Of all the Diaspora communities, the Jews of India are among the least known and most interesting. This study, full of vivid details of everyday life, looks in depth at the religious life of the Jewish community in Cochin, the Bene Israel from the remote Konkan coast near Bombay, and the Baghdadi Jews, who migrated to Indian port cities and flourished under the British Raj. This book is the first integrated, comprehensive work available of all three of India's Jewish communities. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the author brings together methods and insights from religious studies, ritual studies, anthropology, history, linguistics, and folklore, as he discusses the strategies each community develop to maintain its Jewish identity. Based on extensive fieldwork throughout India, as well as close reading of historical documents, this study provides a new understanding of the Jewish Diaspora and of Hindu civilisation as a whole.