Dayan Samson Penkar stands at the doorway to Beth Ha Elohim, the 130 year-old synagogue in Pen, a village two hours southeast of Bombay. Bene Israel historians tell that when seven, exiled Jewish couples first shipwrecked on the Konkan Coast nearly 2000 years ago, they believed they would not stay long. As they scattered to villages, they took their father’s (or, if married women, their husband’s) names as second names (e.g., in Dayan’s case, Samson). They assigned surnames (e.g, Penkar) with the name of their village (in this case, Pen) and the suffix “-kar,” meaning in the local language, "a sojourner." Centuries later, nearly all of the Bene Israel – like most of their non-Jewish, Maharashtrian neighbors, have surnames ending in ‘-kar.’ Today, fewer than 10 Bene Israel families live in Pen, most with the last name “Penkar.”

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