Jews of Andhra Pradesh

The Jews of Andhra Pradesh is an engaging and thought-provoking ethnography devoted to the Bene Ephraim—a Dalit group in India that has embraced Jewish tradition. Egorova and Perwez offer a nuanced and theoretically-informed account which explores how the story of the Bene Ephraim challenges and extends contemporary understandings of Jewishness and illuminates radical new directions in Dalit discourse.

The Jews of Andhra Pradesh: Contesting Caste and Religion in South India by Yulia Egorova and Shahid Perwez could be the remarkable tale of the search and discovery of one of the Lost Tribes of Israel in India. Or at least that is what the tribe of the Bene Ephraim and its Israeli discoverers (and now the state of Israel) want to claim. Yulia Egorova and Shahid Perwez's extraordinarily careful and respectful account of how the Bene Ephraim become Jewish, how they begin in their lives to fulfill the expectations of those still seeking the Lost Tribes to fulfill the Biblical prophecy of the ingathering of the Jews, is not only brilliant field anthropology but a compelling account of how parallel needs create complex and real identities. A must have for those in Jewish Studies and beyond.

Yulia Egorova is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at Durham University. Her research interests include anthropology of Jewish communities and the relationship between science and religion. She is the author of Jews and India: Perceptions and Image, and a co-author (with Tudor Parfitt) of Genetics, Mass Media and Identity: A Case Study of the Genetic Research on the Lemba and Bene-Israel. Shahid Perwez is Fellow in International Development at the University of Bath. He has conducted ethnographic research involving long periods of fieldwork in Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. His research has explored issues of gender, health, social mobilization, religion and caste in India.