"Who is not curious as to how the Jews of India survived for so long in an atmosphere of tolerance when other Jewish communities such as that in China, benefiting from similar toleration, assimilated so thoroughly. Their argument is that India as a host society combined tolerance with culturally enforced diversity which made the difference. Indian society, with its several major religions and further division within Hinduism into four major castes, a fifth of outcasts, and over 3,000 subcastes, tolerates wide diversity but does not permit people born into one group to cross over into another or even to associate with the others beyond the public square, since the food taboos of every religious community, caste and subcaste mean that they cannot eat with one another. Nothing separates more than that. The Jewish community could fit into India as another caste and even developed its own subcastes, as the authors explain, properly denoting this as the Cochin Jews' one great (and sad) departure from halakhic Judaism."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Academics from the United StatesJews from the United StatesPolitical scientists from the United StatesPeople from Minneapolis
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Foreword to The Last Jews of Cochin: Jewish Identity in Hindu India, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daniel_J._Elazar
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Daniel J. Elazar
Daniel Judah Elazar (August 25, 1934 – December 2, 1999) was a political scientist known for his seminal studies of political culture of the US states. He was professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University in Israel and Temple University in Pennsylvania, and director of the Center for the Study of Federalism at Temple University and the founder and president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
1 quote on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Daniel J. Elazar →
Related Quotes
"For him delicious flavors dwell In books as in old Muscatel."
"And in the evening, everywhere Along the roadside, up and down, I see the golden torches flare Like lighted street-la…"
"Song like a rose should be; Each rhyme a petal sweet; For fragrance, melody, That when her lips repeat The words, her…"
"The hunter catches a dreadful prey, the seaman steers his ship into an unspeakable harbor, the plowman sows and reaps…"
"You are the king no doubt, but in one respect, at least, I am your equal: the right to reply. I claim that privilege …"
"When Hector heard that challenge he rejoiced and right in the no man's land along his lines he strode, gripping his s…"
"In the ancient land of vintage and dance and sun-burnt mirth, there resounded during the Middle Ages a sweet chorus o…"
"The poetry of the troubadours was essentially social in character. Unlike Goethe's minstrel, who sang as the bird amo…"
"In the eleventh century the nobility, which had previously been terribly rough and barbarous, began to grow more refi…"
"Illiterate and yet cultivated, these lords and ladies demanded of their poets a strict adherence to generally recogni…"