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Adath Israel to Host Event on
Antisemitism, Hinduphobia
Sasha Rogelberg | Staff Writer
M any Jews may be familiar
with an antisemitic image
that gained notoriety during
the Holocaust: an old bearded man
with a long, hooked nose wearing a
kippah. But less familiar to Jewish people is
a similar image which, instead of the
greedy merchant donning a kippah,
is wearing a turban. The image, which
has circulated across social media, is
meant to disparage Hindus.

Discrimination against Jews and
Hindus extends far beyond the shared
drawing but has seldom been talked
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6 MARCH 23, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
about by the two communities. Over
the past decade, Jewish and Hindu
leaders have sought to change that.

Adath Israel on the Main Line will
host Jewish and Israel advocacy
nonprofit StandWithUs and the Hindu
American Foundation for “Shine a Light
on Antisemitism and Hinduphobia:
What Jews and Hindus Can Learn
from Each Other” on March 23 at 7
p.m. StandWithUs National Director of
Special Projects Peggy Shapiro and
HAF Executive Director Suhag Shukla
will speak at the event.

“It’s an opportunity for two minority
groups that experience marginaliza-
tion to come together and talk about
how we can counteract it,” Adath Israel
Rabbi Andrew Markowitz said. “We’re
definitely stronger together when we
share narratives and have the oppor-
tunity to share experiences and reach
out beyond the boundaries of our
established communities.”
“Shine a Light on Antisemitism and
Hinduphobia” will teach the similarities
between the two religious traditions,
as well as the similar challenges Jews
and Hindus face.

“We’re the two ancient civilizations
left, and we’re going to have to stand
together to make sure that we don’t
become a footnote in history like many
other civilizations did,” HAF co-founder
Mihir Meghani said.

Hindus make up about 1% of the
population in Philadelphia, according
to the Pew Research Center. Jews
make up about 3%.

Like American Jews, Hindus in
America — who number about 3.2
million — have also seen an increase
in discrimination and hate crimes,
Meghani said. In August, a man in
Fremont, California, was charged with
a hate crime for shouting anti-Hindu
abuse at restaurant patron Krishnan
Jayaraman, including a jibe about
bathing in cow urine, according to an
ABC7 News report.

Anti-Hindu hate often stems from
reducing the culture and religion to
three components: “cows, caste and
karma,” Shukla said.

“Cows kind of [represent] the exotifi-
cation, or exoticization of practices and
just kind of simplifying them, where
there’s a Hindu tradition of venerating
all life,” Shukla said.

Another common stereotype about
Hinduism relates to karma and caste,
and the misunderstanding of Hindu
beliefs of reincarnation.

“Everything gets rooted in this idea
that Hinduism teaches that we come
back, but people don’t have an equal
inherent worth,” Shukla explained.

“One of the foundational teachings of
Hinduism is that all of existence — all
beings, all animals, all people, all trees,
everything that we have — is inher-
ently divine and that, therefore, we
have a responsibility to treat everyone
with mutual respect and dignity.”
Misunderstandings about Hinduism
originate in how it has been taught to
non-Hindu audiences, Shukla said.

British forces colonized and occupied
India from 1757 to 1947, and the narra-
tives of Hindu people as having
regressive or hierarchical beliefs and
traditions stem from colonial biases.

“Those colonial narratives were also
deeply informed by Christian — mostly
Protestant and Catholic — discom-
fort with the Hindu tradition, and also
their own motivations of conversion,”
Shukla said.

Early colonial beliefs about Hindus
were also a driving force in antisemitic
rhetoric during Nazi rule in Europe,
a further tie between Judaism and
Hinduism. In the late 1800s, Europeans created
the Aryan Invasion Theory. Upon
first interacting with Hindu society,
Europeans witnessed advancements
in science and math and assumed
that this sophisticated society resulted
from earlier European colonization.

They believed that European settlers
had given Hindus knowledge and



Courtesy of StandWithUs
Peggy Shapiro
Suhag Shukla
technology to create a thriving society,
rather than Hindus simply creating it
themselves. As proof of their beliefs, Shukla
explained, they looked to Hindu texts
and came across the word “Arya,”
which means “noble.” Europeans inter-
preted “Arya” as a separate, superior
race of people who guided Hindus,
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rather than interpret it the way Hindus
did, as simply a title or honorifi c.

In the 1930s, Adolf Hitler used similar
rhetoric to ascribe superiority to the
“Aryan race” of Germans.

Jews and Hindus can also fi nd
similar touchstones in their respective
cultures: Both have holidays celebrat-
ing light (Chanukah and Diwali), with
themes of light over darkness prevail-
ing, as well as diasporic communities
supporting their respective countries
of Israel and India, both of which are
struggling young democracies.

Shapiro has spent the last decade
learning about these similarities and
more and formed a partnership with
HAF nine years ago to travel around the
country and educate Jewish and Hindu
audiences about their similarities. The
March 23 event will be the fi rst in-per-
son presentation of “Shine a Light on
Antisemitism and Hinduphobia.”
“We thought we should educate
people,” Shapiro said. “They should
see that we have a lot in common.” ■
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