Israelis in India

Post-military-service backpacking is a prominent part of Israeli travel to India, with young people commonly spending several months abroad before beginning university or work.[3] A 2018 account described trips lasting four months to a year and identified India as a destination of choice particularly for Israelis in their twenties.[3] The travelers include people seeking rest, encounters with other travelers, and an interval before studies or a career, as well as shorter-term visitors and people returning repeatedly.[5][6][7]

The Israeli presence is especially visible along a circuit commonly called the “Hummus Trail,” where guesthouses, cafés, travel agents, Hebrew signs, and familiar foods cater to Israeli visitors.[3][5] This visibility does not mean that Israeli travelers are distributed evenly across India: India specialist Professor Brunner emphasized in 2020 that they concentrate in a few particular areas and are much less conspicuous elsewhere.[7] The circuit combines opportunities to encounter India with settings in which travelers can speak Hebrew, exchange advice, and meet other Israelis.[3]

Tourism has also formed part of India–Israel relations, with officials in both countries viewing visits as a means of developing mutual affinity and understanding of each other’s culture and way of life.[1] Alongside recreational travel, visits by Israelis of Indian Jewish ancestry can renew family connections and encourage reflection on Indian and Jewish identity.[4] Religious, secular, and emotional-support initiatives have developed around the needs of these different travelers.[8][9][10]

A 1995 study of second-generation Indian Jews in Israel described travel after military service as a common way for young Israelis to take a break lasting several months or even a year or two.[4] Such travel could postpone higher education, although one informant regarded experience gained abroad as valuable learning even when it was not formal study.[4] A later travel essay recalled visits to India in 1993 and approximately 25 years afterward, describing a familiar circuit of Israeli-oriented guesthouses, Hebrew-speaking Indian residents, and Israeli food.[6]

In a 2005 interview, scholar Nathan Katz characterized post-service Israeli travelers as conspicuous but not a cohesive community, saying they had little contact with local Jewish communities.[2] Recalling a visit in late 2004, he described hearing Hebrew in the streets and seeing Hebrew-language advertisements in some areas.[2] Katz identified northern India, the Himalayas, and Goa as their principal destinations at that time, while saying they generally did not travel farther south.[2]

Institutions serving travelers became established at several destinations around the turn of the century.[3][11] The Chabad house in Dharamkot opened in 2000; Michal Shaul recalled that the surrounding area was then mostly fields, with only one restaurant, and that 60 people attended the family’s first Shabbat gathering.[3] Chabad established its Mumbai presence in 2003 and purchased Nariman House in 2006, providing a base for lodging, kosher food, and worship for Israeli tourists and Jewish businesspeople.[11]

Travel connections subsequently expanded.[12][3] Direct passenger traffic between Israel and India reached 158,000 in 2016, an increase of 22.8 percent over the previous year, although only 27 percent of travelers from Israel to India used direct flights.[12] An analysis of those routes identified Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore, and Goa as major destinations; its passenger figures were not a count of Israeli citizens or all Israeli visitors to India.[12] In 2018, an Air India service connecting Tel Aviv and Delhi over Saudi Arabian airspace shortened travel and made it substantially cheaper than earlier options.[3] Former ambassador Daniel Carmon and consular official Eli Sneh also described Delhi as a convenient stopover for onward journeys to Singapore, Bangkok, and Australia.[3]

India received 47,649 Israeli tourist arrivals in 2012, representing 16 percent of arrivals from the Middle East, and 49,312 in 2014, representing approximately 12 percent of that regional total.[1] These are historical tourist-arrival figures, not estimates of the number of Israelis residing in India.[1] In 2018, Eli Sneh, then head of Consular Affairs at Israel’s embassy in Delhi, estimated approximately 80,000 Israeli visits annually; the same account separately referred to 40,000 or more Israeli backpackers.[3] The broader visitor estimate and backpacker figure therefore describe differently defined groups.[3]

