Program & Itinerary
Overview
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Itinerary
DAY 1 - February 16, 2026
11:00
Bus transfer from the Habitat in New Delhi to OP Jindal Global
12:45 - 13:30
Conference registration & Lunch at OP Jindal Global University.
13:30 - 15:00
Young scholars’ workshop I Chair: Michal Erlich (OP Jindal Global University)
Anwesha Das (Emory University) – Mapping Medieval Gujarat through the Indian Ocean Trade Documents of the Cairo Geniza (11th-12th Centuries).
Emy Merin Joy (Central European University, Vienna) – Interreligious Dialogues and Anti-Jewish Polemics in Early Modern Malabar (16th–17th Centuries).
Lija Mary Kambakkaran Joseph (Leiden University) – Between Black and
White: Maritime Diasporas, and the Formation of Racial Identity Among the Jews of Malabar in the Eighteenth Century.
Sayan Lodh (Presidency University in Kolkata) – Two Pearls of Jewish Asia The Rise and Dwindling Days of the Baghdadi Jews of Bombay and Calcutta (1800s–Present).
Anna Zacharias (Jawaharlal Nehru University) – Maritime Connections on the Malabar Coast: Mercantile networks across the Indian ocean in the Early Modern Period.
Arghya Sengupta (University of Warsaw) – Port, Memory, and Exchange: Kolkata as a Jewish Cultural Crossroads in the Indian Ocean during the Mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century.
Joel Jyothis Tom (Central University of Gujarat) – Songs for a Nation: A Study on the Folksongs of Cochin Jewish Women.
15:00 – 15:15
Break
15:15 – 16:45
Young Scholars’ Workshop II Chair: Yigal Sitry (Central Zionist Archives)
Omer Ghazi (Citizens Foundation for Policy Solutions) – On the Legacy of Jews in Gujarat — From Merchants and Traders to Educators, Writers, and Reformers (18th–20th Centuries).
Ran Amitai (University of Haifa) – Employment in the civil service and the army as a reason for settlement of Indian Jews in various cities in India and abroad during the Raj.
Aditya Shinde (George Washington University) – Bombay Zionist Association and Nation-Building Among Bene Israel Community.
Suraj Rajan Kadanthodu (University of Haifa) – Between India and Israel: Migration and Identity Formation of the Bene Israel Jewish community.
Rishona Fine (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) – The Sacred Citron and the Bene Israel Celestial Garden: The Etrog as Embodied Memory.
Rohit Kumar Sharma (Jawaharlal Nehru University) – The Keepers of Memory: Life of Bene-Israeli Jews in India Through the Eyes of Esther David.
Elijah Roggen (O.P. Jindal Global University) Reflections from Fulbright Research on Jewish Life in India
16:45 – 17:45
Campus tour
17:45 – 18:15
Greetings and opening remarks:
Vice Chancellor Prof C Raj Kumar (OP Jindal Global University)
Prof and Dean Sreeram Sundar Chaulia (OP Jindal Global University)
Assaf Avraham (Shazar Center for Jewish History)
Rachel Yadid (E’ele BeTamar)
Khinvraj Jangid (OP Jindal Global University)
18:15 – 19:30
Opening session – Historical and Geographic Frameworks
Chair: Khinvraj Jangid (OP Jindal Global University)
Aren Maeir (Bar-Ilan University) – The Early “Maritime Silk Road”: Bronze, Iron Age, and Classical Period Connectivity between the Land of Israel, the Indian Subcontinent and Beyond.
Miriam Frankel (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) – “I am sending you a few things of no importance or value”: The Economy of Gifts in Jewish Trade between Egypt and India in the Middle Ages.
Menashe Anzi (Ben Gurion University in the Negev) – The Oceanic Turn and Modern Jewish History: Toward a New Framework.
19:30
Reception and dinner
20:30
Bus from OP Jindal Global University to New Delhi
DAY 2 - February 17, 2026
9:30 - 11:00
Session I – From the Bible to the Byzantine Period
Chair: Sharon Shalom (Ono Academic College)
Assaf Avraham (Shazar Center for Jewish History) – Spices, Scripts, and Scriptures: Southern Levantine Ties with the Western Indian Ocean in the Iron Age.
Steven Fine (Yeshiva University) – Communication between the Indian Ocean Region and Jewish Palestine in Roman Antiquity.
Lev Cosijns (University of Oxford) & Haggai Olshanetsky (University of Ghana) – “A Sack full of Ginger and a Cup full of Long-Stalked Pepper”: Rabbinic Texts and Jewish Agency in the Indo-Roman Trade.
David Hamidovich (University of Lausanne) – In Search of Archaeological Traces of Jews in Oman
11:00 - 11:30
Break
11:30 - 12:45
Session II – Commerce and Travel in the Middle Ages
Chair: Prof. Claude (Dov) B. Stuczynski (Bar-Ilan University)
Zohar Amar (Bar-Ilan University) & Efraim Lev (University of Haifa) – The Introduction and Distribution of new “Arabic” Medicinal Substances and their Impact on Medieval Mediterranean Medicine and Pharmacology.
