FINDING SYNAGOGUE MATTANCHERRY
(AND OTHER KERALA SYNAGOGUES)
(Postings from Facebook groups
"Indian Jews and The People That Love Them"
and "Bene Israel Jews")
(Reproduced from COCHINSYN)
(MISSION ACCOMPLISHED - THANKS TO HELP FROM
Bala Menon, Varun Viswam, Shaina Shrivastava, & BOOTS ON THE GROUND : Alok Nayak, India)
INFERENCE:
Searching for : Kadavumbagam Synagogue, Mattancherry
Searching for : Kadavumbagam Synagogue, Mattancherry
I
had heard many years ago that somebody in Israel was trying to
transport all the contents of the Cochin synagogues via Germany to
recreate these synagogues in another location as they were really going
to waste after all the Jews left.
The empty shell of the synagogue may tell this story if this actually happened. I hope it did for our sake, because I would hate for the artifacts and books to have been trashed by the non-Jews.
The empty shell of the synagogue may tell this story if this actually happened. I hope it did for our sake, because I would hate for the artifacts and books to have been trashed by the non-Jews.
At that time Kerala State Government came forward to block some of the synagogues transfers saying it will take it upon themselves to protect these synagogues as national heritage and hence they were taken into their care to cater to their thriving Tourist industry.
- Sammy Benjmain
-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Sammy Benjamin <sammybenjamin@yahoo.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2013 8:53 PM
Subject: IMPORTANT - More Information - Mattancherry Kerala Synagogue
John, Shaina,
I believe we Bene Israel need to change our strategy on how we can preserve the heritage of our ancestors. We need to learn to adapt and not hang on to where our ancestors were geographically located down to the building structure. We do have to protect the artifacts, books, furniture to a greater extent and anything that is purely attached to Jewish Traditions. The rest is just concrete walls which I would not care about much.
We can reconstruct, rebuild and repopulate another place with all that we can preserve and duplicate that environment. No Bene Israel needs to be surrounded by Muslim dominated area which is always a threat to our community. Hence we need to strategically extract ourselves and re-establish what we had, in another place which is safe and thriving for our small community.
I think the Thane Bene Israel is one such community and I need to understand the advantages and disadvantages of doing what they did to apply it to what I am saying.
Your input and thoughts are always valuable to nurture my thinking.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I believe we Bene Israel need to change our strategy on how we can preserve the heritage of our ancestors. We need to learn to adapt and not hang on to where our ancestors were geographically located down to the building structure. We do have to protect the artifacts, books, furniture to a greater extent and anything that is purely attached to Jewish Traditions. The rest is just concrete walls which I would not care about much.
We can reconstruct, rebuild and repopulate another place with all that we can preserve and duplicate that environment. No Bene Israel needs to be surrounded by Muslim dominated area which is always a threat to our community. Hence we need to strategically extract ourselves and re-establish what we had, in another place which is safe and thriving for our small community.
I think the Thane Bene Israel is one such community and I need to understand the advantages and disadvantages of doing what they did to apply it to what I am saying.
Your input and thoughts are always valuable to nurture my thinking.
In
my search for the dilapidated Mattancherry Kerala Synagogue, I have
come across a wealth of information and restoration efforts by the
Kerala government which is documented on the internet. I have reproduced
it for myself so that it remains with me and can never be lost even if
that site goes down.
I am presenting it EARLY TO YOU for your perusal.
If you like to read, then this is like hitting a gold mine of
information on Kerala Synagogues. I now even know where the synagogue we
are looking for is by using Google Earth program.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Sammy Benjamin <sammybenjamin@yahoo.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2013 12:42 PM
Subject: Re: IMPORTANT - More Information - Mattancherry Kerala Synagogue
Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2013 12:42 PM
Subject: Re: IMPORTANT - More Information - Mattancherry Kerala Synagogue
Shaina,
It looks like only BARE walls and floors. Nothing is left in it that is of traditional Jewish value. The building is falling apart and will have to be reconstructed if it has to become habitable.
I stick to my original assessment that somebody came and took the items of value to another place and deserted the building. I am not in favor of putting in effort to rescue this facility. Thanks much for all your efforts to find the truth.
We might need your continued help in case there are other synagogues that are still in decent shape which can be rescued in that area.
I have presented my closing comments to the Bene Israel community.
Regards,
Sammy,
It looks like only BARE walls and floors. Nothing is left in it that is of traditional Jewish value. The building is falling apart and will have to be reconstructed if it has to become habitable.
I stick to my original assessment that somebody came and took the items of value to another place and deserted the building. I am not in favor of putting in effort to rescue this facility. Thanks much for all your efforts to find the truth.
We might need your continued help in case there are other synagogues that are still in decent shape which can be rescued in that area.
I have presented my closing comments to the Bene Israel community.
Regards,
Sammy,
-------------------------------------------------------------
Kadavumbagam Synagogue, Mattancherry
By Jay A. Waronker
By Jay A. Waronker
For centuries, Kochi’s Mattancherry was a vibrant center for Jewish life
with three synagogues lining Synagogue Lane in Jew Town alongside
Jewish schools, homes, and places of businesses. Hundreds of Jews
lived, worked, prayed, were educated, played, socialized, and celebrated
life-cycle and holiday events here, representing one of India’s and the
world’s famous centers of Jewish existence.
Although this small area of Kochi has never been exclusively Jewish as Muslims mixed with Hindus, Christians, and those of other persuasions have lived here as well, it was a Jewish enclave by choice where its people existed side by side and interacted on a regular basis. These Jews themselves were never a homogenous community, but descendants of individuals of distinct cultural and social backgrounds who arrived in Kerala at different periods and from disparate places. Eventually they built three synagogues all located within a short walk.
Although this small area of Kochi has never been exclusively Jewish as Muslims mixed with Hindus, Christians, and those of other persuasions have lived here as well, it was a Jewish enclave by choice where its people existed side by side and interacted on a regular basis. These Jews themselves were never a homogenous community, but descendants of individuals of distinct cultural and social backgrounds who arrived in Kerala at different periods and from disparate places. Eventually they built three synagogues all located within a short walk.
In addition to the Paradesi Synagogue, two others houses of prayer once
co-existed in the heart of Jew Town: the now demolished Tekkumbagam
Synagogue almost immediately to the south of the Paradesi Synagogue on
the west side of the street, and the Kadavumbagam Synagogue. These
latter buildings served the local Malabari Jews for centuries, and both
closed in 1955 when their congregations immigrated en masse to
Israel.
The Kadavumbagam Synagogue is also located directly on Jew Street (or Synagogue Lane), less than a ten minute walk from the Paradesi Synagogue and just south of the main intersecting lane that leads east to the water front and jetty where the passenger ferry docks. Cross the intersection and soon look for the derelict building mid-block on the west (right) side of the street. It gets its name from its location; in Malayalam, kadavu means landing place and bagam means side.
The Kadavumbagam Synagogue is also located directly on Jew Street (or Synagogue Lane), less than a ten minute walk from the Paradesi Synagogue and just south of the main intersecting lane that leads east to the water front and jetty where the passenger ferry docks. Cross the intersection and soon look for the derelict building mid-block on the west (right) side of the street. It gets its name from its location; in Malayalam, kadavu means landing place and bagam means side.
(MAIN ARTICLE continued below after FB posts)
Bala Menon : September 12th, 2013
The
famed Kadavumbhagam Synagogue in Mattancherry, Kochi - located at the
south end of Synagogue Lane - has been turned into a cattle shed,
according to a report in the Hindu newspaper (September 14). It looks
terrible.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Kochi/mattancherrys-463yearold-synagogue-now-a-cattle-shed/article5125062.ece?css=print
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Kochi/mattancherrys-463yearold-synagogue-now-a-cattle-shed/article5125062.ece?css=print
Mattancherry’s 463-year-old synagogue now a cattle shed 
Moses Raymond Moses
INDIANS
RESPECT ALL RELIGION.PERHAPS HUMAN ERROR.WRITE TO RECTIFY MISTAKE.
RAYMOND MOSHE HAI BORN BOMBAY.INFORM.SOLOMON SOFER.WILLING TO HELP FINANCIALLY
Daniel David
Seriouslyit looks terrible it is in a very bad state do we have some local community members from cochin
here
Thank
you Bala Menon for bringing this to the attention of the Indian Jewish
community. We are hoping a benefactor will help rescue this is it can be
done.
Saul Aptekar
DO ACT NOW....
John Perry
Dear
Saul, thanks for bringing this to our notice. Could you please give the
full address of this ancient synagogue so that some of us who visit
India could go there, inquire with the owner and approach local
authorities etc. Regards.Daniel David we need to save this synguage any how
Sammy Benjamin Original post by by Bala Memon in Group "Indian Jews and the people that Love Them!:
My
comment: If Indian Jews sell their property to a non-jews for financial
needs, then the new owners can do what ever they want to their
acquisition. Not sure where these people are, who want to help in such
situations, at the time when the Jewish people and institutions are
hurting for desperate help. It is always difficult to do damage control
than to prevent the damage in the first place.
Saul Aptekar True sammy. This no longer belongs to jews so the owner can do what he wants to do...it seems a part of our history is lost.....
Shaina Srivastava Can you please provide the address. Thanks.
Sammy Benjamin But
if we Bene Israel had a joint funded society then we could have thought
of buying it back. Check comments from Moses Raymond in my above
remarks who mentioned he is willing to help financially.
When I asked in a post we Bene Israel should get UNITED, all I heard is SILENCE and it was DEAFENING
Noel Daniel
Dear
Saul it is very nice to bring to the notice of this Old synagouge, but ?
is r there any Jews left there or we just talking,Action speaks louder
than words or give it to HABAD CENTER atleast it will be JEWISH
otherwise the fate God knows like it happened in Pakistan Synagouge.
Noel Daniel
I
am a Synagouge lover not beacuse my ancestors The DIVEKARS built 3
syanagoues my mothers side UMERDEKARS built the first n last syanagoue
in Karachi Pakistan MR Herman Moses Umerdekar my maternal great grand
father,My father uncle Mr Daniel Bhijekar was the aritect of the great
Magen Abharam syanagoue in Ahemdabad Gujrat,The Bene Israel 200years
back or so thought that they will increase in population after certain
years but alas it did not happen,We for the past 30years +_ r still 5000
in numbers.
Noel Daniel
About comment of Sammy Benjamin
he is very right about the unity of Bene Israel not united like the
others 50 +years in Israel n not a single leader in Kenesset (Israeli
Parliment)see the Russian,Eytopians have 2 reprensetives.
Shaina Srivastava
Hello
Sammy - if you have an organized approach to buy the synagogue I am
willing to support you in what ever way I can. I don't live in India. We
can start raising funds to make it happen. However, someone in India
has to take the lead.
Sammy Benjamin Shaina,
Thank you for your encouraging comments. I too don't live in India but
would like to see that a Bene Israel united world committee be formed
where we can bring the issues that face the Bene Israel community. If I
can get the support of a few key people, like yourself, who are wiling
to help, then I can take the initiative to do so.
For
this matter let me find out from the original poster if he knows the
correct address of this location. In my opinion we cannot rescue each
and every property that has been sold off to non-Jews, but we can at
least try to maintain what is existing and let it not go to waste or be
abused by the people who desecrate our Jewish sites due to lack of
respect and education.
Sammy Benjamin Actually
Mr. Menon has described the approximate location of this synagogue:
Kadavumbhagam Synagogue in Mattancherry, Kochi - located at the south
end of Synagogue Lane
This could be it - still verifying ....
http://cochinsyn.com/page-paradesi.html
Sammy Benjamin We have the town and synagogue on google map. NOTE street names which are good clues - Synagogue Lane, Jew Town Road.
GOOGLE MAP LINK: http://tinyurl.com/pardesi-synagogue-closeup
Sammy Benjamin Look for 'A' in MAP for relative location in India
John Perry
Dear Saul, thanks for bringing this to our notice. Could you please give the full address of this ancient synagogue so that some of us who visit India could go there, inquire with the owner and approach local authorities etc. Regards.Daniel David we need to save this synguage any how
Sammy Benjamin Original post by by Bala Memon in Group "Indian Jews and the people that Love Them!:
My comment: If Indian Jews sell their property to a non-jews for financial needs, then the new owners can do what ever they want to their acquisition. Not sure where these people are, who want to help in such situations, at the time when the Jewish people and institutions are hurting for desperate help. It is always difficult to do damage control than to prevent the damage in the first place.
Shaina Srivastava Can you please provide the address. Thanks.
Sammy Benjamin But if we Bene Israel had a joint funded society then we could have thought of buying it back. Check comments from Moses Raymond in my above remarks who mentioned he is willing to help financially.
When I asked in a post we Bene Israel should get UNITED, all I heard is SILENCE and it was DEAFENING
Noel Daniel
Dear Saul it is very nice to bring to the notice of this Old synagouge, but ? is r there any Jews left there or we just talking,Action speaks louder than words or give it to HABAD CENTER atleast it will be JEWISH otherwise the fate God knows like it happened in Pakistan Synagouge.