A March 2026 report also estimated about 80,000 annual Israeli visitors, but did not identify a source or methodology for that figure.[5] Earlier, a 2008 estimate of nearly 50,000 annual visitors circulated through a quoted newspaper passage without named tourism officials or an explanation of its calculation.[13] A separate 2006 report claimed that approximately 4,000 Israelis had booked winter-season flights and would join “thousands living there,” but neither independently established those numbers nor explained the meaning of residence.[14] These estimates cannot serve as a census of an Israeli resident community.[1][14]

The Hummus Trail includes destinations such as Kasol, Pushkar, Dharamkot, Goa, and Rishikesh.[5] A 2021 essay estimated approximately 24 Israeli-oriented enclaves across India, occupied by both passing travelers and Israelis who had made the country their permanent home.[6] Some visitors stay in particular places for extended periods: a 2017 account described young Israelis remaining in Dharamshala for at least a month while taking part in carving, music, yoga, meditation, and bracelet-making.[15]

Routes can change in response to local conditions.[16] In 2019, after Indian authorities imposed a curfew in Kashmir and called on foreign tourists to leave, Israeli travelers who had intended to visit the region gathered in Leh, Ladakh, or extended their stays there.[16] Hebrew was audible in public places, restaurants adapted menus for Israeli visitors, and kosher food was available.[16] One hotel manager said that Israelis occupied all 13 rooms at his establishment, illustrating the concentration of travelers described in that particular report.[16]

Hebrew signs, Israeli-style cafés, and familiar dishes such as hummus, shakshuka, and falafel are prominent features of destinations frequented by Israelis.[3][5] In some areas, businesses use Hebrew and English signage, and Hebrew is heard alongside Hindi.[3] Travelers often stay in the same hostels and eat at the same restaurants, while Hebrew-speaking local residents and collections of Hebrew books provide further points of familiarity.[6][15]

Meeting other Israelis is itself an important part of the journey for some travelers, even while they are far from home.[3] A 2021 travel essay described both post-army backpackers and shorter-term visitors seeking a break from familiar social circles, while encountering an established Israeli travel circuit abroad.[6] In 2020, Professor Brunner urged visitors to go beyond this circuit, emphasizing India’s size and its cultural and linguistic diversity.[7] Daniel Carmon identified the country’s landscapes, history, religions, languages, culture, and relatively low costs as attractions for Israeli visitors.[3]

Peer advice also shapes itineraries and practical decisions.[3] Travel consultant Tom Landau said Israeli travelers often relied on recommendations shared online by other Israelis rather than on guidebooks.[3] By 2018, the Facebook group “Traveling to India with Meron,” founded two years earlier, had grown from approximately 2,000 members to nearly 30,000.[3] Its founder described questions about practical travel arrangements, embassy matters, and loneliness, and said updates could help parents remain informed about their children’s journeys.[3]

Katz argued that the encounter with India also influenced life after travelers returned to Israel, identifying meditation and other spiritual practices, sitar music, and a taste for curries among the cultural elements they brought home.[2] He considered the phenomenon sufficiently important to warrant sociological study, without offering a quantified estimate of its scale.[2] His observations presented travel as a possible channel of cultural influence rather than simply an overseas holiday.[2]

Mumbai’s Nariman House served as an educational center, synagogue, and hostel for Israeli tourists in a five-storey building.[17] Its services included lodging, kosher meals, and a place of worship for Israeli tourists and Jewish businesspeople.[11] Following the 2008 attack on the center, the renovated facility reopened in 2014 with a synagogue, offices, guest rooms, a restaurant, a commercial kitchen, and security rooms.[18] Chabad centers more generally serve Jewish tourists, visiting businesspeople, and local communities, although that description does not establish how many Israeli travelers used the Mumbai facility.[18]

Katz regarded Chabad emissaries as particularly active in responding to the presence of young Israelis in India, saying they had done more in this field than other Jewish organizations.[2] He also said that, to his knowledge, their work had not been studied and raised questions about what travelers sought from Chabad and the difficulties they faced.[2] A 2021 travel essay described roughly 20 Chabad branches across India as gathering places for Jewish holidays and Friday-night meals.[6]

