3,000 Years of Jewish India in 14 Days

06-26-2014

 

Explore the Best of Mumbai and Kerala and Meet Jewish Communities

 

Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, June 26, 2014—Imagine a pastel pink synagogue with hot pink trim.  This is only one of the surprises travelers will uncover on Burkat Global’s 3,000 Years of Jewish India tour.  In Southern India you’ll walk in the footsteps of the Jews who arrived as spice traders 3,000 years ago and those who settled there.2,000 years ago after the destruction of the second temple.

 

The small-group, land-only tour costs $7,995 per person, double occupancy, and includes almost everything: accommodation in luxury hotels, all intra-India transportation and transfers, daily breakfast, 21 lunches and dinners, bottled water,  sightseeing with entrance fees, the services of expert Indian Jewish guides, taxes and gratuities.  In addition,  Dr. Shalva Weil of The Hebrew University, world’s leading expert on Jewish India, will be the scholar in residence, traveling with and teaching the group. There is one departure: January 26, 2015.  International air fare is not included.   

 

Along the way there are delicious meals of Indian food—not hot unless you like it hot—and special Jewish Indian Shabbat dinners.  (Note that tour meals are not kosher, but are  veg and fish.)   Hotels, all green award winners, include the legendary 5-star Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai, Kerala’s lakeside Coconut Lagoon Resort, which Condé Nast Traveler has called one of the world’s best getaways, and the Brunton Boatyard, which combines 19^th-century atmosphere with 21^st-century luxury on an historic stretch of Cochin’s celebrated harbor.

 

The journey begins in Mumbai (aka Bombay), India’s  most sophisticated city, where you’ll shop in ancient bazaars and visit colonial relics.  You’ll also tour breathtaking synagogues and historic sites,  take a private boat across Mumbai harbor  to visit age-old synagogues and oil pressers on the Konkan Coast, and take another private boat to Elephanta Island to explore  early Hindu caves. 

 

A short flight takes the group to Cochin (aka Kochi) and the backwaters of Kerala, “the Venice of the East,”  for Ayurveda massage, yoga, or just relaxing. You’ll enjoy a Kathakali performance and traditional Kerala home-style meals.   There’s also a lazy afternoon on board a luxury houseboat, dining and taking pictures of villagers fishing, palm-fringed paddy fields and brightly-painted houses and churches.                                                

 

In the city of Cochin you’ll have a cooking lesson and visit  a “secret” synagogue;  tour ancient Jew Town’s spice markets, antiques shops, Jewish cemetery and India’s oldest synagogue; view contemporary art on a special tour of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale; and see the Dutch Palace, Vasco da Gama’s church and more. In Muziris, where Jewish traders settled even before Cochin, you can work with archaeologists digging up the past, and swim in the Arabian Sea.  You’ll see recently-restored synagogues and an ancient Jewish cemetery in a town where Jews, Hindus, Muslims and Christians  have lived peacefully  for millennia.

 

For more information about the 3,000 Years of Jewish India tour, visit www.burkatglobal.com.  For reservations, call Iris Burkat at 1-914-231-9023.  The tour is limited to 20 persons.

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