Noga Raved (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)- Gam and Jews: Jewish Gem‑Trading Networks in the Indian Ocean, 11th–18th Centuries.
Sharon Shalom (Ono Academic College) – “I write, therefore I Exist” – a Case Study of the History and Halachic Tradition of Ethiopian Jews.
12:45 - 13:45
Lunch Break
13:45 - 14:30
Distinguished Public Lecture
Chair: Narvas Jaat Aafreedi (Presidency University in Kolkata)
Shalva Weil (The Hebrew University in Jerusalem) – Navigating the Literature, Steering the Subject Matter: Trust among Indian Jewish Traders in the Modern Era
14:30 - 14:45
Break
14:45 - 16:15
Session III – Early Modern Period and the Western Empires
Chair: Mohsin Raza Khan (OP Jindal Global University)
José Alberto Rodrigues da Silva Tavim (University of Lisbon) – In the “shadow” of the Portuguese Empire: Jews and trade in the Indian Ocean through inquisitorial and other sources.
Claude B. Stuczynski (Bar-Ilan University) – A Hebrew Nation Upon the Indian Ocean and beyond: The Thalassocratic-Mercantilistic Views of the Portuguese New Christian Duarte Gomes Solis and his Milieu.
Jessica Roitman (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) – Ports and Peoples: Jewish Travelers and the Narration of Oceanic Connection, 17th-19th centuries.
Johann Nicolai (Independent Scholar) – From Ghetto to Port City: Jewish Mobility, Trade, and Networks in the Indian Ocean.
16:15 - 16:45
Break
16:45 - 18:00
Session IV – Art and Rabbinic Literature in the Modern Period
Chair – Aaron Greener (Shazar Center for Jewish History)
Arye Edrei (Tel-Aviv University) – Bene-Israel in India: Can a Lost Diaspora Be Restored?
Achia Anzi (OP Jindal Global University) & Menashe Anzi (Ben Gurion University) –
- Visual Voyage across the Indian Ocean: The composition of the Marathi Haggadah in the 19th Century
Please switch between the session chairs Assaf Avraham and Aaron Greener.
Shalom Sabar (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) – Jewish Art in Transition—From Baghdad and Ṣanʿā’ to India, China, and Singapore (Late 18th to Early 20th Centuries).
18:00
Tea Break
18:30
Traditional Dance Group “Yemenite Steps” from Israel & the Taga Ram Bheel and Group Music and Dance from Jaisalmer, Rajasthan.
19:30
Dinner
DAY 3 - February 18, 2026
9:00 – 10:30
Session V – Iraq, Persian Gulf and India
Chair: Assaf Avraham (Shazar Center for Jewish History)
Yehuda Pava (Ben-Gurion University) – Mapping Diasporic Space via a 19th Century Calcutta-Based Judeo-Baghdadi Periodical.
Lipika Pelham (University of Pennsylvania) – From Babylon to Calcutta: To what extent Middle Eastern Jews in colonial India ushered in a non-European Jewish Internationalism?
Geraldine Gudefin (National University of Singapore) – Najia’s Voyage: Jewish Marriage, Mobility, and Law Between Basra and Bombay (1929-1931).
Levi Cooper (Bar-Ilan University) – Flora Sassoon’s Questions in Jewish Law: Rabbinic Correspondence Across the Indian Ocean in the early 20th Century.
10:30 - 11:00
Break
11:00 - 12:15
Session VI – Between Yemen and India
Chair: Rachel Yadid (E’ele BeTamar)
Bat-Zion Klorman-Eraqi (The Open University of Israel) – Yemeni Jews and their Indian Diaspora: Ties of Mutual Dependence.
Ofer Ashwal (Bo’ee Teiman International Research Institute) – Wedding and Ketubah Customs in Cochin (India) as a Reflection of the Connection between Yemenite and Indian Jewry.
Amihai Radzyner (Bar-Ilan University) – Aden Jews in the Bombay Courts: The Messa Will and the Intersection of Jewish and Colonial Law.
12:15 - 13:15
Lunch Break
13:15 - 14:00
Archival Documentation of Jews in the Indian Ocean
Moderator: Sifra Lentin (Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations)
Panelists:
Kenneth X. Robbins (Private Archivist-Collector) – Documentation of Jewish History in an Indian Ocean Archive
Yigal Sitry (Central Zionist Archives) – India and the Indian Ocean as a Destination for Jewish Refugees and Immigrants during World War II
14:00 - 14:30
Closing remarks and discussion (led by Menashe Anzi).
14:30
End of the conference
17:00
Optional networking cocktails (details to follow)