INDIAN JEW GETS AJ COMMITTEE FELLOWSHIP

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INDIAN JEW GETS AJCOMMITTEE FELLOWSHIP

 

India's 6,500-member Jewish community may be shrinking, but at least one

Indian

Jew living in Washington, D.C., plans to go back.

 

Nissim Benjamin Reuben is attending business school at American University

and

working as a fellow in the American Jewish Committee's Washington office on

projects to forge closer links between the Indian and Jewish communities in

the

States.

 

The fellowship came about when Reuben, 32, and AJCommittee Washington area

director David Bernstein met in August in Australia. Both were participating

in

the Nahum Goldmann Fellowship program for young Jewish leaders.

 

One of Reuben's primary responsibilities with the Jewish group will be to

coordinate meetings between local Indian business leaders and entrepreneurs

--

many of whom are in the high-tech field -- and their counterparts in the

D.C.-area Jewish community. He also will be promoting social and cultural

relations between the two communities.

 

Reuben brings ample experience working in both economics and Jewish-Indian

relations to his AJCommittee work. In India, he worked in the Israeli

consulate

office and as a trade promotion specialist at the British High Commission in

Bombay.

 

He notes that Israel is the second largest supplier of military equipment to

India, and the two countries have a vibrant diamond trade as well.

 

Relations between Indian Jews and the rest of the country are also "very

friendly," he said.

 

"I have never come across any anti-Semitism" in India, he said.

 

Prior to the summer fellowship program, Reuben had thought about moving to

the

United States and working in the business world. But after his experience in

Australia, he has decided that after finishing school he will return to

India

and help to create future Jewish community leaders there.

 

Reuben plans to keep busy while in D.C., though. In addition to his studies

and

his work at the AJCommittee, he is offering to tutor anyone who needs help

with

Hebrew. In addition to Hebrew, Reuben speaks English, Hindi and two other

local

Indian languages. -- Eric Fingerhut

 

 

 

 

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