In the early stages of the now thriving Bollywood, it was deemed unseemly for Hindu and Muslim actresses to appear on celluloid. As a result, they sometimes hired bulky men (with trademark Indian moustaches) to dress up in saris and bangles and to prance around playing the woman’s role. As the industry continued to grow one theater producer thought of the idea to use female Jewish Indian dancers as Hindu heroines since these women were allowed onstage by their families. Since then Indian Jewish actresses played an important part in golden age of Bollywood, see this story.
This year, Australian filmmaker, Danny Ben-Moshe pieced a documentary together, Shalom Bollywood, in attribution towards these stars. It started when he received an obituary of Nadira, the last of the great Jewish Bollywood actresses to die. Born in Baghdad in 1932 , Nadira’s real name was Florence Ezekiel. She acted in Indian blockbusters for 40 years, from Shree 420 in 1955, to Pakeezah in 1971 to Julie in 1975. Her last movie was the Shah Rukh Khan starrer set in Goa, Josh (Frenzy) where she played Mrs. Louise. After researching more into Nadira, Ben-Moshe realized that she was just the tip of the iceberg. The spark grew to a conflagration as he sought to uncover Jewish actors in India. Many of them took on pseudonyms; this was not to conceal their religous identity, but to have more mainstream names for Indian audiences. See more from the Washington Post.
This film brought about more positive diplomatic relations between Israel and India. Now more citizens are visiting each others’ country. The two countries have made great progress considering that the they just recently celebrated their 20th anniversary of the establishment of their diplomatic relations.
All in all, what started out as simple curiosity grew to become a documentary appreciating the Indian Jewish women’s services and highlighting the history of Jewish communities in India. Ben-Moshe was not trying to bring world peace, it simply “[had] a great message worth sharing. Plus, it’s just great fun.”
Last updated: December 26th, 2025
