli foreign ministry records the upgrading of relations with India in January 1992; "Israel" has an embassy in New Delhi.[2] According to Al Jazeera, India had earlier barred its citizens from travelling to "Israel".[9] Narendra Modi became the first Indian prime minister to visit "Israel", on 4–6 July 2017.[10] Netanyahu made a state visit to India months later. According to The New York Times, in June 2019 India voted for the first time with "Israel" at the UN Economic and Social Council, to deny observer status to a Palestinian human rights organisation.[4] On 8 September 2025 India's finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, and the Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, signed a bilateral investment agreement in New Delhi.[11]

Arms

SIPRI records 86 Israeli arms deals with India from 1965 onwards, worth 6,206 million SIPRI trend-indicator values. This makes India the largest recipient of Israeli major arms, ahead of the United States (2,168) and Germany (1,742).[3] Major items include:[3]

  • Barak-1 naval air-defence systems from 2000, and the Barak-MX/MRSAM air-defence system and its missiles, largely produced under licence in India, from 2009.
  • Three EL/M-2075 Phalcon airborne early-warning radars (ordered 2004, part of a $1.1 billion deal) for A-50 aircraft.
  • Searcher, Heron and Heron-2 drones from 1996, and Harpy and Harop loitering munitions.
  • SPYDER air-defence systems with Python-5 and Derby missiles (the $1 billion "LLQRM" programme, delivered 2016–2018).
  • Popeye missiles, SPICE glide bombs, Spike anti-tank missiles and, most recently, the PULS rocket launcher, to be produced in India as Suryastra (2025).

Al Jazeera reported that India was the largest buyer of Israeli weapons in 2017, with $715 million of purchases.[9]

Adani–Elbit. Adani-Elbit Advanced Systems India, a Hyderabad joint venture in which Elbit Systems holds 49 per cent, became the first company to make the Hermes 900 drone outside "Israel". In February 2024 Shephard reported that it had delivered more than 20 Hermes 900s to "Israel".[6] The Wire noted that neither government had acknowledged the exports, and that public records showed no application by the company for the export licence required for such items up to 10 April 2024. It suggested that the exports might explain why India abstained in April 2024 on a UN Human Rights Council resolution calling for an arms embargo on "Israel", after voting in December 2023 for a General Assembly ceasefire resolution.[12]

Surveillance: Pegasus

In July 2021 a global media consortium reported that Pegasus had been used by several governments to spy on opponents and journalists;[4] in India this led to allegations that government agencies had used it against politicians, journalists and activists.[13] In January 2022 The New York Times reported that during Modi's 2017 visit the two countries had agreed "the sale of a package of sophisticated weapons and intelligence gear worth roughly $2 billion — with Pegasus and a missile system as the centerpieces". Neither government had admitted the purchase. The Israeli ambassador, Naor Gilon, said that "every export of this private company's technology has to go under licence".[4] The Indian foreign ministry said the matter was under investigation by a Supreme Court committee.[14] In August 2022 that committee reported "some malware" on five of the 29 phones it examined, without establishing that it was Pegasus. The Chief Justice said the report recorded that the Government of India was "not cooperative".[13]

Companies

In July 2022 a consortium of Adani Ports and the Israeli Gadot group (70:30) won the tender to privatise Haifa Port Company for 4.1 billion shekels ($1.18 billion), with a concession running to 2054; the purchase from the Israeli government was completed in January 2023. Gautam Adani called it of "immense strategic and historical significance for both nations".[5]

Trade

The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics reports that "Israel" imported goods worth $1,836.1 million from India in 2025 (2024: $1,689.5 million) and exported goods worth $2,454.2 million to it (2024: $2,211.9 million).[15]

Migration and aliyah

The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics counts immigrants born in India, including Pakistan and Sri Lanka, as follows: 2,176 in 1948–51; 5,380 in 1952–60; 13,110 in 1961–71; 3,497 in 1972–79; 1,539 in the 1980s; 1,726 in the 1990s; 347 in 2021; 309 in 2022; and 27 in 2023. The table gives no figure for 2000–2020.[16]

Workers. India and "Israel" agreed a framework on temporary employment of Indians in May 2023. After more than 100,000 Palestinian workers were barred following the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023, according to a media report citing Israeli embassy data, about 5,000 Indian construction workers were recruited through the government-to-government route run by the National Skill Development Corporation and about 5,000 through private agencies. In September 2024 the Israeli Population and Immigration Authority asked for 10,000 more construction workers and 5,000 caregivers.[17]

