Though this may feel like an old wives’ tale, the physical evidence from Konkan points towards a strong Jewish settlement in the coastal villages. Navgaon, one of the villages in Raigad district boasts of the oldest Bene Israeli cemetery in India probably dating back to the shipwreck, according to the oral legends.

According to Kehimkar and also others after him, the survivors lost everything in the shipwreck and as a consequence were reduced to a miserable state. Desperate for support and livelihood, the community took up the profession of oil pressing and thus came to be known as Shanivar Telis, which means Saturday oil pressers. They were referred to as Shanivar Telis since they observed Saturday (Shabbat) as their holy day and abstained from working on that day.

According to Rachel Gadkar, a teacher, author and editor of a Jewish Marathi magazine, in her Marathi book ‘Bharatvasi Bene Israeli’, the Jews who came to India could have already known the technique of oil pressing since it would have been in practice from where they came. Another theory suggests that the Jews took up oil pressing to fit in to the already existing caste system of Hindus. According to this view, this was the best option for the community because they were not allowed to be on par with the upper castes but were also not associated with lower caste. This meant that would have to be part of the middle Vaishya or trader class. But all of these are only theories and there is no concrete evidence that proves any of it.