Noel Daniel
I am a Synagouge lover not beacuse my ancestors The DIVEKARS built 3 syanagoues my mothers side UMERDEKARS built the first n last syanagoue in Karachi Pakistan MR Herman Moses Umerdekar my maternal great grand father,My father uncle Mr Daniel Bhijekar was the aritect of the great Magen Abharam syanagoue in Ahemdabad Gujrat,The Bene Israel 200years back or so thought that they will increase in population after certain years but alas it did not happen,We for the past 30years +_ r still 5000 in numbers.
Noel Daniel
About comment of Sammy Benjamin he is very right about the unity of Bene Israel not united like the others 50 +years in Israel n not a single leader in Kenesset (Israeli Parliment)see the Russian,Eytopians have 2 reprensetives.
Shaina Srivastava
Hello Sammy - if you have an organized approach to buy the synagogue I am willing to support you in what ever way I can. I don't live in India. We can start raising funds to make it happen. However, someone in India has to take the lead.
Sammy Benjamin Shaina, Thank you for your encouraging comments. I too don't live in India but would like to see that a Bene Israel united world committee be formed where we can bring the issues that face the Bene Israel community. If I can get the support of a few key people, like yourself, who are wiling to help, then I can take the initiative to do so.
For this matter let me find out from the original poster if he knows the correct address of this location. In my opinion we cannot rescue each and every property that has been sold off to non-Jews, but we can at least try to maintain what is existing and let it not go to waste or be abused by the people who desecrate our Jewish sites due to lack of respect and education.
This could be it - still verifying ....
http://cochinsyn.com/page-paradesi.html
Sammy Benjamin We have the town and synagogue on google map. NOTE street names which are good clues - Synagogue Lane, Jew Town Road.GOOGLE MAP LINK: http://tinyurl.com/pardesi-synagogue-closeup
Sammy Benjamin Look for 'A' in MAP for relative location in India
Sammy Benjamin I
am still not positive if this is the protected Pardesi Synagogue by
India Government of the one that is converted to cattle shed...... OK I
am clear now after reading carefully:
"Not many know, however, that a second synagogue older than the Paradesi synagogue still stands just a few metres from it. At the other end of Jew Street stands the Kadavumbhagom synagogue, a 463-year-old prayer hall of the Cochini Jews. "
We now know where it is. Now how to find out if there is anything left to salvage? Artifacts, Books, building etc.
"Not many know, however, that a second synagogue older than the Paradesi synagogue still stands just a few metres from it. At the other end of Jew Street stands the Kadavumbhagom synagogue, a 463-year-old prayer hall of the Cochini Jews. "
We now know where it is. Now how to find out if there is anything left to salvage? Artifacts, Books, building etc.
Sammy Benjamin ANY CONTACTS IN KOCHI KERALA?
Regards,
Sammy
-----------------------------------
Samuel Benjamin
SammyBenjamin@Gmail.com
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Sammy Benjamin <sammybenjamin@yahoo.com>
To: Samuel Benjamin <sammy@b-inet.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2013 6:52 AM
Subject: TODO for Perry
From: Sammy Benjamin <sammybenjamin@yahoo.com>
To: Samuel Benjamin <sammy@b-inet.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2013 6:52 AM
Subject: TODO for Perry
Sammy, so nice of you to find out more about the synagogue in Kerala. Found it difficult to copy it. Have contacts with the Israeli diplomats in India as well as the Israel Foreign Office in Jerusalem, who may be able to do something. Could you please copy the pics etc. from the beginning to the end with your remarks etc. and email it to me: perry.yohan@gmail.com Thanks and regards. Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Android |
- Shaina Srivastava Sammy - I have a friend in Cochin. Will have to reach out to see how he can help. I would like to understand the "want" so that I can ask the specific help.
Sammy Benjamin First let your contact visit the location and get some real pictures of the outside and the inside of the building and see if there is anything worth saving. If it is only walls and filth then I am not so sure.
But let us take one step at a time and then decide.- Sammy Benjamin John Perry is also contacting the Israeli authorities in India to see if they can help in any way.
Shaina Srivastava “Private persons have carted away whatever was inside the building. It’s an important monument. What does this statement mean in the article on the synagogue.- Sammy Benjamin I am guessing the Jewish owners abandoned it when they left for Israel. The new owner must have asked somebody to come in and clean up the artifacts and items so they can prepare it for its new use. Hence a person on the ground to find out the current stat will be most beneficial.
- Sammy Benjamin Shaina, please tell your contact that he will be directed by people to the popular PARDESI SYNAGOGUE which is in the same vicinity. What he needs to do is to print the picture of the building that is the abandoned synagogue and FIND it. It will look FILTHY from outside.
Remember the TIP : IMPORTANT
"A second synagogue older than the Paradesi synagogue still stands just a few meters from it. At the other end of Jew Street stands the Kadavumbhagom synagogue, a 463-year-old prayer hall of the Cochini Jews. "
Send me an email at sammybenjamin@gmail.com and I will send you the details of this posting to send to him.
- Sammy Benjamin After some more research I found a lot more information that I was hoping to find. I am writing a blog to present it. In the meantime this picture will show the approximate relative location of the synagogue we are looking for from the famous Pardesi Synagogue.
LARGE IMAGE HERE:
http://b-inet.com/pictures/synagogues-kerela-3.jpg
- Sammy Benjamin Shaina Srivastava send me an email to so I can send you something for early preview.
sammybenjamin@gmail.com - Sammy Benjamin From Indian Jews group:Bala Menon wrote:
Yes, but the Kerala Jewish Association says it is the property of the present owner and he can do whatever he wants with it. The building is a hollow shell and has been so for some decades now... The Chennamangalam and Paravur Synagogues have been restored as beautiful museums by the Kerala Government, the Mala Synagogue is used as a community hall by Mala Panchayat. The Thekkumbhagam in Ernakulam is in good condition but locked up; the Kadavumbhagom (yes, same name) in Ernakulam is in good condition and open (but there are no services/worship. The interior is still magnificient).
Sammy Benjamin wrote:
Thank you Bala Menon for your information. Using the LINK below can you help us pin point the street address of the Synagogue owned by the private person.
Is it possible to find his name and address so we can send somebody to negotiate with him?
Google maps show the relative locations of the 3 synagogues in that area as shown in the picture. Can you verify or go the the MAP LINK and pinpoint the exact locations of the synagogues.
CLICK LINK for MAP :
https://maps.google.com/maps...
maps.google.com
Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps - Sammy Benjamin I think I have located some picture of the inside of the synagogue in question.
Shaina, please have your contact verify this when he takes his pictures. He also should try to get its street postal address and find out who owns the place currently. Then we will have most of the pieces to this puzzle.
- Sammy Benjamin Varun wrote:
Took this foto a few months before, and will not visit this place again. hope you can understand.was in serious search of two synagogues next to Paradesi Synagogue, unfortunately Thekkumbhagam synagogue was demolished and kadvumbhagam got this fate...
David AshtamkarPictures 1, 3 and 6 of the Kadavumbagam Synagogue refer to the Mattancherry Synagogue in Cochin. What about Mala Synagogue (pic 2), Chendamangalam Synagogue (pic 4) and the North Paravur Synagogue (pic 5)? Are they also located in Cochin?- I had heard many years ago that somebody in Israel was trying to transport all the contents of the Cochin synagogues via Germany to recreate these synagogues in another location as they were really going to waste after all the Jews left.
The empty shell of the synagogue may tell this story if this actually happened. I hope it did for our sake, because I would hate for the artifacts and books to have been trashed by the non-Jews.
At that time Kerala State Government came forward to block some of the synagogues transfers saying it will take it upon themselves to protect these synagogues as national heritage and hence they were taken into their care to cater to their thriving Tourist industry. - David Ashtamkar, I don't know the answers, but will try to find out.
Pictures provided by Alok Nayak - boots on the ground in Kerela
with help from Shaina Shrivastava
END OF FACEBOOK POST
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MAIN ARTICLE CONTINUES:
The early history of the Kadavumbagam Synagogue is unclear. A local narrative indicates that it was established as early as 1130, and the name was taken from a synagogue that existed in Cranganore. Oral stories reveal that the synagogue was built in 1400 when Jews abandoned the nearby Kochangadi Synagogue just south of Jew Town (yet historically this did not happen until 1795), that it was ruined, and then rebuilt by the mudaliyar (community leader of the Kerala Jews) Baruch Levi in 1539 (Joshua: 1) or that his son, Joseph David HaLevy, was responsible for beginning its construction. In 1549, the synagogue was completed by Yaakov ben David Castiel, the brother of Elihu Shmuel Castiel, the third mudaliyar and father of David Yaakov Castiel, the fourth mudaliyar (Spalak: 57). Another source offers a slightly different history in that in 1539/40 the building of the Kadavumbagam Synagogue was begun, and it was completed by Barukh Joseph Levi who had restored the Kochangadi Synagogue. It was, in turn, extended or restored in 1549 by Jacob David Castiel (Segal: 31).
Enough of the Kadavumbagam Synagogue remains standing to recognize it as a quintessential example of vernacular Kerala architecture for its materials, construction technique, massing, and details. In response to the climate and annual monsoons and drawing from locally available natural resources and regional construction practices, the building features a steeply sloped clay tiled roof with deep, open eaves that are set on rafters crafted of local wood. The roof framing system is supported by load bearing walls made of hand-cut laterite stone blocks quarried from the region that are veneered with chunam, a polished lime plaster. Although many of them have now been removed and filled in, large wooden windows and doors with transoms and shutters once punctured the synagogue’s thick walls, providing natural light and ventilation to the inside.
The road and adjacent buildings in the immediate area of the former synagogue have changed since the congregation left Mattancherry in the mid-1950s, yet there was once an open space directly across from the synagogue compound which extended east to the nearby water and provided a view of the landing place for boats traveling southward. In years past, according to a narrative, the Rajah of Cochin would set sail in private boat from his Dutch Palace (built by the Portuguese to honor the Rajah and his royal house and upgraded during the Dutch period) at the northern end of Jew Town just beyond the Paradesi Synagogue. Whenever his Highness was about to travel southward and pass the Kadavumbagam Synagogue, news would reach the congregation. Someone would open the doors of the gatehouse (today missing), those of the sanctuary with its azara (anteroom) in front of the sanctuary, and finally the doors of heckal itself, which, in Kerala synagogue tradition, were often all on a longitudinal axis. The Rajah’s boat would pause at the landing, offering him a clear vista from the water, across to the shore, through the gap between neighboring buildings towards the synagogue and all the way through the spaces of the building to the end point: the Sefer Torahs. According to this tradition, the Rajah of Cochin would then stand and prostrate himself towards the synagogue (Johnson: 129).
In its prime, the Kadavumbagam Synagogue was notable for its exterior ornamentation and painted surfaces, specifically at the gabled facade of the sanctuary building. The interior was also unique to other Kerala synagogues for its elaborately carved woodwork. Though the majority of Kerala synagogues featured ceilings and balconies made of wood with detail drawing from the region’s secular and religious building traditions using timber, the ones at Kadavumbagam were the most intricate. About four decades after the building was left behind by the departing congregation, the synagogue’s interior finishes were purchased and carefully removed through funding by an English Jew, shipped to Jerusalem, and then meticulously restored by the Israel Museum. Today the reconstructed room represents Asian synagogues in the museum.
The Kadavumbagam Synagogue is also notable for many miracles attributed to it while it was in use. According to a local legend, whenever anyone, even unscrupulous characters or people of others religions, became sick, sought protection, safety, or misplaced something and sought to recover it, or when a woman was soon to give birth or just thereafter, it was customary to bring a gift or donation to the synagogue as well as to pray for good will. These associations attached to the synagogue were widely known to the local community and far beyond (Johnson: 129).
Offered for sale as of 2010, the former synagogue is locked and difficult to access. For those that are particularly persistent, shop owners in the immediate area may be able to contact the owner for a look inside.
Jerusalem: The Jewish Publication Society, 1995.
Joshua, Isaac. The Synagogues of Kerala 70 CE to 1988, unpublished, 1988.
Segal, J. B. The History of the Jews of Cochin. London: Vallentine Mitchell, 1993.
Spalak, Orpha. The Jews of India: A Story of Three Communities. Jerusalem: The Israel Museum, 1995.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HISTORY
A portion of the former Kadavumbagam Synagogue still stands today and can easily be seen from the road, but it has been compromised over time and the building, first rented and then sold to non-Jews after the congregation left for Israel, today sits idle and is padlocked. Over the years the former synagogue has changed hands, and the structure has served as a warehouse or sat empty. When a stretch of Jew Street running in front the building was altered some time in the 1960s, Kadavumbagam Synagogue’s two story gatehouse and the connecting breezeway behind it were demolished. Today the only portion of the former synagogue compound still standing is the sanctuary building. In recent decades, this remaining structure and its tight surrounding courtyard has been poorly maintained. At the time the road was shifted and straightened, other buildings in the immediate area were likewise affected, so it is no longer possible to experience the former synagogue is in original context.The early history of the Kadavumbagam Synagogue is unclear. A local narrative indicates that it was established as early as 1130, and the name was taken from a synagogue that existed in Cranganore. Oral stories reveal that the synagogue was built in 1400 when Jews abandoned the nearby Kochangadi Synagogue just south of Jew Town (yet historically this did not happen until 1795), that it was ruined, and then rebuilt by the mudaliyar (community leader of the Kerala Jews) Baruch Levi in 1539 (Joshua: 1) or that his son, Joseph David HaLevy, was responsible for beginning its construction. In 1549, the synagogue was completed by Yaakov ben David Castiel, the brother of Elihu Shmuel Castiel, the third mudaliyar and father of David Yaakov Castiel, the fourth mudaliyar (Spalak: 57). Another source offers a slightly different history in that in 1539/40 the building of the Kadavumbagam Synagogue was begun, and it was completed by Barukh Joseph Levi who had restored the Kochangadi Synagogue. It was, in turn, extended or restored in 1549 by Jacob David Castiel (Segal: 31).