Political interference

UN voting

India voted in favour of the September 2025 General Assembly resolution endorsing the New York Declaration on a two-state solution.[18]

Ehud Barak's emails

The following items come from the two leaked mailboxes of the former Israeli prime minister and defence minister Ehud Barak (ehbarak1@gmail.com and ehud.barak@hyperion-eb.com, 2007–2016). They were hacked and leaked by Handala, a group that Distributed Denial of Secrets describes as "believed to have ties to Iranian intelligence", and were published by Distributed Denial of Secrets in August 2025. The emails carry no cryptographic signatures, and Distributed Denial of Secrets warns that material from such hack-and-leak operations may have been altered.[19]

  • India Foundation and the BJP. After meeting M. J. Akbar at Halifax in November 2014, Barak wrote to him that "PM Modi and the Party have now great opportunity to move aggressively forward", and that Akbar's "contribution to the strategic clarity and the understanding of nuances in execution will be of primary importance".[20] In January 2015 Ram Madhav, national general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a director of the India Foundation, invited Barak to speak at an International Conference on Counterterrorism, organised with the Government of Rajasthan in Jaipur on 19–21 March 2015, which "begins two days after the polls in Israel". A formal invitation followed through Akbar "as per your conversation with Shri Ram Madhav Ji".[21][22] The emails do not show whether Barak attended.
  • Parasight. In August 2013 Yossi Pollak, chief executive of the Jerusalem-based diagnostics company Parasight, sent Barak, through an intermediary, the official report of the company's clinical trial carried out in India by the National Institute of Malaria Research, writing: "I believe now EB can proceed with the Gate's guy."[23] Barak then promoted the company to Boris Nikolic, with Jeffrey Epstein copied. Nikolic replied that "we have been funding a company to develop similar system", and that he looked forward to meeting Barak "most likely at Jeffrey's".[24]

Jeffrey Epstein

Documents released by the US Department of Justice in the Jeffrey Epstein files include the following references to India:

