The first thing you notice about Isaac Ezekiel Malekar is his smile which is as eternal as smiles go. And then what was that about rabbis being bewhiskered, white-haired, wrinkled? You look at the face of the fair, short man in front of you and you can't put a finger on his age. He mischievously asks you to make a wild guess or two. He is relaxed, his eyes half-cunning, half-cynical but magnetically Jewish. "You are between 45 and 50." His face crinkles up in child-like laughter. "I am 59, young man."

SUCCESSION QUESTION: Malekar (left) with Shulamith at Judah Hyam

Okay, so he is past the age when government servants are superannuated. And that is the reason why his story is important. Malekar, rabbi and secretary of Judah Hyam, the only synagogue in Delhi, is talking of retirement. For all his youthful looks and enthusiasm, Malekar knows he is no Methuselah. He will have to stop one day and relinquish charge of the Jewish temple at 2 Humayun Road to somebody else.

That is why Delhi's rabbi wants to talk about his heir. "My son is not interested," he says. "So the responsibility is on my daughter's shoulders." His son studies in Class X, his daughter in college. "Shulamith, please come here," he calls for her. "Shulamith means gift of God," he adds, as the shy, demure, 18-year-old student of political science at Delhi's Kamala Nehru College, blushing at her father's explanation of her name, walks into the synagogue where you sit listening attentively to the intoning voice and chirping birds outside.

Then you realise Shulamith is the real news. For, by convention Jews in India don't name women as rabbis. It is a piece of news that leaves you musing, as it does the young woman on whom the custom-defying prospect rests. There is silence until Malekar, always alive to the situation, says grandly, "Now the floor is yours." The obvious question first: "Shulamith, are you ready to challenge tradition and step into your father's shoes?" "Yes, I am. I am going to do it since my younger brother Noel is not keen about it at all," she answers.

Malekar breaks in to say, "They wrote in a Jewish magazine that there was a Brahmin in the Malekar family. They were referring to Noel." He goes on, "Forget all that. My worry is different. We are a microscopic minority in India. In Delhi there are only 50 Jews. I can't hold the Saturday morning Sabbath prayers in true style because we invariably fall short of the minyan (quorum) required to hold it. We need the presence of at least 10 men to take the Torah out and recite and perform the prayers. It is the most important of our prayers."

"There is a solution," interjects Shulamith with some passion. Within 15 minutes of the meeting she has shed all her shyness. "The Torah insists on a quorum, okay, but not of 10 men-it says 10 people. Women are people too." Malekar smiles as though he expected it and appreciates his daughter's interpretation. Not surprising, of course, since Shulamith can read in Hebrew and has often led the Sabbath prayers.

"Don't you expect opposition to these reforms which you want to bring into effect so that you can hold the Sabbath prayers?" you ask Shulamith. "Yes, and I am ready to face that." There is the strength of conviction in her assertion. There is fire in her eyes.

Malekar takes over the conversation again, and when he speaks there is a feeling of timelessness-an antediluvian aura descends on the half-century-old Jewish temple. He has spent 24 years here. "There are women rabbis in the US, the UK, Canada and even Israel. There should be no gender bias in India also," he says, and turns to his daughter. He wants her to speak now. "For the special prayers to continue here and a culture to survive, things must change. After all, women and men are equal before God," says Shulamith.

Shulamith knows she faces an uphill task. Malekar, born in the Konkan region and a descendant of the Bene Jews who came to India 2,000 years ago, knows it all too well. There is an instinct for survival in him which is partly reflected in the daughter. Maybe it is that instinct that makes him say, "Israel is in my heart, India is in my blood." It's just that his blood is seeking change to ensure his heart doesn't.

Will he fight for his daughter and reforms? "It is for the feminists here to take up such issues," he says, with another eternal smile. Is that the famed Jewish cunning on show or simply a modern approach to a problem of traditions? Delhi's Jewish community will soon know.