India’s Narendra Modi Trumpets Israel Ties After Historic Visit
Image by Getty Images
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India ended a historic three-day visit to Israel by asserting that the “successful visit will add more energy to India-Israel relations.”
Modi and his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, spent most of the trip together, during which the two governments signed several economic and agricultural agreements. The two leaders sparked an internet firestorm with photos of them walking barefoot in the Mediterranean Sea near Haifa, where they were given a demonstration of a mobile desalinization unit.
Also in Haifa, they visited the British military cemetery in which Indian soldiers from World War I are buried. The leaders laid flowers on the soldiers’ memorial and unveiled a plaque in memory of the Indian soldiers who fell in the battle to liberate Haifa.
On Wednesday night, Modi attended a special event in Tel Aviv that gathered about 10,000 Indians living in Israel. The program included several Bollywood dance performances and a concert.
There are about 80,000 Jews of Indian origin living in Israel, as well as thousands of students and workers.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