Beit BINA India offered a secular Israeli-run Jewish community setting in Dharamshala, with weekly Shabbat dinners, Jewish learning, volunteer opportunities, and holiday celebrations.[8] BINA opened its Dharamshala house in March 2016 after beginning programming in Hampi.[8] Co-founder Mor Shimoni recalled musical Friday-night services beside a rice field and small activities in a cabin, including a writing workshop, a weekly Torah-portion class, and a recycling day organized with a local nongovernmental organization.[8]

BINA’s organizers said they went to India to engage young Israelis, many of whom had completed mandatory national service and were traveling before further studies.[8] They presented the center as an accessible way for secular travelers to explore Jewish identity, alongside social-justice activities and work with local groups.[8] One traveler described joining BINA and a local organization to clean a nature trail.[8] The center described its potential constituency as approximately 40,000 Israelis passing through India annually, and reported 130 participants at a Passover seder whose registration filled within hours.[8]

Visits to India have provided some Bene Israel living in Israel with a means of renewing connections to their parental homeland.[4] The 1995 study described a considerable number making such journeys, without giving a count, and identified continuing contact with relatives in India as another source of social and cultural connection.[4] Responses among younger visitors varied: some developed a stronger interest in their heritage and wished to preserve Bene Israel traditions in Israel, while others found conditions unsettling and wanted to return home.[4]

One young woman described her first arrival in Calcutta as shocking, followed by increasing attachment to the country and a more vivid sense of Indian identity.[4] She recalled, “When I was in India, I felt the Indian part of me rising up.”[4] By contrast, a 20-year-old Bene Israel man still completing military service said he might visit after demobilization to explore India, but felt no personal connection to it and identified primarily with Israel.[4] These individual accounts illustrate different relationships to ancestral origins within the same study.[4]

Katz described a proposed effort by people in the Indian tourism industry and Cochin Jews in Israel to place Kerala on young Israeli travelers’ itineraries.[2] He presented the idea as a potential “roots journey,” linking Jewish history in India with visitors’ sense of Jewish identity.[2] This proposal differed from his description of the main backpacker circuit at the time, which concentrated in northern India, the Himalayas, and Goa.[2]

The cultural significance of Israeli travel thus includes both encounters with Indian society and opportunities to consider Jewish belonging outside Israel.[2][8] Religious hospitality, secular Jewish programming, and visits connected with Indian Jewish ancestry offer distinct settings for that exploration.[4][8] At the diplomatic level, tourism has also been valued as a practical way for Indians and Israelis to gain familiarity with each other’s lives and cultures.[1]

Soul Talk began as an initiative by combat veteran Ben Goodriche to help Israeli soldiers discuss and process their experiences soon after completing service.[9] In a 2017 account, Goodriche described a pilot in Dharamshala and two months spent holding weekly group discussions with Israeli soldiers at a guesthouse.[9] He intended to connect participants with therapeutic resources in Israel.[9] The same account cited 2013 research estimating up to 40,000 Israeli backpackers overseas annually, 70 percent aged 20–24, alongside approximately 75,000 people finishing military duty each year; those figures concerned overseas backpacking generally, not India alone.[9]

In 2025, social workers Hezi Shochat and Tamar Friedman operated Hamakom, meaning “The Place,” in northern India for travelers facing emotional challenges related to the war.[10] The space moved seasonally in coordination with travelers’ movements and offered resilience workshops, music and movement therapy, and individual conversations.[10] Shochat described its purpose as immediate support and referral to longer-term care rather than administering treatment on site.[10]

Hamakom’s organizers said more than 3,000 travelers had received support or assistance since its establishment.[10] Shochat also reported a 500 percent increase in rescues of young people from the East since October 7, although the account supplied no independently detailed count supporting that percentage.[10] The initiative worked with Sheba Medical Center’s Trauma Unit, NATAL, and Magnus Search and Rescue.[10]

