Cradles of Diaspora: Bombay, Aden, and Jewish Migration across the Indian Ocean

Abstract

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, migrant communities of Middle Eastern Jews emerged across the vast space between Shanghai and Port Said. The present article points to two crucial knots in the creation of these far-reaching Jewish diasporas: Bombay and Aden. These rising port cities of the British Raj were first stations in the migration of thousands of Middle Eastern Jews, and they presented immigrants with new commercial, social, cultural and spatial horizons; it was from there that many of them proceeded to settle elsewhere beyond the Indian Ocean. Using the examples of two prominent families, Sassoon in Bombay and Menahem Messa in Aden, the article considers the role of these places as the cradles from which Jewish diasporas emerged.