  • Anil Ambani and Modi's 2017 visit. In March 2017 the businessman Anil Ambani asked Epstein by iMessage about the dates of Modi's planned trip to Washington. Epstein replied that he was told the trip "is a part of israel strategy" and that "discussions re israel strategy were dominating modi dates". Ambani told him that Modi would visit "Israel" on 5–6 July and then meet Trump at the G20 in Hamburg. Epstein also offered to put Ambani in touch with Tom Pritzker and Terje Rød-Larsen.[25]
  • On 6 July 2017, during Modi's visit, Epstein wrote to a correspondent named as "Jabor Y.", in a list of points mostly about the Gulf crisis over Qatar: "The Indian Prime minisiter modi took advice. and danced and sang in israel for the benefit of the US president. they had met a few weeks ago.. IT WORKED. !"[26] India's foreign ministry spokesman, Randhir Jaiswal, said that "beyond the fact of the prime minister's official visit to Israel in July 2017, the rest of the allusions in the email are little more than trashy ruminations by a convicted criminal". The opposition Congress party called the reference "a matter of national shame".[10]
  • In May 2019, after Modi's re-election, Epstein told Steve Bannon by iMessage about a "really interesting modi meeting", reporting that "his guy said that no one in wash speaks to him however his main enemy is CHINA! and their proxy in the region pakistan", and offered to set up a meeting with Modi.[27] Al Jazeera reported that the visitor was Ambani, who met Epstein in New York on 23 May 2019.[9]
  • Al Jazeera also reported that Hardeep Singh Puri, who retired from the Indian Foreign Service to join the BJP in 2014, corresponded with Epstein from June 2014 about a visit to India by the LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and met Epstein at his Manhattan house on at least three occasions (February 2015, January 2016 and May 2017). Puri said his contacts with Epstein were strictly business-related.[9]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 World Jewish Congress, Community in India worldjewishcongress.org, accessed 21 October 2026.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Diplomatic Missions Abroad: Status of relations mfa.gov.il, archived 5 August 2011 (Israeli government-side).
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Arms Transfers Database SIPRI, trade register for Israel as supplier, 1950–2025, data generated 20 October 2026.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 India bought Pegasus as part of defence deal with Israel in 2017: NYT The Indian Express, 29 January 2022.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Adani Ports-Gadot consortium concludes acquisition of Haifa Port Business Standard, 11 January 2023.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 India sends newly assembled MALE UAVs to Israel Shephard Media, 2 February 2024.
  7. ↑ Israel approves immigration of 5,800 Bnei Menashe by 2030 Jewish News Syndicate, 25 November 2025.
  8. ↑ Israel approves proposal to bring all remaining 5,800 Jews from Northeast India The Hindu (PTI), 25 November 2025.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Modi to Kevin Rudd: How Epstein files set off a storm far beyond the US Al Jazeera, 2 February 2026.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 'Trashy ruminations': India on PM Modi's Israel visit reference in Epstein files Scroll.in, 31 January 2026.
  11. ↑ Press Information Bureau (India), Government of India and Government of the State of Israel sign Bilateral Investment Agreement (BIA), in New Delhi, today pib.gov.in, 8 September 2025 (Indian government-side).
  12. ↑ India's Refusal to Back UN Arms Embargo on Israel May Be Linked to Adani Drone Exports The Wire, 17 April 2024.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Malware found in 5 phones, no proof of Pegasus: panel The Hindu, 25 August 2022.
  14. ↑ Pegasus: No information available with external affairs ministry, says spokesperson Scroll.in, 4 February 2022.
  15. ↑ Central Bureau of Statistics (Israel), Foreign Trade Statistics Monthly, Table D1: Trade Countries – Imports and Exports CBS, December 2025 issue (library copy) (Israeli government-side).
  16. ↑ Central Bureau of Statistics (Israel), Statistical Abstract of Israel 2024, Table 2.55: Immigrants, by period of immigration, country of birth and last country of residence CBS, 2024 (Israeli government-side).
  17. ↑ Israel to carry out recruitment drive in India for 10k construction workers Business Standard, 10 September 2024.
  18. ↑ United Nations General Assembly, Recorded vote on A/80/L.1/Rev.1: Endorsement of the New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, 12 September 2025 (copy hosted by Al-Quds Al-Arabi).
  19. ↑ Distributed Denial of Secrets, Ehud Barak emails, 27 August 2025, with download at data.ddosecrets.org, accessed 21 October 2026.
  20. ↑ Email from Ehud Barak to M. J. Akbar, "Fwd: Re: touch base MJ", 29 November 2014, file ehud.barak@hyperion-eb.com/Inbox!1/1 (383).html, Ehud Barak emails, Distributed Denial of Secrets, released 27 August 2025 (hacked and leaked by the Handala group), accessed 21 October 2026.
  21. ↑ Email from Ram Madhav to Ehud Barak, "Counterterrorism", 29 January 2015, file ehud.barak@hyperion-eb.com/Inbox!1/1 (283).html, Ehud Barak emails, Distributed Denial of Secrets, released 27 August 2025 (hacked and leaked by the Handala group), accessed 21 October 2026.
  22. ↑ Email from M. J. Akbar to Ehud Barak, "Fwd: Invitation Letter for Mr. Ehud Barak", 27 January 2015, file ehud.barak@hyperion-eb.com/Inbox!1/1 (298).html, Ehud Barak emails, Distributed Denial of Secrets, released 27 August 2025 (hacked and leaked by the Handala group), accessed 21 October 2026.
  23. ↑ Email from Doron Cohen to Ehud Barak, forwarding Yossi Pollak (Parasight), "FW: Parasight.", 9 August 2013, file ehbarak1@gmail.com/Inbox!44/1 (334).html, Ehud Barak emails, Distributed Denial of Secrets, released 27 August 2025 (hacked and leaked by the Handala group), accessed 21 October 2026.
  24. ↑ Email thread between Ehud Barak and Boris Nikolic (cc Jeffrey Epstein), "RE: Parasight Ltd.", 11–16 August 2013, file ehbarak1@gmail.com/Inbox!44/1 (281).html, Ehud Barak emails, Distributed Denial of Secrets, released 27 August 2025 (hacked and leaked by the Handala group), accessed 21 October 2026.
  25. ↑ iMessage exchange between Jeffrey Epstein and Anil Ambani, 20–30 March 2017, EFTA01618764, US Department of Justice, Epstein Files release, Data Set 10, copy at tommycarstensen.com/epstein, accessed 21 October 2026.
  26. ↑ Email from Jeffrey Epstein to "Jabor Y.", 6 July 2017, EFTA01041630, US Department of Justice, Epstein Files release, Data Set 9, copy at tommycarstensen.com/epstein, accessed 21 October 2026.
  27. ↑ iMessage exchange between Jeffrey Epstein and Steve Bannon, 23–24 May 2019, EFTA01615873, US Department of Justice, Epstein Files release, Data Set 10, copy at tommycarstensen.com/epstein, accessed 21 October 2026.
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