Enough of the Kadavumbagam Synagogue remains standing to recognize it as a quintessential example of vernacular Kerala architecture for its materials, construction technique, massing, and details. In response to the climate and annual monsoons and drawing from locally available natural resources and regional construction practices, the building features a steeply sloped clay tiled roof with deep, open eaves that are set on rafters crafted of local wood. The roof framing system is supported by load bearing walls made of hand-cut laterite stone blocks quarried from the region that are veneered with chunam, a polished lime plaster. Although many of them have now been removed and filled in, large wooden windows and doors with transoms and shutters once punctured the synagogue’s thick walls, providing natural light and ventilation to the inside.
The road and adjacent buildings in the immediate area of the former synagogue have changed since the congregation left Mattancherry in the mid-1950s, yet there was once an open space directly across from the synagogue compound which extended east to the nearby water and provided a view of the landing place for boats traveling southward. In years past, according to a narrative, the Rajah of Cochin would set sail in private boat from his Dutch Palace (built by the Portuguese to honor the Rajah and his royal house and upgraded during the Dutch period) at the northern end of Jew Town just beyond the Paradesi Synagogue. Whenever his Highness was about to travel southward and pass the Kadavumbagam Synagogue, news would reach the congregation. Someone would open the doors of the gatehouse (today missing), those of the sanctuary with its azara (anteroom) in front of the sanctuary, and finally the doors of heckal itself, which, in Kerala synagogue tradition, were often all on a longitudinal axis. The Rajah’s boat would pause at the landing, offering him a clear vista from the water, across to the shore, through the gap between neighboring buildings towards the synagogue and all the way through the spaces of the building to the end point: the Sefer Torahs. According to this tradition, the Rajah of Cochin would then stand and prostrate himself towards the synagogue (Johnson: 129).
In its prime, the Kadavumbagam Synagogue was notable for its exterior ornamentation and painted surfaces, specifically at the gabled facade of the sanctuary building. The interior was also unique to other Kerala synagogues for its elaborately carved woodwork. Though the majority of Kerala synagogues featured ceilings and balconies made of wood with detail drawing from the region’s secular and religious building traditions using timber, the ones at Kadavumbagam were the most intricate. About four decades after the building was left behind by the departing congregation, the synagogue’s interior finishes were purchased and carefully removed through funding by an English Jew, shipped to Jerusalem, and then meticulously restored by the Israel Museum. Today the reconstructed room represents Asian synagogues in the museum.
The Kadavumbagam Synagogue is also notable for many miracles attributed to it while it was in use. According to a local legend, whenever anyone, even unscrupulous characters or people of others religions, became sick, sought protection, safety, or misplaced something and sought to recover it, or when a woman was soon to give birth or just thereafter, it was customary to bring a gift or donation to the synagogue as well as to pray for good will. These associations attached to the synagogue were widely known to the local community and far beyond (Johnson: 129).
CURRENT STATUS
Today the Kadavumbagam Synagogue, much altered but still identifiable, a gabled building from the front with its flaked walls and steel roll-up door, can easily be overlooked beside more intact neighboring historical architecture, including a few former Jewish residences with their prominent Magen Davids (Stars of David) on the exteriors. Seeing at it today offers little suggestion of its former glory, yet the Kadavumbagam Synagogue was once an attractive building.Offered for sale as of 2010, the former synagogue is locked and difficult to access. For those that are particularly persistent, shop owners in the immediate area may be able to contact the owner for a look inside.
CITED SOURCES
Johnson, Barbara C. and Daniel, Ruby. Ruby of Cochin: An Indian Jewish Woman Remembers. Philadelphia andJerusalem: The Jewish Publication Society, 1995.
Joshua, Isaac. The Synagogues of Kerala 70 CE to 1988, unpublished, 1988.
Segal, J. B. The History of the Jews of Cochin. London: Vallentine Mitchell, 1993.
Spalak, Orpha. The Jews of India: A Story of Three Communities. Jerusalem: The Israel Museum, 1995.
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Introduction
By Marian Scheuer Sofaer and Jay A. Waronker
The cochinsyn website illustrates how a small community of Kerala Jews living in an outpost of the Diaspora for many centuries managed to maintain their own distinct identity while coexisting with Hindu, Christian and Muslim neighbors through a variety of political and social changes. It is a window into how the Jews of Kerala chose to express themselves architecturally in their synagogue buildings and in their religious and social life.
The website presents a comprehensive guide to the seven synagogues still extant in the Cochin (Kochi) region. Fortunately, the Kerala State government, with help from the government of India, has recently funded archaeological excavations and scholarly work in the Ernakulam region as part of the Muziris Heritage project. More information on all the historic ethnic and religious groups in the area will become available as the Muziris Heritage Project proceeds.
This website welcomes contributions of articles, notes, photos and letters from members of the Kerala Jewish community and their families, as well as from friends and scholars of all fields of interest and communities.
While monumental buildings and structures designed by leading architects will most often attract the attention of historians and bring in visitors from the public at large, the study of more ordinary, vernacular buildings, especially in relationship to their cultural and natural contexts, is an appealing area of architectural history. Cultural history is best experienced onsite, and a visit to Kerala, renowned for its natural beauty and diversity of terrain, parks, intriguing coastline, and gracious hospitality, has much to offer.
For Jewish history in particular, the history of the remote community in the Cochin region shows how traditions could be maintained at long reach from Jewish population centers. For instance, Jewish women’s songs in the local Malayalam language handed down from generation to generation in handwritten notebooks offer details about life before the advent of modern communications.
The Jewish community in Kerala may date from as early as Biblical times. Some cite the words in the book of Kings that appear to be of early Dravidian origin (or ancient Tamil) as well as references to trade with India as prooftexts for this contention. Did King Solomon have boats that could make the journey, bringing back the highly valued spices and sandalwood of the Indian subcontinent to his palace? Could the first synagogues in Kerala have been built by people with some collective memory of the Temple, which would explain the use in the Cochin synagogues of spaces like the azara (the courtyard adjoining the sanctuary)and the Jachin and Boaz pillars (which stood in front of the Temple)?
We know that by Roman times, the demand for pepper fostered a thriving sea trade from Rome to the city of Alexandria in Egypt, through an ancient canal, to the Red Sea, and across the Arabian Sea to the Malabar coast in India. Modern archaeologists have identified Roman ruins in Pattanam, on the Malabar coast of western India, with the ancient port of Muziris. Muziris was a port known to historians from a first century C.E. guide to ports which was written in Greek and known in Latin as the Periplus Maris Erythraei and from other ancient texts. It was probably a shipbuilding center, as well as a trading center, and prospered from about the first century B.C.E. to the 3rd century C.E. Archaeological finds along the Egyptian and Yemeni coast of graffiti and pottery shards attest to the participation of Jewish sailors and traders in the spice and ointment trade.
India was the only place where Romans and other wealthy Mediterranean people could get pepper, and ancient Roman writers lamented the grip that this valued spice held over housewives. The spice trade was most likely the first regular commerce between India and the West, and Muziris seems to have been its central port and a source of much wealth for India. Much later, Portugese, Dutch, French and British merchants set out to reap similar rewards.
Kerala’s Muziris Heritage Site Project, a recent initiative of the local government, is designed to make the history of the Cochin area and local sights accessible to students, residents and visitors. Local buildings will be sensitively restored, and transportation networks are being upgraded to make it easy to reach a variety of destinations within the region. Plans include the renovation of cultural and religious buildings, craft and industrial workshops, shops and museums.
The Paradesi Synagogue in Kochi has been an internationally known landmark for many years, and receives thousands of visitors annually. In 2005, the Kerala office of the Indian Department of Archaeology and the Kerala Department of Tourism restored the synagogue in Chendamangalam, and an exhibition opened there in February, 2006 with the support of the Koret Foundation (USA).
Most of the Kerala Jewish community emigrated in the 1950s or the succeeding decades, and with the exception of the Paradesi synagogue, the buildings left behind in the Cochin region ceased to operate as prayer houses and communal centers. The Jewish community that remained in Kerala did not always have the means to properly maintain the smaller synagogue sites. However, many of the families from the region have renewed their interest in maintaining ties to Kerala, and scholarly and lay articles about the community have become widely available. Visitors are gradually finding out that they can get to the more remote synagogues by private car or taxi, as well as ferry and bus, in a little over an hour from Kochi or Ernakulam. They find the time to make their way out to the sites and to enjoy the countryside outside Kochi. In addition, professionals in the field of historic preservation, and journalists, as well as government specialists working on the economic development of the region have come to recognize the cultural value of the historic synagogue buildings in their local environment. This has saved the remaining several Kerala synagogues from destruction.
In response to this historic process, the cochinsyn website places the seven extant Jewish community buildings in the Cochin area within an Indian, Kerala and Jewish context. Thanks to recent and ongoing restorations, the public can understand and appreciate these buildings as landmarks that express the spirit of the religious and communal life of the Jewish communities, which coexisted and thrived, along with their Hindu, Moslem and Christian neighbors, over the course of many centuries.
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Architecture
By Jay A. Waronker
By Jay A. Waronker
INTRODUCTION
Kerala, on the southwestern coast of India, is home to seven extant synagogue buildings, of which four are located within the city of Kochi (formerly Cochin). Of these four, two can be found in the Mattancherry area in Jew Town on Synagogue Lane. Best known is the Paradesi Synagogue, which was the only Jewish house of prayer built by the Paradesi (“foreigners”) Jewish community, and the sole synagogue in Kerala that remains fully intact and still operational. The nearby Kadavumbagam Synagogue survives in part as a building, although it has not been a house of prayer since 1955 when its congregation of Malabari Jews immigrated en masse to Israel. The Tekkumbagam and Kadavumbagan Synagogues on the mainland of Ernakulam, also built by the Malabari Jews, both closed after their congregations likewsie immigrated to Israel in the mid-1950s.
Kochi became an important city when a flood in 1341 created a natural and safe port, replacing Cranganore, north of Kochi, as the chief harbor of the Malabar Coast. The city’s name is derived from Kocchazhi, meaning new or small harbor. Today it has a population of around 600,000, spread across islands and promontories in a beautiful location between the Arabian Sea and the backwaters that traverse the area. Two of its main sections – the bustling, commercial Ernakulam and the more tranquil peninsular district of Mattancherry to the west – are linked by a popular system of pedestrian ferries, as well as a network of roads and bridges making a visit to the two synagogues in each area an easy and memorable experience.
Kerala’s three other former synagogues, all built by the Malabari Jews, can be found to the north of Kochi in the town of Parur (Paravoor), in the nearby village of Chendamangalam, and farther a field in Mala. All can be visited in a one-day excursion from Kochi via hired car and driver or, with determination and more time, by public buses and connecting taxis. Should any traveler wish for a longer and more leisurely visit to these synagogues outside of Kochi, there are a few recently opened hotels of good standard in the area for an overnight stay. An investigation on the internet will easily bring up these places.
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The Chendamangalam Synagogue
By Jay A. Waronker
LOCATION
Twenty-five miles (forty kilometers) to the north of Kochi’s Mattancherry, four miles (six kilometers) to the southeast of Cranganore, and two miles (three kilometers) from the synagogue in Parur just to the south, and reached by a narrow and busy north-south running main road (#14) linking a string of towns and villages throughout the length of Kerala, is Chendamangalam (sometimes written Chennamangalam). A sleepy settlement in Paravoor Taluk in the state’s Ernakuklam district, it was for centuries the home to a Jewish community and a synagogue, yet by the close of the twentieth century not a single Jew resided in Chendamangalam. The Chendamangalam Synagogue sits near the center of the quiet village. The narrow lane, paved only in recent years, leading to the synagogue seems to dead end into the white-washed building, but then it splits and continues onwards along both sides of the walled compound. The immediate area of the synagogue is a neighborhood of modest homes, some once Jewish owned, and a collection of small shops selling a handful of goods.
