• A day after the Maldivian government decided to ban Israeli passport holders from entering the country amidst the deadly war in Gaza, the Embassy of Israel recommended its citizens to explore some of the most scenic beaches in India.

• In a bilingual post — English and Hindi — it also shared four images of pristine beaches at Lakshadweep, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Goa and Kerala.

• Maldives receives more than one million tourists each year. About 10,966 Israeli tourists visited the Maldives in 2023, while 15,748 Israelis travelled to the country in 2023.

• Israel does not have diplomatic ties with Maldives after they were suspended in 1974.

• India attracts many Jewish tourists who visit historical sites like the Paradesi Synagogue in Kochi, the Magen David Synagogue in Mumbai, and the Bene Israel Cemetery in Pune. 

Key points: 

• Kerala, which once had a notable Jewish population and attracts many Israeli tourists (with 23,592 visiting in 2019), has seen a slow recovery in foreign tourist arrivals post-pandemic. This is largely due to global geopolitical tensions and economic slowdowns.

• In 2019, Kerala participated in the International Mediterranean Tourism Market in Tel Aviv for the first time and released a coffee-table book about the journey of Jews who settled in Kochi before many later moved to Israel.

• Kochi, formerly Cochin, was one of the oldest Jewish settlements on Asian soil, which had a larger Jewish community than New York and surpassed it not only numerically, but also culturally.

• The Cochin Jewish community in 1792 had about 2,000 Jews and nine synagogues of considerable antiquity while New York had only 72 Jewish families and only one synagogue, experts said.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants.)