Environmental emergencies have also required coordinated assistance.[19][20] In 2012, flash floods and mudslides stranded eight Israeli tourists in a Spiti Valley village after cutting off the road.[19] Two needing medical attention were airlifted first, with the remaining six evacuated the following day through an effort involving Israeli authorities and the local Indian government.[19] The group had rationed 100 grams of rice per person daily and suffered dehydration, malnourishment, and altitude-related breathing difficulties.[19] In July 2023, heavy rain, flooding, and landslides disrupted roads and communications around Manali, Kasol, and the Parvati Valley; Israel’s Foreign Ministry said it had lost contact with 60 Israelis, mainly because weather affected reception and communication lines, and was working to restore contact.[20]

In 1991, shortly after P. V. Narasimha Rao assumed office, a group of Israeli tourists was kidnapped in Jammu and Kashmir.[21] A senior Israeli diplomat traveled to India to coordinate their release and met senior Indian officials.[21] The account does not specify the number kidnapped, identify the kidnappers, or describe the eventual outcome.[21]

A December 13, 2006, Israeli travel advisory warned of a specific threat in Goa during the late-December visitor season.[14] Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Authority recommended that citizens avoid places popular with Westerners and Israelis for the following weeks.[14] Separately, Riyazuddin Nasir claimed that he had discussed with Lashkar-i-Tayyiba operational commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi a plan to target American and Israeli tourists in Goa during the Christmas–New Year period in 2007.[22] Police arrested Nasir while he was preparing attacks; the reported discussion remained an account attributed to Nasir.[22]

During the Mumbai attacks of November 26–28, 2008, assailants entered Nariman House and killed six Jewish hostages.[11][23] Four were Israeli citizens: Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, 29; his wife Rivka, 28, who was six months pregnant; Bentzion Kruman, 26; and Yoheved Orpaz, 62.[23] The other two hostages were American and Mexican citizens.[23] At a subsequent memorial service, the Holtzbergs’ two-year-old son Moshe cried out “Ima” and “Dada”—Hebrew for “mother” and “father”—during prayers for Mumbai’s Jewish community.[17]

On February 13, 2012, an Israeli diplomatic vehicle was bombed in New Delhi, injuring personnel.[24] U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton condemned the bombing that day, without naming the injured or specifying their number.[24] Together, the incidents affected tourists and a Jewish hospitality center as well as diplomatic personnel.[21][23] The 2012 bombing specifically targeted a diplomatic vehicle.[24]

Criticism of concentrated Israeli tourism has concerned conduct, cultural misunderstandings, drug use, and the effects of tourist-oriented businesses, alongside recognition that Israeli visitors support local tourism income.[5] Katz reported in 2005 that some local perceptions included low spending, bargaining, clannishness, and arrogance, while also noting awareness of compulsory military service and the tense circumstances from which visitors came; his observations were not a representative survey.[2] A critical 2007 commentary described a noisy group on a train toward Delhi and reported an Israeli embassy appeal for tourists to behave responsibly, but the episode did not establish how Israeli travelers generally behaved.[25]

A 2024 opinion article used the labels “mini Israel” for Kasol and “Tel Aviv of the hills” for Dharamkot, arguing that Israelis’ departure to resume IDF service after the outbreak of the Gaza war reduced the hosted community and affected local businesses and cultural activities.[26] In March 2026, activists Srishti Khanna and Prashant Pundir criticized the Hummus Trail in videos linking post-service travel with the war in Gaza.[5] The videos reportedly received about 2.6 million views, and the activists reported harassment, threats, doxxing, and employment consequences; these accounts do not establish a broader Indian public consensus.[5]

Responsibility for the 2012 diplomatic-vehicle bombing also requires distinction between assessment and established findings: Senator Ben Cardin argued that Iran or its surrogates were involved in attacks on Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia, but acknowledged relying on press reports.[27] His July 2012 statement did not itself establish responsibility for the India attack.[27]