Woman rabbi guides Jewish Reform group through Rosh Hashanah '24

India's Jews form a tiny minority of nearly 4,000 people. The Reform group, numbering just a few hundred, are an even smaller minority among them. They have no rabbi, with lay members leading religious services in rented halls because their only synagogue in Mumbai, at Byculla, was burnt down in the 1993 riots.

- Manoj Ramakrishnan

This week, as the worldwide Jewish community celebrates Rosh Hashanah, their New Year, Mumbai's Reform Jewish welcomed a woman rabbi from the United States who is guiding them through one of the holiest periods in their religious calendar. Rabbi Stacey Blank from Cleveland said she has been astonished by the history of the Reform movement, also called Progressive Judaism, in India. The movement was brought to India in 1925 by an Indian Jewish doctor training in the United Kingdom.