Recalling Jewish Calcutta
Hosted By: Qesher
Jael Silliman, a member of the Baghdadi Jewish community of Calcutta, presents the history of this community’s migration from the Middle East to Calcutta, once the seat of the British Empire, where they sought their fortunes and left a lasting impact on the mercantile city. She will use slides and audio-visual images to trace their journey through global events in the 1940s and ’50s that led to their exodus to England, Australia, America, Canada, and Israel, leaving behind only a few Jews in Calcutta today along with three synagogues, two schools, and a sprawling cemetery. Silliman, a former associate professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Iowa and author of several works on Kolkata’s cultural history, offers a comprehensive view of this vibrant community’s legacy and its diminishing presence in modern India.
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