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Kadavumbagam Synagogue, Ernakulam
By Jay A. Waronker
By Jay A. Waronker
LOCATION
One of two former synagogues in Ernakulam once serving the Malabari Jews can be found in the center of the crowded market area on west side of Market Road just south of where it intersects with Jew (or Jews) Street. Look for a faded sign at the street above the entrance path that identifies the property as both the “Cochin Blossoms” fish and plant store and Kadavumbagam Synagogue. Seek out its owner inside, Mr. Elias “Babu” Josephai, who will gladly show any visitor around the property, including the mostly intact prayer space to the rear.While there, speak with Mr. Josephai regarding a visit to the other former Ernakulam synagogue, the Tekkumbagam, which can be found a five-minute walk away on the north (right) side of Jew Street between Market Road and Broadway. It is located a short distance past a landmark mosque on the same side of the street.
HISTORY
Although its history cannot be verified, narratives claim that the original Kadavumbagam Synagogue was constructed in the medieval period in the port town of Cranganore to the north of Kochi. At that time the Moors, who had arrived on the shores of Kerala some time earlier, had aligned themselves with the native ruler. Since spices were a valuable local commodity and the trade was lucrative and competitive, the Moors saw the Jews, who were involved in the spice trade, as competition that needed to be eliminated. The Moorish persecution convinced some Jews to abandon their synagogues and they resettled in Ernakalum in 1154 (Josephai, interviews by the author, Ernakulam Kerala, 2007/2009). There they were provided relative safety and protection under the tolerant and sympathetic Rajah of Cochin. In 1200, they built the Kadavumbagam Synagogue (Sassoon: 577). Another narrative goes that Jews, faced with persecution once again by the Moors in 1524, fled Cranganore by boat and settled in Ernakalum, finding protection under the Rajah. Yet a third story goes that the Jews of Cranganore and surrounding areas were persecuted the Portuguese during the mid-sixteenth century by the Portuguese – and in three rounds they arrived in Ernakulam (Segal: 19).According to Elias “Babu” Josephai, the current guardian of the synagogue, the building as it stands today dates to the early sixteenth to early seventeenth centuries. It is Josephai’s claim that the two-storied front section seen from the road was added to a slightly wider and higher building approximately a century later. Both sections replaced earlier structures of unknown dates that are believed to have stood on the same site. Today’s synagogue is set back from Market Road, the central spine of Ernakulam’s busy market area, and is approached along a long and narrow passage lined with plants. It was common to Kerala synagogues to have a gatehouse facing the road, but none exists here, and it is unclear whether there was ever any such structure.
The sandy path that begins at the street and leads to the synagogue is on axis with the front façade. Similar to other Kerala synagogues, the building is constructed of locally quarried laterite stone block walls veneered in white-washed chunam, or a polished lime plaster. The building’s two corners facing the street are broadly chamfered, so from the front Kadavumghagam Synagogue is half-octagonal in form. The angled wall intersections are demarcated by rusticated quoins that have been for years painted a rust color. The front section is unusual for a Kerala synagogue. On the ground floor, it was used as a social hall and for overflow seating during Jewish high holidays and special occasions. On the second floor were rooms that once served as a Jewish school when the congregation was active. Since Jews used to live to all sides of the synagogue, they were able to conveniently approach the synagogue compound not only from the front but also along two side paths that led to doors on either side of the large front hall. The path to the north is today no longer discernable, and the high wall surrounding the synagogue property offers no hint that there used to be a passage here. To the south, an axis remains although it has been altered and built on.
Behind the large front room (now a sales space lined with fish tanks) is the azara, an anteroom appearing in all Kerala synagogues. Kadavumbagam’s azara is cluttered today with the wares of the Cochin Blossoms business, but it once served a variety of purposes. This space gets its name from the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, but whereas the azara in the Temple was a large exterior courtyard where animal sacrifices took place, in Kerala’s synagogues the azara is a fully enclosed anteroom. It was used variously as an arrival space, place for the ritual washing of the hands, waiting area, acoustical and visual buffer zone, seating place for non-members, and spot for storing ritual furniture and objects.
The windowed azara leads to the large double height sanctuary with its central tebah, now missing except for its base. The prayer space, with ten windows said to recall the number of commandments, does retain its gilded and painted hand-carved teak heckal, decorated and painted ceiling with a grid pattern of lotus flowers (an Indian motif), and gallery. In Kerala synagogue fashion, the painted and decorated gallery features the second tebah placed on the center of this shallow overlook. Continuing in local synagogue tradition, behind the gallery and second tebah is the women’s seating area. Dividing the two spaces is a mechitza, or partition wall. The rear wall of the women’s seating area has doors that provided an easy way into this space when it was used. From here, the upstairs areas that once functioned as a Jewish school could also be accessed.
During the 1950s and 60s, many members of the Kadavumbagam Synagogue immigrated to Israel, and membership in the congregation dwindled. Until the early 1970s, the Kadavumbagam Synagogue was still substantially intact. By 1972, the synagogue had closed and within two years the Torah scrolls were transported to Moshav Nevatim in Israel, an agricultural community which now hosts the Cochin Jewish Heritage Center. In 1975, a storm struck Ernakulam and caused serious water damage to the synagogue. The roof and walls were compromised and foundation damage required the entire structure to be hydraulically lifted. Making matters worse, in 1977 thieves broke into the synagogue and stole some contents. In 1979, the remaining community passed the guardianship of the building to one of its long-standing members, Elias Josephai. For the next six years, the Kadavumbagam Synagogue lay vacant, until in 1985 Josephai established a plant and fish store in the building. The former synagogue has since been known as “Cochin Blossoms”.
CURRENT STATUS
The Cochin Blossoms shop owner, Mr. Elias “Babu” Josephai has over the past years renovated portions of the Kadavumbagam Synagogue, and the work is ongoing. Used as his place of business for a quarter of a century, he is not yet in a position to transfer control of the building to the Jewish community or to the government, and for this reason there cannot be any serious effort to fully restore the synagogue and make it available as a dedicated cultural site. Visitors are, however, welcomed to tour the former synagogue and its grounds when Cochin Blossoms is open during business hours, which includes Saturdays. A heritage plaque identifying the structure as a former synagogue was installed by the “The Friends of Kerala Synagogues” to the right of the front entry in 2009.SOURCES
Sassoon, David. Ohel David. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932.Waronker, Jay. Interviews of Elias “Babu” Josephai, Ernakulam India, 2007 and 2009.
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Mala Synagogue
By Jay A. Waronker
LOCATION The town of Mala lies in the central region of Kerala State in its Thrissur district fifteen miles (twenty four km) to the east of Cranganore and thirty two miles (fifty one km) north of Mattancherry’s Jew Town in Kochi. Since it is the farthest synagogue from Kochi, a hired car and driver is the easiest and quickest way of getting there, although far less expensive local buses from Ernakulam (perhaps involving a transfer) are available. Mala, located on a secondary road equidistant between the north-south highway #17, spanning most of western Kerala, and highway #47 beginning in Kochi and running to the northeast, can be described as a typical Kerala town with a small, low-rise commercial center that sprawls out in all directions to a mixture of residential and scattered business districts. While not positioned directly on water, the town is set very near the famous backwaters of Kerala that connect to the Arabian Sea. Mala’s former synagogue is in the center of town, and the Jewish cemetery is a short distance to the east along a main road running immediately perpendicular to the gatehouse (now a shop) of the former Jewish house of prayer.
LOCATION The town of Mala lies in the central region of Kerala State in its Thrissur district fifteen miles (twenty four km) to the east of Cranganore and thirty two miles (fifty one km) north of Mattancherry’s Jew Town in Kochi. Since it is the farthest synagogue from Kochi, a hired car and driver is the easiest and quickest way of getting there, although far less expensive local buses from Ernakulam (perhaps involving a transfer) are available. Mala, located on a secondary road equidistant between the north-south highway #17, spanning most of western Kerala, and highway #47 beginning in Kochi and running to the northeast, can be described as a typical Kerala town with a small, low-rise commercial center that sprawls out in all directions to a mixture of residential and scattered business districts. While not positioned directly on water, the town is set very near the famous backwaters of Kerala that connect to the Arabian Sea. Mala’s former synagogue is in the center of town, and the Jewish cemetery is a short distance to the east along a main road running immediately perpendicular to the gatehouse (now a shop) of the former Jewish house of prayer.
HISTORY
There is a difference of opinion among the sources as to when the Jews who had settled in Mala first built a synagogue. The building was realized for an active community of Jews who are remembered by the townspeople as productive shop owners, small traders, or involved in agricultural work.Prem Doss Swami Doss Yehudi, a Dravidian Judaist and historian, wrote about a Jewish Malayalam folk song revealing that the wood used for the building of the synagogue in Mala was donated to Joseph Rabban in 1000 CE by the Rajah of Cranganore on behalf of his fellow Jews. Mala was then under the sovereignty of Cranganore, and the Rajah was said to have welcomed a diversity of faiths (Yehudi: 93). Yehudi also claims that the original early eleventh century synagogue was pulled down for an unspecified reason and a new building was erected in 1400, and it was, in turn, renovated in 1792. This is in conflict with the observations made by the Church of England missionary Rev. Thomas Dawson, who was stationed in Kochi beginning in 1817. Dawson visited the Mala Synagogue during his tenure in the area, and he observed that the building was still in ruins following Tipu Sultan’s attack during the Second Anglo-Mysore War of the early 1780s. Dawson seems to confirm that even after the passing of more than a quarter of a century the synagogue had yet to be rebuilt (Hunt: 153). The nineteenth-century structure was in whole or part upgraded by a new one in 1909 on the same foundation. In 1914, the Mala Jewish community sent a letter to Sir and Lady Sassoon of London, of the prominent former Indian-Baghdadi Jewish dynasty of central India, seeking a contribution for the beautification of the synagogue (Yehudi: 93).
Other sources claim that the first Mala synagogue dates to a much later period, to 1597, after Kerala Jews had been driven away from Cranganore by the Portuguese in 1565. It is the 1597 date that the Jewish scholar and historian David Solomon Sassoon wrote about in his study of the synagogues of India in the early twentieth century (Sassoon: 1056). Irrespective of its date of origin, this synagogue has been altered or partially rebuilt over time, evident by an inscription in the wood carvings in Hebrew and Malayalam along the balcony frieze, which confirms that the existing sanctuary building dates in full or in part only to 1909. The gatehouse and breezeway appear to be older, however, so it is possible that these two sections were not rebuilt at this time but survive from an earlier period.
The former synagogue as it stands today is located at a prominent location in the center of town at a busy intersection. In the immediate area, a hectic place with a constant flow of vehicles, pedestrians, and animals, is a row of small shops lining the street where an assortment of products and services are sold. Running parallel to the façade of the now altered synagogue gatehouse, or north-south, is the paved two-lane Trichur Mala Road. The perpendicular major thoroughfare that dead ends at the gatehouse leads eastward to the Jewish cemetery a short drive away.
At one time, a great deal of real estate extending quite a distance from all sides of the synagogue was Jewish owned. Since 1955, not a single Jew has resided in town, and with this came the closing of the synagogue and sale of all Jewish commercial and residential property.
On December 20, 1954, just before the Mala Jewish community of some three hundred immigrated en masse to Israel in early 1955, a formal agreement was signed by the trustees of Mala Synagogue to turn over without financial benefit the ownership, use, and control of the building to the local panchayat, or municipality. The agreement stipulated that in the synagogue building would be cared for, and it would not be used as house of prayer or slaughterhouse. Mala’s departing Jews were the exception in that they had collectively arranged for their building to be deeded over for use by the broader local community. This was in contrast to other Kerala Jewish congregations, who had passed control of their synagogues to other Kerala Jews or had left the building in the hands of the skeletal community that had not made aliya (immigrated to Israel).
The decommissioned synagogue was converted to Mala village government offices, and it was readapted as a venue for cultural, educational, and communal functions.
The original entrance to the synagogue’s sanctuary building, on the latitudinal (short) side of the building compound, faced Trichur Mala Road. Following the formula of Kerala synagogues, at Mala a gatehouse was erected to the eastern end of the synagogue property. It was through this two-story structure bordering the main road in the heart of town that the formal entrance was found. The gatehouse, which served as a foyer with communal spaces downstairs and a Jewish school upstairs, linked to a covered yet exterior breezeway (now filled in) that connected on axis to the sanctuary building proper. The sanctuary featured the usual spaces for Kerala synagogues: an azara, or anteroom, followed by the double height prayer space, or sanctuary. Located roughly in the center of the room was the tebah (bimah), and at the far end of the sanctuary on the west wall was the heckal (ark).
In the tradition of other synagogues of Kerala, a shallow wooden balcony, reached by a steep corner stair, overlooks the double-height sanctuary and features a second tebah. This space was adjacent to the women’s seating area which was positioned behind a mechitza, or screened partition wall and directly above the azara. Before the synagogue was altered, doors led from the rear of the women’s area to a narrow and long passageway with its ventilated and diffusely lit “walls” made of struts with a latticework of interlinking laths – a form unique to Kerala architecture. This space, above the breezeway on the ground floor, provided a way into the synagogue for the women via a connecting stair at the opposite end and also linked to the classrooms within the gatehouse’s upper floor level.
