Mumbai Jews on Edge After Attacks in India

In this Sept. 13, 2007 file photo, Indian Jews touch the 'Mezuzah,' right, a piece of parchment...

In this Sept. 13, 2007 file photo, Indian Jews touch the 'Mezuzah,' right, a piece of parchment inscribed with specified Hebrew verses from the Torah, after a prayer ceremony for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, at the Magen Hassidin Synagogue in Mumbai, India. Mumbai's tiny Jewish community feels itself under threat for the first time in hundreds of years in the wake of the deadly attacks by suspected Muslim militants that included a bloody two-day siege at an ultra-Orthodox Jewish center. (AP Photo/Gautam Singh, FILE)

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Mumbai's tiny Jewish community feels itself under threat for the first time in hundreds of years in the wake of the deadly attacks by suspected Muslim militants that included a bloody two-day siege at an ultra-Orthodox Jewish center.

Jews here said they had always considered themselves safe amid the tapestry of religions and ethnicities that make up this bustling city. Now, they are not so sure.

"It's like a wake-up call. We are a tolerant society, we've never had any anti-Semitism at all here in India," said Elijah Jacob, a local Jewish leader. "We can't remain complacent any more."

The Nov. 26 attacks that killed 171 people targeted some of this city's best-known landmarks: two luxury hotels, a cafe famous with tourists and one of Mumbai's busiest train stations. During the panic, few noticed that another pair of gunmen had invaded the nondescript Nariman House on a back alleyway.

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The building served as a Jewish center run by an American-Israeli rabbi from the ultra-Orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch movement that acted as a spiritual oasis for traveling Jewish backpackers and visiting businessmen. By the time Indian commandos shot the gunmen dead two days later, six people inside the building — all Jewish foreigners — had been killed.

The local Jewish community was in shock.

With only 5,000 Jews in a city of 18 million people, they barely made a ripple in city life and had never been targeted for attack.

"We only consist of an iota of the entire population in India. We are a drop in the ocean," said Solomon Sopher, president of the Indian Jewish Congress.

The community also had especially tight relations with local Muslims, said Jonathan Solomon, chairman of the Indian Jewish Federation. Brought together by similar dietary laws and other shared cultural values, the two groups historically lived in the same neighborhoods, and two schools run by a Jewish trust now educate predominantly Muslim students, he said.