JEWISH STARS OF INDIA

Susan Lumiere

    For those who don’t know, the fabled Star of India is a 563.35 carat, spherical, blue sapphire with stars (asterism) on two sides. It is the size of a golf ball, is the largest blue sapphire in the world, was discovered in Sri Lanka three centuries ago, is worth 300 million dollars, is two billion years old, is nearly flawless, was displayed at the 1900 Paris Exhibition, and was owned and donated by JP Morgan.      

   In 1964, the Star was stolen from and then returned to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City in the biggest jewel heist in American history. The violet Midnight Star sapphire, the 100 carat DeLong Star Ruby and the Eagle Diamond were also among the twenty-four gems stolen. Surprisingly, security at the museum was almost non-existent. The careless curators were lucky to have some returned, this time making sure the treasures were heavily guarded.

    The thieves, young beach bums in their twenties, broke in at night by swinging on a rope through a fourth-floor bathroom window they had opened during the day, after scaling the fence and scrambling up a fire escape. Once inside, they discovered that the uninsured sapphire was in a case whose alarm batteries were dead, made off with the goods and were captured two days after the theft. 

    As smooth and successful as the illicit operation was, the surfers heedlessly drew attention to themselves afterward by throwing extravagant parties in their lavish hotel suite, tipping off an informer.

    Two months after their arrest, in an appeal for leniency, one of the burglars led the authorities to a bus locker in Miami, where some of the stash was hidden. Eventually, most jewels were recovered but not the Eagle diamond. 💎           In 1975 a film about the robbery, “Murph the Surf,” was released. Five years after the heist and out of prison, movie star handsome Jack Murphy, the mastermind of the jewel theft, was convicted of murder and locked up again. Before his arrest, he and his accomplices were accused of pistol-whipping actress Eva Gabor.  

    While in jail, Murphy became an ordained minister, was paroled in 1986, is 83, and lives in Florida with his family. He is a surfing champion, author, violinist, artist, and political campaigner. One could say that he was a diamond in the rough with many facets who eventually became polished and refined.

    ✨Before you read about the beautiful female stars of India, it is interesting to note that a star sapphire has six points, like another famous star—namely, the Magen (Shield of) David hexagram, or Jewish star.

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   My friend, Paul, sent me an astounding article that said four Miss Indias have been Jewish!—starting with the first one ever in 1947, popular film star, Esther Victoria Abraham, who accepted the title at age 31, while pregnant with her fifth child. Those saris do hide a multitude of sins—and sons. It looks like the ancient heroine of Persia wasn’t the only Queen Esther to make history. (And speaking of Esther, the name means “star” in Persian and Hebrew. The meaning of Victoria is self-evident. How prophetic.)

     Ms. Abraham’s victory is surprising in more ways than one. The rules about marriage and motherhood hadn’t been established yet. 20 years later, in 1967, Esther’s daughter, Naqi Jahan, was crowned also—the only mother-daughter duo to achieve this; and two more Jewish beauties, Fleur Ezekiel and Salome Aaron, were crowned in ‘59 and ‘72, respectively.

     In addition to being an actress, Esther was a hockey champion, scholar, artist, model, dancer, singer, film producer in a male-dominated industry, seamstress and designer of jewelry and fashion. Known by her stage name, Pramila, Esther remained strongly Jewish; but her family was a blend of Jews, Hindus, Muslims, and Christians.

    Another remarkable fact about four Jewish women becoming Miss India within a span of 25 years is that the number of Jews in that country is minuscule. In a population of 1.3 billion, there are only 5000 Jews left, a tiny droplet in a bucket of lassi. There were between 30,000 to 40,000;  but most left when India gained independence and was partitioned in 1947 (the year Abraham won) and when Israel became a nation in 1948, attracting tens of thousands who made aliyah. 

      I knew that Jews had distinguished themselves in many fields far out of proportion to their numbers: Nobel Prizes, medicine, law, business, scholarship, finance, technology, rabbis, (just joking) etc., but I didn’t know the list included Indian pageant winners, let alone a pregnant pageant winner. (Jews are less than 1/5 of 1% of the world‘s population but 22% of Nobel laureates. If my math is correct, that means that there are 110 times more Jewish laureates than their numbers would indicate.)

     According to what I’ve read, there are no known cases of anti-Semitism in India, except for persecution by the Portuguese during the 16th century in connection with the Inquisition and the Pakistani Muslim terrorist attack of Chabad in 2008 in Mumbai, formerly Bombay. NB—in neither instance was anti-Jewish violence perpetrated by Hindus or Indians.

      In fact, there are 10 beautifully preserved, architecturally significant synagogues in Mumbai, where about 4,000 Jews reside.

   At my high school, even at as great an academic institution as Beverly Hills High School, history was dull, full of dry statistics and had little adventure. At UCLA, history became one of my favorite subjects, full of conflict, suspense, drama, irony, and dynamic stories. In 1963, I took a class on the history of India and Pakistan, taught by a brilliant and fascinating professor, Stanley Wolpert. Dr Wolpert authored the book, Nine Hours to Rama, about the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, on which the film was based. In fact, the film came out in the same year as the class I was taking.

     For my term paper topic in Wolpert’s class, I chose “The Jews of India.” Although there are more than three groups, I remember focusing on the “Gora,” or white Jews; the “Kala,” or black Jews; and the “Manumitted” Jews, who are brown.  The largest group was the Bene Israel, who, theoretically, may have been descended from one of the Lost Tribes of ancient Israel or from a shipwrecked crew from a trading voyage in the 1st or 2nd century CE.

     Hollywood is known for having many Jews in the film industry. Guess what? So is Bollywood. Many Bene Israel Jews were in prominent and favored positions during the British Colonial period and were the leaders of the new film industry in India in the early 20th century. Move over, Swami Goldwyn. (Swami, how I love ya, how I love ya, my dear old Swami.)

     I remember reading 57 years ago that the Gora Jews wanted to preserve their ethnicity and intermarried to such a great extent that genetic diseases such as elephantiasis occurred. In fact, this article started out by describing Indian Jewish beauty queens, and my unkind joke is that the Gora ones were crowned “Princess Pachyderm.”

(I apologize to the Bene Israel contestants and all elephants.)

      I’ll end with a cute joke: A man was on an airplane sitting next to a gorgeous, irresistible woman. It was a long flight, and the male passenger used the time to his advantage, engaging in an increasingly intimate conversation with his seat mate. “So,” the smitten traveler asked,”with your attractiveness, you must have had many lovers. In your opinion, who are the best ones?” The young woman thought for a moment and then replied, “The Jews...and the Indians.” “Well, allow me to introduce myself,” answered the man. “They call me Mahatma Finkelstein!” 🇮🇳 🐘 🇮🇱 👸🏻