Activities

Meetings - Past and Future

We hold a series of events, many of them featuring high-profile speakers from the Indian and Jewish communities who typically work in diplomacy, business or politics.

Our events are typically attended by Indian and Jewish professionals working in business, education, welfare, law, security matters, and between leading women in the respective communities.

The goal of the events is to bring people together from the respective communities in order to forge friendships and links based on a shared outlook and common values.

Past Events

Virtual events - We started a series of “Bagels and Samosas” online events in July 2020. Speakers have been:

  • Lord Dolar Popat (community leader and businessman)

  • Naomi Gryn (writer and author)

  • Mark Sofer (formerly Israel’s Ambassador to India)

  • Lord Daniel Finkelstein (journalist for The Times, author and Peer)

  • Sathnam Sanghera (journalist for The Times)

Physical events include:

  • 2023 celebrating excellence in journalism at the 25th anniversary of BIJA (delayed due to Covid)

  • 2022 Community action - planting of trees in commemoration of the Queens Jubilee.

  • 2022 celebrating hidden heroes from both communities at the Royal Air Force Museum Hendon

  • 2020 – Shalom Bombay film with Alex Hayim.

  • 2018 – Reception at Marble Arch Synagogue with Chief Rabbi and Lord Jitesh Gadhia speaking.

  • 2017 – Summer reception with guest speakers H.E. Y. K. Sinha, Indian High Commissioner to the UK and H.E. Mark Regev, Israel’s Ambassador to the UK.

  • 2016 - Summer reception hosted by Investec.

  • 2014 – Reception with H.E. Mr Ranjan Mathai, Indian High Commissioner to the UK and Mr Eitan Na’eh, Israeli Deputy Ambassador to the UK.

  • 2013 – Reception with Professor Satvinder Juss and Henry Grunwald OBE QC.

  • 2012 – Event on business with Professor Nathu Puri and Sir Mick Davis.

Other events in recent years have featured:

    • Rt Hon Sir Eric Pickles MP (Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government), Rt Hon David Blunkett MP (Home Secretary) and the BBC’s former Bureau Chief, Sir Mark Tully.

    • A reception for Justice Rama Jois, former Chief Justice of Haryana, in London and Manchester.

    • A production of the play “Routes” followed by a reception at the Nehru Centre.

    • A seminar for leading Indian and Jewish women at the Sangam Centre.

    • A showing of the film “Shalom Bombay” at the Nehru Centre.

As then Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks said at a reception in March 2005:

“We have so many things in common. We’ve been around an awful long time. We both gave birth to various daughter religions. More recently we’ve been through some difficult times, India since 1947, Israel since 1948. We both honour our past while living in the present.

We both seek to honour our traditions while contributing as members of British society. We both cherish our communities, our families and our children. We both think we have something more special than the individualism and consumerism of contemporary culture.

We have much in common. We also have many things that are different between us. And what we have in common, unites us, and what we have different enriches us. I often say “if we had nothing in common, we couldn’t communicate. If we had everything in common, we would have nothing to say.” That is why the balance between the difference and commonality is so very important.”