History of the Jews in Pakistan

A community of Jews fleeing persecution in Mashhad, Persia, settled in Rawalpindi in the Punjab in 1839. The elaborate early 20th century synagogue they built still stands on Nishtar Street in Rawalpindi's Babu Mohallah neighborhood, between the Bohra Mosque and a large and elaborate Victorian era church.[1]

The interior of the Magain Shalome synagogue before its demolition

According to the 1881 census, there were 153 Jews in Sindh province.[7] In the Sindh Gazetteer of 1907,[8] Edward Hamilton Aitken mentions that according to the 1901 census, the total population of Jews [in Sindh] was 482 and almost all of them lived in Karachi.[9] By 1919, this figure had risen to about 650.[10] By 1947, there were about 1,500 Jews living in Sindh with the majority residing in Karachi. Most of these Jews were Bene Israel and they lived as tradesmen, artisans, poets, philosophers and civil servants.[11]

In 1911, Jews constituted 0.3 percent of Karachi's population and at the time of independence from the British Empire their number had reached 2,500.[12] In her 1947 book ‘Malika-e-Mashriq’ (Queen of the East), Mehmooda Rizwiya has written about the Jewish presence in Karachi.[9] Jews used to live in Karachi.[13][14] In a paper titled "Karachi Ke Yahudi” (Karachi's Jews), Gul Hasan Kalmatti indicates that Jews arrived in Karachi from Maharashtra in the 19th century.[15][16]

A variety of associations existed to serve the Jewish community in Pakistan, including:

• Magain Shalome Synagogue: Built in 1893 near Ranchore Line,[17] by Solomon David Umerdekar and his son Gershone Solomon. Other accounts suggest that it was built by Shalom Solomon, a surveyor for the Karachi Municipal Committee and his wife Shegula-bai. The synagogue soon became the center of a small but vibrant Jewish community. A member of this Synagogue, Abraham Reuben Kamarlekar, became a councilor in the Karachi City Corporation in 1936.
• Young Man's Jewish Association: Founded in 1903 and whose aim was to encourage sports as well as religious and social activities of the Bene Israel in Karachi.
• Karachi Bene Israel Relief Fund: Established to support poor Jews in Karachi.
• Karachi Jewish Syndicate: Formed in 1918 and whose aim was to provide homes to poor Jews at reasonable rent fees.

Leading up to the time of the Partition of India,[18] some 1300 Jews remained in Karachi, most of them Bene Israel Jews observing Sephardic Jewish rites.[19] The first real exodus of Jewish refugees from British India to Bombay and other cities in India came just prior to the creation of Israel in 1948 when antisemitism spread to Pakistan.[20] When Israel came into being in 1948, many Jews fled as refugees to Israel via India or to several Commonwealth countries again via India, and after the Arab-Israel war a majority of them had left Karachi.[21] By 1953, fewer than 500 Jews were reported to be in all of Pakistan.[22]

Magen Shalom, the Bene Israel's only synagogue in Karachi founded under the British Raj, was demolished in 1988 to make way for a shopping plaza by order of General Zia-ul-Haq shortly after the Bene Israel community in Israel petitioned for its maintenance and use as a historical or other community center.[23] The last custodian of the synagogue was Rachel Joseph, now deceased.[24][25][26]

Dan Kiesel, a Jew of German origin, was employed as a physiotherapist by the Pakistan Cricket Board from 1995–1999. His appointment brought some controversy, as Pakistani politicians questioned the hiring an Israeli Jew in the Senate of Pakistan.[27]

The term "Yehudi" and its variants remains a word of derision when directed at a Bene Israel or anyone else as noted by Reverend John Wilson, one of the founders of University of Bombay (now University of Mumbai). In Urdu and Hindi, however, the word simply translates to Jewish.[28] The Bene Israel's prayers include intercessions on behalf of Her Majesty as in several Commonwealth countries.[29] The Jewish Chronicle of London reported on Karachi's Jews as recently as 2007.[30]

In general elections 2013, it was reported that 809 adult Jews were enrolled as voters. The number of Jewish women voters was 427 against 382 men in the community.[31] By 2017, according to the Election Commission of Pakistan around 900 Jews were registered as voters in the country.[32]

Most of the Karachi Jews now live in Ramla, Israel, Mumbai, India and Toronto, Ontario, Canada with several spread throughout the United States of America and built a synagogue they named Magen Shalome after the Pakistani Synagogue in Ramla. Developments in the Middle East peace process led to the first high level meeting between Israeli and Pakistani foreign ministers. The foreign ministers of both countries met publicly for the first time in Istanbul, a diplomatic breakthrough brokered by Turkey.

Many purport to speak about the state of antisemitism in Pakistan today and in her past. Antisemitism is in decline in Pakistan today.[33] The massive demographic influx of Mohajirs from the Dominion of India upon independence and the creation of Israel and the consequent Arab–Israeli conflict worsened Jew-hatred as witnessed by the 1948 Muslim occupation and eventual destruction of Karachi's Magane Shalom synagogue. Before the 1970s, generally there were no anti-Semitic feelings towards the Jews of Pakistan.[34]

The Jewish Bene Israel Graveyard remains in the larger Mewa Shah Graveyard in Karachi.[35][36]