CURRENT STATUS
The keys to the former Mala Synagogue are in possession of the panchayat, or municipality, and all visitors must stop at its building on the edge of town to arrange access. The office staff is normally helpful in approving the visit and locating the keys, and in most cases someone accompanies guests to the synagogue. In recent years, the Mala Synagogue building has been marginally at best maintained and rarely used.Since ownership of Mala’s synagogue passed to the municipality officially in 1955, the building and its grounds have been altered and, in part, extensively and even irrevocably compromised. While the sanctuary building has remained under the control of the panchayat and never sold or rented, the former synagogue gatehouse and its connecting two story breezeway were parceled off for income and converted to commercial functions. Rent from these shops was intended to go to the maintenance of the former synagogue sanctuary building and the nearby Jewish cemetery, yet this has not always been the case. As a result of this arrangement, the original gatehouse entry to the synagogue complex was literally cut off from the sanctuary, forever destroying the intended spatial and experiential arrangement. Some of the gatehouse’s original interior woodwork can still be seen today. In the mid-1950s, a shallow addition was built onto the front façade of the synagogue gatehouse, and a second building abutting the rear and near the end of the breezeway was completed.
To visit the interior of the former synagogue today, one needs to pass by adjacent newer structures facing CMS Road (the side street) to the south (some post-1955 buildings blocking the ex-synagogue altogether were removed in 2008), walk around the west (short end) side of the synagogue before coming upon the overgrown remaining walled courtyard to the north side that has for years been used for drying black pepper, and ascend tacked-on exterior steps to unceremoniously enter the building through the sanctuary (rather than through the azara, the intended arrival point) via a make-shift entrance. The synagogue’s tebah, heckal, and all furnishings and fittings were removed years ago and are now lost, although the balcony with its second tebah remains. The platform seen near where the heckal was located is a post-1955 addition.
In response to the growing interest among the public in Kerala’s Jewish history and its still functioning and former synagogues, modest renovation and repair work on the exterior of the synagogue has been scheduled to be carried out in late 2010 by the municipality, and the area along the long elevation of the building facing the street side is to be covered with pavers to improve site conditions.
CITED SOURCES
Adv. Prem Doss Swami Doss Yehudi. The Shingly Hebrews. Trivandrum: Sachethana, 2000.Sassoon, David. Ohel David. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932.
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Paradesi Synagogue
By Jay A. Waronker
By Jay A. Waronker
LOCATION
The world-renowned Paradesi Syngagogue, first built in 1568 and reconstructed in part and enlarged over the years, can be found in the Mattancherry area of Kochi. The road that it was built on came to be known as Jew Street or Synagogue Lane, and the surrounding neighborhood as Jew Town. The Rajah of Cochin generously allotted the community land in Cochin da Cima, or Upper Cochin, next to his own palace (now a city museum) and an adjacent small Hindu temple to service himself and his royal family. The synagogue, today the only functioning one in Kerala, was erected for a congregation whose core had migrated from Cranganore to the north of Kochi where they were then joined by a larger group of relative newcomers from Europe and Western Asia. The diverse influx of Jews to Mattancherry led to its designation as the Paradesi, or Foreigners’ Synagogue. HISTORY
By the early years of the sixteenth century, there was already a flourishing Jewish community in Kochi composed mainly of Malabari Jews. Within half a century, the city’s Jewish community had expanded considerably through the arrival of refugees from the Portuguese religious persecution of Jews locally from Cranganore and farther a field originating from Spain and Portugal. To serve this growing congregation, the Paradesi Synagogue was constructed in 1568 by Samuel Castiel, David Belila, and Joseph Levi.The Kerala Jewish community had the protection and friendship of the Rajah of Cochin, but was still exposed to the enmity of the Portuguese, who had established a trading post in Fort Cochin in the sixteenth century. The Portuguese attacked the Jews again in 1662 since they had sided with the Dutch in a skirmish for control over local territory. This was the result of attempts by the Dutch in 1661-62 to challenge the Portuguese for the European supremacy in South India. In February 1661, the Dutch took the fortress at Palliport near Cranganore, in December they captured Quilon, and a month later Cranganore fell into their hands. They next laid siege to Cochin. The Portuguese, however, defended Fort Cochin to all means, and in March 1662 the Dutch withdrew for Ceylon. With the Dutch defeat, the Portuguese took revenge on the Jews. The Paradesi Synagogue was set on fire and partially destroyed. It is believed that other Kerala (Malabari) synagogues were attacked and damaged by the Portuguese forces as well. The Jews gained security again once the Dutch were finally able to oust the Portuguese in 1665 and take control for the next one hundred and thirty years. The Paradesi Synagogue, which had been in derelict condition during the period of Portuguese hegemony, was then repaired.
The Paradesi Synagogue is a grouping of white washed and painted thick-walled chunam (a polished lime plaster) over laterite (a soft reddish-brown local stone) structures with pitched roofs featuring deep eaves to avoid damage from the annual monsoons, wooden lattice screens and enclosures, pronounced gablets (where hip and gable roofs intersect), exposed rafters, flat wall surfaces, clay tiled roofs, shuttered windows and clerestories, cusped arches at the sanctuary building’s entryway, a decorated tray ceiling within the sanctuary, and understated and limited detail. The synagogue is a tight complex featuring a series of rooms and passages linked or surrounded by outdoor spaces.
The Paradesi Synagogue sits at the north end of Synagogue Lane, a narrow street lined on both sides with houses that were once Jewish owned and occupied; as of 2010 only ten Jews reside in this neighborhood. Many of the former Jewish residences are now Muslim owned, and several operate as souvenir or antique and curio and shops on the ground level, creating a true tourism zone. After a slight bend in the road, Synagogue Lane abruptly dead ends at the synagogue property. From this point, however, one see very little of the Paradesi Synagogue compound. Nearly all of it is hidden behind tall, mostly solid walls. The only hint of the synagogue standing on the lane is the clock tower directly ahead. That three-story structure, nearly square in plan, with a gabled clay tiled roof capped by a cupola, is most prominent and photographed feature of the Paradesi Synagogue compound. On first impression, based on its strategic position and height, many believe this to be the synagogue’s prayer space, but the free-standing sanctuary is located to the west and not seen at all from the street.
The Paradesi Synagogue’s three-story clock tower is not original to the compound but was erected nearly two centuries later. Dating from 1761, it was built under the direction of Ezekial Rahabi, a leading figure of the Kerala Jews at that time and the representative of the Dutch East India Company. The clock tower is sometimes labeled as fully Dutch, although it is better described as an Indo-colonial design and does not represent a distinct and pure style. As with many other colonial period buildings throughout India, the clock tower incorporates local design and construction elements such as the thick laterite stone load bearing walls veneered in chunam, then fused with various colonial influences popularized by both the Portuguese and Dutch, such as the brackets, clay roof tiles, and cupola details.
The clock tower’s façades along three sides feature clock faces at the uppermost level. The tower’s massing is covered by a gabled clay tiled roof supported by wooden brackets. The roof is then crowned by an open cupola in the form of a small widow’s walk that is capped by another gabled roof also with deep overhangs. Here copper, an indigenous material used in other local buildings including some roofs of smaller Hindu temples, is the finished roofing material. A finial featuring two spherical copper balls, filigree, and a metal mast and flag resembling a weather vane rests on the apex of the copper roof. The square cupola includes four rounded-arched openings set within a painted wooden structure with quoins at the four corners. A solid rail fills in the lower section of each of the arches. On the surface of cupola is an inscription in Hebrew indicating that it was constructed in the year 1761. There used to be a bell within the cupola which would be rung every day except on the Sabbath (when Jewish law forbids the ringing) to call the Jews to prayer. In 1986 the bell stopped working, the community never had it repaired, and it was removed a short time later. There was an attempt to bring the bells back when the clock tower was restored in 1998-99 through the World Monuments Fund, but the effort was unsuccessful.
The clock tower has three existing dials; they are made of teak and painted blue. To the north, facing the maharajah’s place, the characters are Malayalam; to the south, viewed from Jew Town, they are Roman numerals; and to the west, from the synagogue side, Hebrew letters are used. According to I. S. Hallegua, a member of the Paradesi Jewish community, it is likely that there once was a fourth dial on the east side, facing the water, with numbers (Weil: 43). The only existing pointer is on the Roman dial and is made of copper. The clock mechanism, operated via heavy stones, pulleys, and gears, worked until the early 1940s, and there was never a serious effort to repair or replace the mechanism. From that point, the non-working clock faces began to deteriorate, and by the 1990s they were in poor condition. Like the bell, there was a plan to bring the clock back to working order when the clock tower was being stored in 1998/9, but the work was too costly.
The entrance to the synagogue compound is not through the narrow doors at the clock tower’s base, but along the adjacent wall to the west along the street. Opposite to the east, accessed via large and heavy iron gates, is a walled grassy outdoor area that was once used as a playground for Jewish children living in the neighborhood and attending school here.
The synagogue compound is laid out as a cluster, with spaces built or linked around a series of small indoor and outdoor rooms. Entering the synagogue, the visitor goes through a gradual progression from secular life to the sacred domain, finally reaching the sanctuary proper and lastly the heckal (ark). Yet, in contrast to the synagogues at Ernakulam-Kadavumbhagam, Parur, or Mala when they were intact, the journey to the sanctuary is not straight and flowing, but a bit contorted, with tight turns. Along the way are places for ritual practice, community purposes, and Jewish education. The first space to be entered from the street is the tallam, a rectangular gatehouse space. Today this small room functions as an office where tourists purchase their entry tickets, but its intended purpose was as a transition zone from inside to outside, where synagogue meetings were once held, and for a staircase leading up to the women’s seating area and the educational spaces within the clock tower. From the tallam, the visitor makes a tight turn and passes through a narrow opening leading to a choice of spaces. Ahead, although not on a direct axis, is a short corridor that connects to a small room that was originally intended as a storeroom. In the late 1960s, the members of the synagogue commissioned the Kerala Hindu artist S. S. Krishna to paint ten canvases portraying the Paradesi community’s historical events over the centuries to celebrate their quatro-centennial in 1968. The paintings have been exhibited to visitors in this windowless space ever since.
Returning to the point just off the tallam, a short covered yet unenclosed breezeway leads directly ahead to the sanctuary building. The courtyard which surrounds the sanctuary building can be accessed from either side of this breezeway. The walled court not only protects and separates the sanctuary from the outside secular world, but it served as a gathering area for holiday and life-cycle activities. Most famous of these celebratory events was when the congregation circumambulated the courtyard on the Jewish festival of Shimhat Torah, or Rejoicing of the Law, during the service, singing, dancing, and clapping while carrying the Torah scrolls. The ground surface of the space is partially finished in granite stone pavers, a hard material not readily available to the region yet used in important secular and religious spaces, and the walls are chunam over soft laterite stone (Salem: 19). Within the courtyard are a loose collection of scrubs, overhanging trees, and a well which is near the northeast corner. Water from the well served the communal needs of the Paradesi community for centuries, and similar ones can be found at other Kerala synagogues.
The sanctuary building is a two-story structure constructed of thick load-bearing laterite stone walls veneered with chunam that are pierced with windows and openings. The structure is covered by a steeply pitched roof (gabled to the east end and hipped at the west elevation) finished with flat-profiled clay tiles set over a framing system fabricated from local wood. The sanctuary building is made up of a various spaces: the azara and sanctuary proper on the ground floor, and balcony and women’s seating area upstairs. The azara, an anteroom found in all Kerala synagogues, and mentioned in Biblical descriptions of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, is entered directly off the breezeway linked to the earlier described spaces. It is rectangular and finished in whitewashed chunam over laterite walls, terracotta tiled floor, a wooden beamed and planked ceiling, and shuttered windows on all sides. In the center of the azara’s west elevation is the opening to the sanctuary. Its most prominent feature is its multi-foil cusped arch, a design often associated with Islamic, Moorish, and Mughal architecture. No other Kerala synagogue contains such a design, nor does it exist in any synagogue elsewhere in India.
The azara in all Kerala synagogues has various functions. It served as a transition space where the women would pass through and enter the sanctuary before ascending to the gallery level, and it was also the room where the Cohanim performed important rituals. As the direct patrilineal descendants from the Biblical Aaron, the Cohanim since the period of the Temple in Jerusalem have for two millennia performed many duties set forth in the Torah (Weil: 44). In the Paradesi Synagogue, they ritually washed their hands in a brass basin before blessing the congregation. In a purely functional sense, the azara acts as a waiting or holding area where latecomers. The room has also been where mourners and women gathering at weddings other celebrations would sit. The azara has always contained charity boxes for contribution to the synagogue and other needy causes, and it was also the place where its members and guests would sit on the built-in benches lining its walls and remove their shoes before entering the sanctuary.
The Kerala Jews have always removed their footwear, a practice unfamiliar in most Jewish communities around the world. There are various theories about the origin of this practice, ranging from adopting the custom from Hindu, Jain, and Muslim communities in India for entering their respective houses of prayer, the general tradition of removing shoes for hygienic reasons before entering an Indian dwelling, to the remembrance of the divine command to Moses on Mount Horev to remove his shoes, for the place where he stood was holy ground (Weil: 44). The azara also once served another less than noble purpose which reflected local class prejudices. According to Ruby Daniel, who was born and lived in Kerala before immigrating to Israel in the mid-1950s, the Paradesi community included a group of Meshuharim (commonly translated from Hebrew as liberated slaves) Jews who until the 1940s were not allowed into the sanctuary or into the women’s seating area on the gallery level. The men in this community were delegated to the azara during prayers, and the women sat outside the sanctuary building altogether, on benches lining the edges of the breezeway (Johnson).
