Bene Ephraim

The Bene Ephraim live in villages of Andhra Pradesh, principally in the districts of Krishna, Guntur, and Prakasam, with the largest concentration in Kothareddypalem, also spelled Kottareddipalem.[3] A 2025 population estimate placed the community at approximately 300 families.[3] Earlier descriptions concerned smaller groups: about 30 families in Kothareddypalem and approximately 50 families in Kottareddipalem and Ongole engaged in Torah study and Hebrew learning.[2][5]

Telugu is the community’s language, while Hebrew study forms an important part of its religious life.[1][2] Members’ understanding of themselves combines Jewish religious identity with a sense of descent from the Israelites, an identification particularly evident among children and young people in their villages.[4] Many members work as agricultural laborers in fields belonging to others.[3]

The community appears alongside Bene Israel, Cochin Jews, Baghdadi Jews, Chennai Jews, and Bnei Menashe in descriptions of India’s Jewish communities.[1] Its local religious institutions and efforts to build relationships with Jews elsewhere are recurring features of its communal life.[2][4]

Organized Torah study, Hebrew learning, and efforts to obtain recognition from Jewish communities elsewhere date to 1981 among approximately 50 families in Kottareddipalem and Ongole.[2] Shmuel Yakobi, whose surname also appears as Yacobi or Yaakobi, became a central figure in the community’s development after working as a Christian preacher.[2][3] He continued preaching while studying the Hebrew Bible, visited Israel in the early 1980s, and subsequently founded the Bene Ephraim community in southeastern Andhra Pradesh.[3]

Family tradition, transmitted by Tzadok Yaakobi to his descendants, recounts an ancient migration from the Land of Israel beginning in 722 BCE, through Assyria, Babylonia, Iran, and Afghanistan, and into India through Jammu and Kashmir.[3] The family also preserves an account of adopting Christianity following the arrival of Baptist missionaries in the late nineteenth century, while retaining memories of Jewish roots.[3] Shmuel began researching the community’s ancestry in 1984 and identified its history with that of the biblical tribe of Ephraim.[6]

The first Bene Ephraim synagogue opened in Kottareddipalem in 1992 and was named the House of the Children of Yakob.[2][7] Shmuel also established the Council of Eastern Jewry, a correspondence-based open university for Torah and Hebraic Studies.[2] His brothers Tzadok and Aaron joined the community, became village leaders, and established several synagogues.[3] Another account of the community describes it as maintaining two synagogues.[4]

The group initially attracted little attention beyond its locality: the emergence of information about it in police files surprised people in the Guntur area, where even police had not known of the Jewish community.[5] Its members nevertheless observed Shabbat and other Jewish rites under Shmuel’s leadership.[5]

Shmuel’s son Yehoshua Yaakobi made aliyah in 1993 and completed a formal conversion in 1994, becoming the first Bene Ephraim member reported to have completed such a conversion.[3] He lived and studied in Jerusalem, served in the military, and studied biology and chemistry at the Hebrew University.[3] Shmuel, his wife Malka, and Yehoshua all converted to Judaism and lived in the Jerusalem vicinity.[6]

Yehoshua received rabbinic ordination in 2019 at Torat Yosef, associated with the Ohr Torah Stone network.[3] After completing his studies in 2020, he returned to Andhra Pradesh during the COVID-19 pandemic and became the community’s first rabbi and an emissary of the Nidchei Yisrael institute.[3]

Shabbat observance, Torah study, and Hebrew learning are central activities among Bene Ephraim families.[2][5] Yehoshua Yaakobi travels between villages to teach Torah and also provides lessons over Zoom because of the distances involved.[3] A 2025 description of the community reported that its members could read and write Hebrew.[3]

Family traditions connect contemporary observance with practices remembered among the Yaakobi family and the Madiga group to which it belonged.[3] These include careful slaughter, circumcision, burial in the ground, and refraining from work on Saturday, called “Sani.”[3] Members’ sense of Israelite descent informs both their religious and ethnic identity.[4]

A gathering organized by Yehoshua brought together members of eight Bene Ephraim communities to pray, sing, meet one another, and discuss their future.[3] His wedding to Tzipora, a member of the community, took place at the gathering’s conclusion before 800 community members.[3] The celebration combined Jewish and local customs, including Indian clothing and food, Hasidic dancing, and a concluding rendition of “Hatikvah.”[3]

A faction of the community has followed a Noahide path under Yehoshua’s guidance since 2011, alongside other Noahide groups in Andhra Pradesh.[6] At a gathering led by Rabbi Oury Cherki, participants formally accepted the Seven Commandments in a ceremony called “kibul,” reading a declaration in Hebrew and Telugu before reciting the Shema and the Shehecheyanu blessing.[6] This was a Noahide ceremony rather than a collective conversion to Judaism.[6] The approximately 1,000 people associated with these Noahide communities represent several groups collectively, not the population of Bene Ephraim alone.[6]

The Bene Ephraim have sought relationships with Jewish communities abroad through religious study, visits by rabbis, and requests for recognition.[2][4] Their communal identity includes a strong connection to the Jewish people and Israel, while their institutions sustain Jewish practice in Telugu-speaking villages.[3] Members have also expressed frustration at receiving little attention from Jewish communities elsewhere.[4]

Yehoshua’s education, conversion, ordination, and return to Andhra Pradesh established a link between the community and Israeli religious institutions.[3] His work as a rabbi and emissary combines village visits with remote teaching, extending Torah instruction across geographically dispersed communities.[3] In the 2025 account of this work, the community’s stated priority was to live as Jews rather than to seek immigration to Israel.[3]

The community is included among Indian Jewish groups in institutional descriptions of Indian Jewry and among southeastern Indian communities with an affinity to the Jewish people.[1][8] Its religious life encompasses both members practicing Judaism and a faction participating in wider Noahide networks.[4][6]

The principal debate concerns the relationship between the community’s traditions of Israelite ancestry and independently established history.[4][8] Its migration narrative and identification with Ephraim are family and community traditions; an encyclopedic assessment rejects a historical connection with ancient Jewish communities while recognizing the strength of members’ contemporary Jewish identity.[3][4] An Israeli public advisory committee included Bnei Ephraim among groups claiming ancient Jewish provenance about which information was scarce, without issuing a finding on their descent.[8]

Jewish self-identification, formal conversion, and wider religious recognition are distinct issues in accounts of the community.[2][6] Visiting rabbis had not accorded Bene Ephraim the same recognition extended to Bnei Menashe in one account, while formal conversions are documented for members of the Yaakobi family.[2][6] These individual conversions do not establish a general determination of the religious status of all community members.[6][8]