Prof. Bat-Zion Klorman-Eraqi
About
bater@openu.ac.il
Bat-Zion Eraqi Klorman is a Professor Emerita of History at the Open University of Israel and a former director of the Center for the Study of Yemeni Jews at the Ben-Zvi Institute.
Her research specializes in the history and culture of Jews in the Muslim world, with a particular focus on Yemen.
Her scholarly interests include Jewish-Muslim relations, messianic movements, gender, and immigration.
Through her work, Klorman-Eraqi has provided profound insights into the unique religious and social structures of Yemeni Jewry and their historical journey into the modern era.
Lecture Abstract:
The Indian Ocean, which both separates and connects Yemen with India, served for centuries as a medium for the movement of people, goods, and ideas. This maritime pathway enabled commercial exchange and short-term migrations that often became permanent. Periods of economic distress in Yemen intensified such migrations, among them those of Yemeni Jews. In India these migrants established satellite communities of Yemeni Jews, mostly in Cochin, Mumbai, New Delhi, and Kolkata. While some of these Jews succeeded financially, they were unable to cultivate a vibrant local spiritual leadership. Focusing on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this paper examines the multi-layered relations that developed between the Jewish community in Yemen and Yemeni Jewish migrants in India. It explores the financial assistance sought by Jews in Yemen from their brethren in India – both for individual relief and for communal purposes -- and the religious guidance requested by Indian based Yemeni Jews from leading rabbinic figures in Yemen in matters of halakha, messianic belief etc. The paper also demonstrates that, even after the significant Jewish migration from Yemen to Palestine in the late nineteenth century, Yemeni Jews in India continued to send contributions to Yemeni Jews in Jerusalem. I argue that these networks of economic aid and spiritual consultation nurtured a sustained sense of shared identity and strengthened the distinctiveness of Yemeni Jewish life in India. The study draws on correspondence between Jews in Yemen and India—much of it published but newly interpreted here—alongside oral testimonies and relevant scholarly literature.