The largest and most important space of the Paradesi Synagogue compound is the sanctuary. In the tradition of all Kerala Jewish houses of worship, it is rectangular in plan and double height. Measuring 27’ (8.2 m) wide, 42’-8” (12.8 m) long, and 19’ (5.8 m) high, the sanctuary, the focus of all religious worship, is a centralized space where the bench seating, never fixed in placed or in the form of individual seats, surrounds the central tebah, or podium where the Torah scrolls are routinely read and the service is conducted. The shallow tray ceiling is detailed in a grid of square panels of painted wood each featuring a lotus pattern (a distinct Indian motif), and walls of the sanctuary are white-washed chunam. During select Jewish holidays and life-cycle celebrations, the walls of Paradesi’s sanctuary are adorned with colorful fabrics which give the space its sense of place. Unique to this synagogue and well renowned is its tile floor made up blue and white Chinese tiles.The hand painted, willow pattern tiles, each slightly different, were imported by Ezehiel Rahabi in the 1760s and hence are not original to the synagogue. Accounts vary as to why and how they were purchased and installed. One reveals that they were to be used by the local Rajah, but when he learned that they were fabricated using unholy cow parts taboo to Hindus, he sold them at a good price to the Jews. Some sources claim that the tiles were not from China but rather from the Netherlands.
The Paradesi Synagogue’s tebah, shaped like a lyre or curved keyhole, is contained by a stepped railing featuring twenty-five profiled polished brass balustrades of waist height that rest on the carpeted floor of the tebah and are capped by a polished brass banister. The banister is topped by a two-tiered secondary series of slimmer and shorter polished brass balustrades. At the curved end of the tebah, the side closed to the heckal, the railing is at its highest level before its “arms” symmetrically step down twice. These curved “arms” intersect with the straight lines at the entry to the tebah, which feature flanking polished brass scrolls. At the end of the tebah and wherever the railing steps up, short brass balustrades with glass domes are positioned. These provide lighting to the tebah and definition to the space. Surrounding the outside perimeter of the tebah is a very low wooden bench that is normally draped in a colorful fabric. Here, since it is so low to the floor, boys would often sit.
Unique among synagogues throughout the world is the second tebah found in all Kerala synagogues. It is located on the gallery level in a shallow space overlooking the sanctuary that is supported by two brass columns that flank the entry doors to the sanctuary. While their architectural function is to support the gallery, over the years these twin profiled pillars have come to represent or recall the pairs of columns known as Boaz and Jachin that are believed to have existed in the ancient temple in Jerusalem. The special tebah is reached via a steep wooden stair that is located in the corner of the sanctuary to the right when entering the space. The stairs are used by the men who remove the Sefer Torah from the heckal and carry it upstairs to the second tebah during Shabbat and holiday services. At other times, the Torah is read from the ground floor tebah. The second tebah is placed in the center of the gallery, where it is defined by the wood balustrades of the railing that bump out towards the sanctuary. Adjacent to the gallery and second tebah is the women’s seating area. This room, measuring 27’ (8.2 m) in length and 9’-5” (2.7 m) in width, is accessed via a pair of doors that swing into the women’s area on an axis with the second tebah. The gallery and women’s seating area are adjacent to one another, but they are separated by a wooden mechitza, a perforated screened partition. This partition allows for the sights and sounds of the service to filter into the women’s area but provides a degree of visual privacy and separation common to other orthodox synagogues throughout the world.
The heckal, a cabinet for storing and displaying the Torah scrolls, is normally the most sacred and hence embellished feature of synagogues throughout the world, and in the Paradesi Synagogue this tradition is maintained. Its heckal is located in the wall opposite the entrance. In Jewish tradition, the heckal is placed in the sanctuary along the wall closest to Jerusalem. Since Jerusalem is west of Kochi, the heckal in the Paradesi Synagogue is on its western wall. 8’-6” (2.4 m) in width, it is beautifully hand-carved from local teak wood, stained, and highlighted with gold, red, and some green paint. Many of the carvings on the surfaces of the heckal are organic and floral in nature, popular motifs in many synagogues and also popular in other secular and religious architecture in Kerala. Topping the heckal is large panel featuring a series of festoons and swags surrounding a crown. The crown, a popular motif on heckalot/arks in all regions of the world, represents the sacred and high place of the Torah in the Jewish religion, not the majesty of a Jewish king.
According to an emissary from Jerusalem who visited the Paradesi Synagogue in 1850, the sanctuary wall engaged with the heckal was made from “a compound of clay…(mixed) with the fat milt of the nuts of the kukus, in other words coconut water instead of plain water, for the cement was mortar, so as to withstand many days and to honor the greatness that was among them.” (Weil: 45). Draped in the front of the heckal is a beautiful parokhet, or curtain. It can be drawn to reveal the carved and painted doors of the heckal. The Torah scrolls kept in the heckal, capped with beautiful crowns, are each housed in a rounded wooden case which is covered with hammered silver. To Jews, the Sefer Torahs are the equal of royalty, and are thus ornamented as such. One of these crowns was presented by the Rajah in 1805. In front of the steps leading up to the heckal is a rug presented to the synagogue by Emperor Haile Sallassie of Ethiopia in 1956.
In the Paradesi Synagogue near the heckal are two special chairs, one for the Prophet Elijah and the other for the brit mila, or circumcision ceremony. Both are made from carved and stained teak with a plush cushion and perhaps a richly colorful fabric draping it entirely. Also hanging inside the sanctuary from the shallow sloped ceiling are, in true Kerala synagogue fashion, many glass lanterns -- clear, cobalt blue, emerald green, ruby red, and other colors. These lanterns, some blown in Belgium, France, and the Netherlands and others locally fabricated, are popular in many secular and religious buildings throughout India. Intended for burning the coconut oil readily available in Kerala, they have never been electrified. Other ceiling-suspended brass, silver, pewter, bronze, or other metal alloy fixtures in the Paradesi Synagogue are also prevalent in Indian synagogues, including the ner tamid, a fixture that stays lit all the time. Ceiling fans, common throughout the country, also hang in the synagogues. No Indian synagogue is air-conditioned, and today the fans, which were installed only in the 1970s, provide the sole source of cooling other than cross-ventilation. The whirling of the ceiling fan blades, both hypnotic and soothing, is a familiar and comforting sound of the Kerala synagogue experience. Before the fans were hung, a non-Jew was employed to pour water over the stone pavers around the perimeter of the synagogue and on the walls themselves to keep the building as cool as possible.
CURRENT STATUS
Today the Paradesi Synagogue is said to be the oldest functioning Jewish house of prayer not only in southern India, but in the whole country, and even the entire British Commonwealth. It is visited by thousands of tourists from India and abroad each year six days a week, except on Friday afternoons and all day Saturday when the synagogue is closed, visitors can make their way down Jew Street, enter the gatehouse, pay a small entry fee (ten rupees), and make their way around the synagogue compound. A no photography policy was enacted a few years ago at the synagogue, and visitors are kindly asked to observe this rule.CITED SOURCES
Johnson, Barbara C. and Daniel, Ruby. Ruby of Cochin: An Indian Jewish Woman Remembers. Philadelphia andJerusalem: The Jewish Publication Society, 1995.
Salem, A. B. Jew Town Synagogue. Cochin, 1929 and Haifa: Eliya Ben Eliavoo – Beit Eliahu V’leah, 1972.
Weil, Shalva. India’s Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art, and Life-Cycle. Mumbai: Marg Publication, 2002/2006.
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Parur Synagogue
By Jay A. Waronker
Parur is a typical low-rise Kerala small town with a population of just under 40,000 located eighteen miles (twenty six km) north of Ernakulam, twenty six miles (forty one km) to the north of Mattancherry, a few miles to the southeast of Cranganore, and two miles (three km) from the synagogue in Chendamangalam just to the north. The town can be reached via an easy drive from Kochi along the narrow and busy north-south main road (#14) linking a string of towns and villages throughout the length of Kerala. The most popular option for tourists is to hire a car and driver to get there, although there is excellent, frequent, and inexpensive public bus service from the station in Ernakulam directly to the center of Parur. From there, it is possible to hire an auto-rickshaw outside the station to get to the synagogue within a few minutes or, with time permitting, to walk. Locals can direct you to Jew Town.
In Parur, a visitor approaches the synagogue from Jews Street, which is today a minor and crudely paved straight road that runs north-south. This quiet street is located a short distance from the center of town to the southeast where the town hall, government buildings, rows of small shops and businesses, and bus terminal are located. The length of Jews Street can be walked in a few minutes, and is today lined with one to two-story homes and a few small businesses. Many of these structures are surrounded by dense ground coverage and towering trees. In recent decades, the composition of buildings along this street has changed. Many of the pre-twentieth century traditional Kerala structures have been pulled down, forever altering the established vernacular aesthetic of historic Jew Street. A handful of lots now sit empty or have been replaced with nondescript modern houses and small commercial structures that are constructed of concrete and are flat roofed.
Set on both sides of Jew Street at the south end, or the direction approached from the town center, is a pair of cylindrical ceremonial posts made of chunam (polished lime plaster) over local laterite stone with conical tops. These columns, set on plinths, frame the road and announce the beginning of Jew Town. A few years ago the one to the west was damaged, and its pieces were strewn about or lost, although a plan to have it rebuilt was carried out in 2010. The opposite boundary of Jews Street dead ends at a picturesque tree lined canal, which was once just east of a stop on an active jetty. For years, small boats ferried passengers and all sorts of wares to and from Jew Town and the adjacent market just to the west, but the area is now far quieter. These physical end points – the twin pillars and waterway – for years defined Jew Town not as a ghetto but a small and thriving neighborhood known to and recognized by the local Hindu, Jain, Muslim, and Christian communities.
By Jay A. Waronker
Parur is a typical low-rise Kerala small town with a population of just under 40,000 located eighteen miles (twenty six km) north of Ernakulam, twenty six miles (forty one km) to the north of Mattancherry, a few miles to the southeast of Cranganore, and two miles (three km) from the synagogue in Chendamangalam just to the north. The town can be reached via an easy drive from Kochi along the narrow and busy north-south main road (#14) linking a string of towns and villages throughout the length of Kerala. The most popular option for tourists is to hire a car and driver to get there, although there is excellent, frequent, and inexpensive public bus service from the station in Ernakulam directly to the center of Parur. From there, it is possible to hire an auto-rickshaw outside the station to get to the synagogue within a few minutes or, with time permitting, to walk. Locals can direct you to Jew Town.
In Parur, a visitor approaches the synagogue from Jews Street, which is today a minor and crudely paved straight road that runs north-south. This quiet street is located a short distance from the center of town to the southeast where the town hall, government buildings, rows of small shops and businesses, and bus terminal are located. The length of Jews Street can be walked in a few minutes, and is today lined with one to two-story homes and a few small businesses. Many of these structures are surrounded by dense ground coverage and towering trees. In recent decades, the composition of buildings along this street has changed. Many of the pre-twentieth century traditional Kerala structures have been pulled down, forever altering the established vernacular aesthetic of historic Jew Street. A handful of lots now sit empty or have been replaced with nondescript modern houses and small commercial structures that are constructed of concrete and are flat roofed.
Set on both sides of Jew Street at the south end, or the direction approached from the town center, is a pair of cylindrical ceremonial posts made of chunam (polished lime plaster) over local laterite stone with conical tops. These columns, set on plinths, frame the road and announce the beginning of Jew Town. A few years ago the one to the west was damaged, and its pieces were strewn about or lost, although a plan to have it rebuilt was carried out in 2010. The opposite boundary of Jews Street dead ends at a picturesque tree lined canal, which was once just east of a stop on an active jetty. For years, small boats ferried passengers and all sorts of wares to and from Jew Town and the adjacent market just to the west, but the area is now far quieter. These physical end points – the twin pillars and waterway – for years defined Jew Town not as a ghetto but a small and thriving neighborhood known to and recognized by the local Hindu, Jain, Muslim, and Christian communities.
