I recently worked on a project with Ms Jael Silliman on the last Jews of Calcutta. The Baghdadi Jewish community came to India during the British Raj. Over the years, many of them have emigrated to different parts of the world.

Today, in Calcutta, there are barely thirty members left. They have left their traces in the history of the city, in the sights and sounds that one may see, walking down the crooked streets of Calcutta. The project involved a number of people who played key roles in the completion of it. The project fellows at the School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University (SCTR), spent many months on digitising old photographs, creating films etc. I took these images and using Omeka, created a website where these could be archived. The project also received institutional support from Trinity College Dublin, National University of Ireland Maynooth and the SCTR. My supervisor, Dr Schreibman, played a crucial role in coordinating the activities in the project. The project can be found here.

The following are some of the articles written about the community and the project since its launch.

TIME: “Meet the Last Jews of Calcutta”

The New York Times Blog: “The Last Jews of Kolkata”

BBC: “The last Jews of Calcutta”

The Times of India: “Jews leave a digital footprint on Kolkata”

The Telegraph: “Jewish past, digital present”

Outlook India: “Kolkata’s Jewish Connect Archived Digitally”

Business Standard: “The disappearing Jewish community of Kolkata”