The Israeli business traveller too is signing up for orientation courses. The India-Israel Chamber of Commerce acquaints Israelis with mannerisms and differential nuances in nomenclature (MOUs, for instance) they could encounter in India.

Harel Cohen, CEO of FTK Technologies, points to the business acumen needed to solve other differences. His company is ready to launch Lekhika 2007, a software application that works around the difficulty of using standard keyboards for speakers of most Indian languages. He says the application, to be made available in association with the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing in India, germinated in conversations with professors at IIT, Madras.

Yet another aspect of India to be found in Israel reflects the changing demography of the work force in this country. It is estimated that 6,000 Indian nationals have work permits for employment as caregivers to children and the elderly, a service often financed by the state.

Their numbers pale against the vast influx of caregivers from the Philippines and Sri Lanka. By way of contrast, there are 100,000 agricultural labourers from Thailand. There is normally a limit of five years for such stay in Israel.

These growing numbers point to two things: the expanding need for workers due to rapid economic growth and also the decreasing employment of people from the Palestinian territories because of the separation or security barrier.

Curiously, this week the right-of-centre Jerusalem Post used the example of the Northeast’s Bnei Menashe tribe to criticise a rigorous change in procedure for giving entry visas to groups for mass conversions. (There are currently 70,000 Israeli citizens of Indian origin, most of them Bene Israelis or Cochin Jews, but the Jewish status of the Bnei Menashe is still contested.)

... contd.