HISTORY
Parur, the largest of Kerala’s synagogue compounds and is the most architecturally distinctive of the seven extant buildings, is truly worthy of a visit from Kochi. In the mid-1950s, most of the congregation immigrated to Israel, and the synagogue has not been an active place of worship since mid-1970s. The building and property were not adequately maintained for the next thirty years, yet it represents the most complete and elaborate example of a Jewish house of prayer incorporating the many influences of building design and construction from this region of India. As its architecture was also shaped by various Jewish building traditions, a distinct and remarkable style of synagogue architecture can be experienced at Parur.According to the late twentieth century writings of the Dravidian Judaist historian Adv. Prem Doss Swami Doss Yehudi, Parur is home to one of the earliest enclaves of Jews in Kerala, settled many centuries ago by a small group of families. Yehudi believes that first synagogue may have been built in 750, a particularly early date that has not been substantiated, and then rebuilt in 1164 after the first building was destroyed (Yehudi: 90). This mid-twelfth century date, following the period of Moorish persecution of the Jews in Cranganore and their eventual shift south to Parur where they could be afforded relatively protection by the tolerant Rajah of Cochin, is the one David Solomon Sassoon supports in his documentation on Kerala’s synagogues (Sassoon: 578). As a result of Sassoon’s work, the 1164 date is the one commonly mentioned in later literature on the Kerala Jews, including by J. B. Segal, a notable historian of the Kerala Jews (Segal: 12). This structure fell into disrepair, and another was erected on the same site in 1616 according to its building inscription, a rectangular stone slab with Hebrew text that can still be seen inset in one of the exterior walls within the synagogue compound. Due to the difficulty of the inscription text, some sources use the date 1614, while others indicate it was 1621.
According to local narratives, it is believed that the ner tamid (the light that always burns) once hanging near the heckal (ark) in the 1164 synagogue was transferred to the seventeenth-century building. According to this legend, the Jews of Parur were so rich and proud that they offered incense on a local altar in the public market immediately to the west of the synagogue. For this act of hubris, since their behavior seemed to recall a religious ceremony only reserved to the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, they were stricken with the plague. Their synagogue fell into disuse, and the ner tamid was hung out on the street as a sign of contrition. It was seen there nearly two hundred years later by an English observer (Segal: 12).
Prem Doss Swami Doss Yehudi recounts the same folk tale, adding the detail that the altar of incense placed by the Parur Jews in the street square had the same dimensions as one at the ancient Temple. Yet their effort to burn incense was thwarted, and the community was devastated by a pestilence. The onslaught was so sudden that it was interpreted as a punishment from heaven for their attempt to mimic or belittle the sacred rites of the Temple (Yehudi: 89). Ruby Daniel, a Cochin Jew born in Kerala in 1912, recalled a different version of this legend. According to Daniel, when she was young there were still a few wealthy Jewish families living in Parur. The town had a thriving Jewish community living in some blocks of the town, but at one point back in history there was a great epidemic that could not be stopped. The rabbanim, or men versed in Jewish law, were so bold that they set out to burn ketoret, or incense, as the Israelites did in the wilderness of Sinai when they were affected by an epidemic. Yet the rabbanim could not obtain, or they were unclear about all the necessary ingredients mentioned for this ritual in the Hebrew Bible, so they used whatever was locally available. As soon as the incense was lit, hundreds of people died. They should have heeded the warning which is read twice every morning in the Shaharit service: “If any ingredient is missing, it will be death.” (Johnson: 127)
David Yaacov (Jacob) Castiel, the fourth mudaliyar (community leader) of the Kerala Jews, was responsible for bringing the rebuilding of the Parur Synagogue to fruition in 1616. This is confirmed by the building’s Hebrew dedicatory inscription. According to a local Jewish song in Malayalam written by an anonymous Jewish poet to honor the synagogue, a fire damaged the building around 1662, and it was refurbished (Segal: 36). This blaze was likely set by the Portuguese since they by then had laid claim to this part of Kerala and burned Paradesi Synagogue in Mattancherry about the same time. For more than one hundred and twenty years, the renovated synagogue served the congregation until they experienced another dark period. When Tipu Sultan from Mysore and his armies invaded South Malabar in 1783 during the Second Mysore War and took possession of the region, he aggressively and ruthlessly promoted the rise of Muslim rule in South India. Over the next seven years, the fanatical Tipu Sultan was responsible for the destruction of literally thousands of non-Muslim religious buildings, which included Hindu and Jain temples, churches, and synagogues. He also tortured and forced the conversion of followers outside his faith. He killed those that resisted or refused to convert. It was during this period that the Parur Synagogue was attacked and heavily damaged, and some of its members were murdered (Johnson: 127).
A Church of England missionary Rev. Thomas Dawson, stationed in Cochin beginning in 1817, wrote about the Jews in Kerala. He visited Parur and its synagogue during his tenure in the area. His observations were accounted by W. S. Hunt:
"The chief of Mr. Dawson's interests was evidently the Jews. Their condition was calculated to excite compassion. Recently decimated by smallpox, and, only a few years before, the victims of Tipu's ferocity, they were despised by the rest of the community and were, for the most part, ignorant and degraded. He visited each place in which they lived. At Parur he found them using the porch of their synagogue for their services, the rest of the building having been destroyed by Tipu; at Mala and Chankotta their synagogues were in ruins from the same cause. He found that the White Jews had no dealings with the Black Jews and that all alike were separated form the Gentiles. He computed their strength in 1529 and they had seven synagogues." (Hunt: 153)
Dawson’s observation seems to confirm that even after the passing of more than a quarter of a century the synagogue had yet to be rebuilt or repaired. By 1790, the Third Mysore War marked the doom of Tipu Sultan. He had to surrender his territories one by one, and by 1792 he ceded the kingdom of Malabar to the British authorities. Once this formidable menace to the Jews of Parur had been wiped out, as the British were tolerant of the Kerala Jewish community, it is a mystery why the synagogue took so long to rebuild. The Parur Jewish community seems to have been generally prosperous before Tipu Sultan’s arrival, so it might have been expected to revive again after his defeat.Yet during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Parur Jewish community had declined in numbers and became less prosperous. Dawson’s particularly bleak account asserts that they had undergone years of hardship and health issues, and that in the early years of the nineteenth century they were facing discrimination and difficult times. These factors could certainly explain why the rebuilding of a proper synagogue took so long. For this reason or any other, based on Rev. Dawson’s short passage, most of the structure as it stood in the twentieth century (with the possible exception of the gatehouse, which Dawson seems to have identified as the porch) could date no earlier than the second decade of the nineteenth century.
When Parur’s current synagogue was reconstructed on the same site as the previous building, it was built in the centuries-old Kerala tradition using locally quarried by hand ashlar laterite stone blocks for its load-bearing walls that were veneered in chunam plaster. These walls, very thick, were punctured by deeply-revealed doors and windows. Despite the memory of seventeenth century Portuguese aggression against the Kerala Jewish community, the synagogue at Parur incorporated Portuguese-colonial detail, such as the fan-like alette decoration, swirling rope patterns, circular vents, or heavily revealed bands of trim on its wall surfaces. How much of these details drew from the 1616 synagogue or from the overall rooted design traditions of the area will likely never been known. With its locally cut wood roof framing exposed at its deep eaves in response to the heavy annual monsoons, flat profiled clay roof tiles covering its pitched surfaces, and carved wood gablet ends for ventilation, the Parur Synagogue is an archetypical example of the vernacular Kerala style. As with other Kerala synagogues, it is made up of not one building but a collection of parts forming a compound. Among all Kerala synagogues, Parur is notable for having the greatest number of connected and consecutive pieces which have survived fully intact, albeit rotting and crumbling before the recent government renovation. Over time, other Kerala synagogue compounds have lost some of their pieces for a variety of reasons or they tended to have a fewer or a more compact collection of spaces.
Unique to the synagogue at Parur is the way its parts are formally arranged and linked in a highly axial, extended, and ceremonial fashion. Of all Kerala’s extant synagogue buildings, the one is Parur has the longest procession: from the street, through the gatehouse, out into a walled outdoor room, past a foyer flanking by twin storage rooms, along a narrow columned breezeway, into the azara that is followed by the sanctuary with its low balcony that spills into a double-height space containing the central tebah and finally its to the heckal as the termination point. A similar organization can also be seen in some historic Hindu temples of Kerala and at various other religious buildings in the immediate region, including Syrian Christian and Catholic churches or mosques. As a local building type, there is little doubt that these buildings belonging to the larger religions influenced neighboring synagogue architecture or were representative of a way of building that included other faiths. The influence of secular design traditions is also obvious here in the ways the same materials and construction techniques, ones used for ages in Kerala, were utilized and expressed. To note are also the broad similarities shared between the Parur Synagogue and the ritual linking of spaces that existed in the Court of the Temple in Jerusalem, and the use of terminology identical to these ancient sacred Jewish places
CURRENT STATUS
For the past few decades, the Parur Synagogue was not used as a house of prayer, and the marginally-maintained building slowly deteriorated. In recent years, its condition became so serious that there was concern for its structural survival. Both the few remaining Kerala Jews and sympathetic outsiders recognized that the building needed intervention for some time, yet no formal effort to save Parur synagogue came to fruition. The Kerala government is fortunately now renovating the building, paying close attention to its architectural and cultural heritage. In response to domestic and international interest, the popularity of the restored synagogue in nearby Chendamangalam which opened as a museum in 2006, and local recognition of the cultural importance of historical architecture and natural spaces in general, the State of Kerala with support of the government of India in 2009 embarked on a long term plan called the Muziris Heritage Site. This undertaking is being coordinated by several government divisions, particularly the Kerala Department of Tourism and Department of Archeology. It gets its name from the ancient port city, a place where Kerala’s Jews are believed to have originally settled many centuries ago and which they called Shingly. The Muziris archaeological site will be one of the highlights of the impressive effort of protecting, restoring, and sustaining more than thirty other natural and built sites that will be sensitively linked by existing canals, bike paths, and roadways within the central region of the state of Kerala. Among the first of the sites to be restored is the Parur Synagogue.During the spring and summer months of 2009, the Kerala government negotiated with the Association of Kerala Jews to assume ownership of Parur Synagogue while the Jewish community maintained a right of use. Once these details had been worked out, the restoration effort formally began in April 2010, and work is scheduled to be completed by the middle of 2011. According to the State of Kerala Muzris Site Project plan, the Parur Synagogue will not only be properly brought back to form along with a permanent on-site exhibition on its history with academic contributions from an international team of scholars, but it will be linked with a number of other important Kerala cultural sites, both religious and secular. The synagogue will in turn be placed into context with various centuries-old traditions and customs of the people of Kerala so as to protect and preserve the state’s heritage.
For anyone fortunate enough to visit the former Parur Synagogue during the exciting restoration period running into the first part of 2011, the building should be open during regular working hours except for Sundays. Seek out one of the project coordinators or associates on site to show you around
CITED SOURCES
Adv. Prem Doss Swami Doss Yehudi. The Shingly Hebrews. Trivandrum: Sachethana, 2000.Hunt, W. S. The Anglican Church in Travancore and Cochin 1816-1916. London, 1920.
Johnson, Barbara C. and Daniel, Ruby. Ruby of Cochin: An Indian Jewish Woman Remembers. Philadelphia and Jerusalem: The Jewish Publication Society, 1995.
Sassoon, David. Ohel David. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932.
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Tekkumbagam Synagogue, Ernakulam
By Jay A. Waronker
By Jay A. Waronker
LOCATION
Kerala’s Malabari Jews have lived in Ernakulam on the mainland of Kochi for centuries. While today there are only a handful of them still residing in this area of the city as a result of the community’s mass immigration to Israel beginning in the mid-1950s, they were once an integral part of Ernakulam. Over the years, the productive and hard-working Malabari Jews pursued a number of professional occupations and trades. Along with fishing and petty trading, many were merchants who ran small private businesses along the narrow and congested streets in the market area, and these shop owners devised their own secret pricing code that incorporated Hebrew. The Jews in Ernakulam for years maintained two synagogues and a religious school.Today these synagogues, the Kadavumbagam and Tekkumbagam, are no longer functioning, yet they still stand as testament to the area’s once vibrant Jewish presence. They were built in the heart of the market district within a few minutes’ walk of one another. Standing on the north side of Jew Street between Market Road and Broadway and just to the west of a landmark mosque, local tradition relates that the Tekkumbagam Synagogue gets its name from an earlier Jewish house of prayer built in Cranganore. That synagogue was believed to have been located on the southern edge of town – tek referring to south and bagam meaning side in the local Malayalam language.
HISTORY
A Malabari Jewish narrative goes that the Tekkumbagam Synagogue was constructed in 1200 after some of the community, seen as competitors in the lucrative spice industry, were forced out of Cranganore in 1154 by the powerful Moors. They settled in Ernakulam since the Rajah of Cochin offered them friendship and relative protection (Joshua: 1). A sign posted a few decades ago by the Association of Kerala Jews over the entrance to the synagogue property makes claim to this early thirteenth century date. Over the years, the story continues, the synagogue was periodically rebuilt. Another narrative contends that during the time of the brutal Portuguese conquest of Kerala in the mid-sixteenth century, the Jews living in and around Cranganore were persecuted and some perhaps even hung. The Rajah of Cochin, a tolerant and sympathetic man, intervened as best he could to defend the Malabari Jewish community which sought safe haven in Ernakulam. In appreciation, according to this legend, the Jews asked the Rajah what they could do in return for him, and he replied that he wanted a bell. Some of the Jews broke into the Portuguese headquarters at night and stole its large bell. It was brought to the Rajah’s palace in Mattancherry and quietly left outside on its grounds. The next morning, the Rajah woke up to find the bell, and the Jews became known as the “bell thieves.” As a token of his appreciation, the Rajah gave the Jews land for building in the center of Ernakulam. Soon thereafter, a synagogue was built in 1580 (Sassoon: 577).Whether it was this late sixteenth century building or a later one that was rebuilt on the same site, a small synagogue was replaced in the 1930s to make room for the extant structure. Despite dating to this period of international modern architectural influences, the Tekkumbagam Synagogue was constructed in a traditional way faithful to the local vernacular genre.
