AH Challenge: Significant Jewish Presence in Indian Subcontinent

And by that, I mean there must be an area at least the size of Kerala where the plurality of the population is Jewish. That can be the result of colonisation ("Ship the bleedin' Jews over there to subdue the natives for us") or of Alternate Zionism Tee Emm ("Egad, this hidden verse in the Torah says that Canaan was actually in Delhi! How did we not notice this?", etc.) or of any more imaginative process that strikes you.

Extra points if the POD is in the last 500 years, and super-mega points if you can formulate an Ancient Hebrew Empire that has trading colonies in India.
 
One early-POD option: the Seleucids tried to Hellenize the Jews- hence the Hanukkah story, among other things. IOTL, the Jews won the resulting war (revolt of the Maccabees) resulting in the foundation of the Hasmonean kingdom. If the Seleucids under Antiochus IV Epiphanes had won, perhaps they would have exiled the Jews- as the Romans did later on IOTL after the Bar-Kochva revolt. They may well have decided to send them to the furthest corner of their empire from Jerusalem- in other words, India.
 
Maybe we could do something with Himyarite Jews fleeing to or otherwise ending up in India?

I mean, there was plenty of contact between southern Arabia and India, and if we throw in a little Himyar-wank, then it shouldn't be too hard to get Himyarite trading posts in India.

Then make sure that Ethiopia still invades and conquers Himyar, and that some charismatic Himyarite prince escapes to one of the trading posts in India along with a number of his followers.

And then make sure that he somehow succeeds in maintaining his independance and carving out a Jewish state somewhere on the western coast of the subcontinent.

And all we need to do at that point is making sure that this state survives, and that a fairly large number of Jews settles here (maybe the Persians fail to drive out the Ethiopians ITTL, so more South Arabian Jews end up fleeing their homeland?).
 
Philip had a series of maps in Map Thread III that had the Jewish Himyar kingdom survive and carve out a substantial empire around the Indian Ocean (reaching OTL Malaysia if I recall correctly). The maps had the Himyar with territory either in Kerala or around OTL Bombay (I forget exactly where).

Perhaps a scenario like that?
 

ninebucks

Banned
There were plenty of Jews in India, with their presence dating back to at least the destruction of the Temple.

The real challenge is how do you get all the Jews to accumulate in one area strongly enough to outnumber the Hindus.
 
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