The Tekkumbagam Synagogue’s history from the late sixteenth into the modern era may be hazy, but certain things about it are known. A narrative reveals that the synagogue was modeled after the one in Parur, a building that was damaged and rebuilt many times, leaving the specific precedent unclear. One old Malabari Jewish folksong sung by the women of the community in Malayalam focuses on the architecture of Tekkumbagam Synagogue. Although the date of its composition is not known, the architectural details described in the song are of the synagogue that was the immediate predecessor of the current building. The black floors that existed in the old Tekkumbagam Synagogue, for example, were a distinctive feature of traditional Kerala architecture. (Johnson: 45). These floors, used only in special applications such as in rooms of the Rajah of Cochin’s Dutch Palace in Mattancherry, looked like polished black marble, but were a mixture of burned coconut shells, charcoal, lime, sugar cane or other plant juices, and egg whites.
Soft sand once carpeted the outdoor space surrounding the synagogue and framed by property walls. The folksong about the synagogue mentions a decorated threshold of polished granite stone. The hard stone is a significant material in Kerala architecture since it has always been comparatively rare to the region and difficult to quarry. It was thus relegated to key parts of important buildings such as palaces and temples. The granite would be used at the basement to make use of its strength and durability, and on walking and touching surfaces to maintain the highest level of cleanliness. Since purity is a key element of the Hindu religion, the hardness of the granite made these contact areas more resistant to contamination. That granite was used at the threshold of Tekkumbagam Synagogue is also noteworthy since it marked a physical boundary between the contaminated and profane world on the outside with its dirt roads and the more clean and sacred zone within. Although the granite did not continue into the courtyard space of the synagogue, another special material was used. A fine, pure, and prized charol sand taken from the local river bed was spread over the courtyard space, thus creating a distinct sense of place (Johnson: 44; Joshaua, interview by author, Ernakulam Kerala, 2009).
In the mid 1930s, the Kadavumbagam Jewish community decided that the synagogue at that time, in unstable condition and deteriorated, needed to be completely rebuilt, and a larger building was needed. The new sanctuary building as planned was to be the largest of synagogues in Kerala. Some work on the project began in1936 or slightly later, yet construction was halted in 1939 when word of Hitler’s invasions in Europe reached Kochi. There was even concern that the city would be bombed during World War II, and some Jews left Ernakulam temporarily for outlying small communities where fellow Malabari Jews resided. Construction was never resumed in the period that followed, due to social and political changes. A year after Indian Independence in 1947, the State of Israel was established, and Malabari Jews began to leave Kerala for Israel by 1955. With its population in decline, the remaining community determined that there was no need to complete the final phases of the project, which lacked the finished trim work, fabrication of the intended heckal and tebah, certain intended liturgical fittings and furnishings, and an exterior stair to the women’s gallery. Enough of the work had been completed, however, that it could be used by the diminished congregation.
It is possible that the pre-1939 Tekkumbagam Synagogue had a gatehouse and connecting breezeway later were part of a larger compound which included more land to the east. Although today there is a wall to that end of the Tekkumbagam Synagogue’s courtyard, and just beyond is non-synagogue-owned land and buildings, the congregational property may have extended farther originally. The synagogue could have been approached through some type of north-south connecting path linked to the main east-west roads, in a more traditional way via a gatehouse and connecting breezeway. While the exact architectural and planning details of any earlier building configuration – gatehouse, breezeway, and sanctuary – will unlikely be confirmed, this synagogue model had been in place in Kerala for so long that it seems probable that the old Tekkumbagam Synagogue had followed it.
The building currently standing follows the usual pattern for Keralan synagogues: an azara, or anteroom followed by the large double height prayer space on the ground floor, and a balcony with second tebah on the upper level that is adjacent to the women’s seating area placed directed above the azara. Since an intended exterior stair leading up to the women’s seating area was never realized, Tekkumbagam Synagogue has two interior stairways: one from the prayer space to the balcony, and another from the azara to the women’s area directly above
CURRENT STATUS
The Tekkumbagam Synagogue, owned by the Association of Kerala Jews, has been closed as a synagogue for the past decades, although in fairly recent years it served as a gathering hall for community events. Today it stands mostly unused behind locked gates, and access to the building needs to be prearranged through the Association of Kerala Jews. To contact them, speak to the caretaker of the nearby Kadavumbagam Synagogue, Elias “Babu” Josephai.The yellow building, with some delicate woodwork along its roof lines, is identified by a heritage plaque at the street installed by “The Friends of Kerala Synagogues” in 2009. Once inside the synagogue compound, caution should be taken when walking around the overgrown grounds, which includes a well and second gate and passage opposite the one visitors use
CITED SOURCES
Johnson, Barbara C. and Daniel, Ruby. Ruby of Cochin: An Indian Jewish Woman Remembers. Philadelphia andJerusalem: The Jewish Publication Society, 1995.
Joshua, Isaac. The Synagogues of Kerala 70 CE to 1988, unpublished, 1988.
Sassoon, David. Ohel David. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932.
Waronker, Jay. Interview of Isaac Joshua, Ernakulam Kerala, 2009.
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Lost Kerala Synagogues
By Jay A. Waronker
By Jay A. Waronker
According to local narratives, the earliest Jewish settlements in Kerala
were located at Cranganore, Palur, Pulut, and Madai. In time, due to
persecution first by the Moors in the twelfth century and later by the
Portuguese with the Moors in the sixteenth century, or because of
natural disasters, the Jews living in these early settlements shifted to
more secure places a short distance to the south, where they were
offered relative protection by the Rajah of Cochin. In the process, the
earliest synagogues were abandoned and lost, and the next generation of
buildings was built. None of these synagogues survives, yet through
narratives and the Jewish folksongs sung by the women in Malayalam, some
things are known about them.
The first synagogue built in the Cochin region predated the resettlement of the Kerala Jews en bloc in the sixteenth century as a result of Portuguese aggression. Dating from 1344 and attributed to Joseph Azar, it was located in a village called Kochangadi (near Mattancherry), now a part of the city of Kochi. It was most likely built when the Jews abandoned an area in or around Cranganore after the Perriyar River flooded. This synagogue in Kochangadi was apparently razed by the army of Tipu Sultan during the Second Anglo-Mysore War in the 1780s. The building was never rebuilt, and the Jewish community is thought to have moved to nearby Kochi no later than 1795. They carried with them the inscription stone verifying the fourteenth century date of construction and placed it in the Kadavumbagam Synagogue in Mattancherry. Today it can be found inset in the east wall of the courtyard of the Paradesi Synagogue in Mattancherry.
Beginning in the fourteenth century and continuing into the mid-1800s, the Kerala Jews, according to local narratives, also built small synagogues at Muttam, Tir-Tur, Saudi (or Southi), Palur, and in Kochi’s Fort district. A short distance to the north of Kochangadi and not far from Allepey to the south – a place known to tourists for its picturesque backwater boat tours – is Muttam, a village where a small enclave of Jews once existed. The settlement, located midway between Uppala and Kumbala in Kasaragod district, gets its name, “_____,” from the Malayalam phrase meaning “front of the house which is spread with mud.” However, the small Jewish community of Muttam seems to have been so persecuted by the armies of Tipu Sultan in the late eighteenth century that they were never able to recover, and the synagogue was ultimately closed.
The synagogue at Palur, a village south of Ernakkulam in the eastern part of Trichur district, was destroyed long ago, yet it is mentioned by the Dutch Jewish traveler Pereya de Paiva during his travels to the area in 1685. Palur’s synagogue is also referenced in a Jewish Malayalam folksong. The song, sung only by the women, reveals that the first Jews arrived in Palur, and theylater fled to Cranganore. Some of the Palur Jews found peace only when they came to Kochi, where the rajah befriended and protected them. Perhaps the families who had formed the Kochangadi Synagogue in 1344 had come from Palur after that colony had been destroyed. There is a Sefer Torah case ( case or rinom??) rimon (ornament) from the Palur Synagogue that can be found today in the synagogue in Nevatim, near Be’erSheva, Israel where some Kerala Jews resettled in the 1950s and currently have a museum about their cultural heritage.
Just to the northwest of Kochi, on a small island in the bay called Tir-Tur that was once owned by a wealthy Paradesi trader by the name of Ezekiel Rahabi, was the site of another Kerala synagogue. It was built in 1750 or 1756 for the few dozen Jewish families living there. The Rahabi Family had fields on the island, which they used during the summer months as a retreat. According to local narrative, Rahabi settled ten Jewish families there to make sure that there was a minyan (quorum), although the congregation could have been larger. It had closed by 1761, when the Jews left for Kochi and other towns. Another source claims that the Tir-Tur Synagogue was abandoned because the Jews were fleeing from Tipu Sultan, with the result thatthe small congregation left the island. At that point the building was sold to the Chief Minister of Cochin.
Another Kerala synagogue dating from 1514 once existed at Saudi, which is the part of current-day Kochi located to the most northerly point of the city’s mainland “finger” peninsula. This building existed until 1556, yet services were rarely held there.
At one time a synagogue, the Tekkumbagam, stood in the Mattancherry area of Kochi on Synagogue Lane in Jew Town, very near the Paradesi Synagogue on the same, or west side of the street. A former leader of the Paradesi Jews, S. I. Hallegua, claimed (wrote?) that construction of the synagogue began in 1647 during Portuguese colonial rule and was completed by the Mudaliyar (high leader of Kerala Jews) Jacob Castiel in 1687 on property owned by Paradesi Jews. It is unclear whether the building was ever altered or renovated during its long history., It was in continuous use for about three hundred years. In 1955, most of the congregation immigrated to Israel,During Jewish holidays and life-cycle events such as Shimhat Torah and wedding ceremonies, all the Jews living in Jew Town, from both the Malabari and Paradesi communities visited the Tekkumbagam Synagogue as well as the two other synagogues in Jew Town, the Paradesi and Kadavumbagam.
When the Tekkumbagam Synagogue congregation left India for Israel, the propertywas turned over to the Paradesi community in Jew Town. The former synagogue sat for some time, and was eventually purchased by a Paradesi Jew. Despite community misgivings about tearing down a building that once served a religious function, a perceived bad omen among many Indians, it was demolished to make room for a private residence. Today the two storyhouse with its white exterior stands unoccupied.
At Fort Cochin, Jews known in the community as Meshuhrarim (the Hebrew word means “freed people”, and it is understood to refer to freed or converted slaves), , are believed to have initiated the building of a Jewish prayer hall in 1848. This was in response to their failed effort to secure equal rights and standing within the Paradesi community. As an act of protest, they formally separated and organized their own congregation. Its leaders, along with others, are said to have come down with the plague some time thereafter, so the building remained incomplete, and religious services were never held there. After these deaths, the remaining community are said to have returned to their former synagogue in Mattancherry.
The first synagogue built in the Cochin region predated the resettlement of the Kerala Jews en bloc in the sixteenth century as a result of Portuguese aggression. Dating from 1344 and attributed to Joseph Azar, it was located in a village called Kochangadi (near Mattancherry), now a part of the city of Kochi. It was most likely built when the Jews abandoned an area in or around Cranganore after the Perriyar River flooded. This synagogue in Kochangadi was apparently razed by the army of Tipu Sultan during the Second Anglo-Mysore War in the 1780s. The building was never rebuilt, and the Jewish community is thought to have moved to nearby Kochi no later than 1795. They carried with them the inscription stone verifying the fourteenth century date of construction and placed it in the Kadavumbagam Synagogue in Mattancherry. Today it can be found inset in the east wall of the courtyard of the Paradesi Synagogue in Mattancherry.
Beginning in the fourteenth century and continuing into the mid-1800s, the Kerala Jews, according to local narratives, also built small synagogues at Muttam, Tir-Tur, Saudi (or Southi), Palur, and in Kochi’s Fort district. A short distance to the north of Kochangadi and not far from Allepey to the south – a place known to tourists for its picturesque backwater boat tours – is Muttam, a village where a small enclave of Jews once existed. The settlement, located midway between Uppala and Kumbala in Kasaragod district, gets its name, “_____,” from the Malayalam phrase meaning “front of the house which is spread with mud.” However, the small Jewish community of Muttam seems to have been so persecuted by the armies of Tipu Sultan in the late eighteenth century that they were never able to recover, and the synagogue was ultimately closed.
The synagogue at Palur, a village south of Ernakkulam in the eastern part of Trichur district, was destroyed long ago, yet it is mentioned by the Dutch Jewish traveler Pereya de Paiva during his travels to the area in 1685. Palur’s synagogue is also referenced in a Jewish Malayalam folksong. The song, sung only by the women, reveals that the first Jews arrived in Palur, and theylater fled to Cranganore. Some of the Palur Jews found peace only when they came to Kochi, where the rajah befriended and protected them. Perhaps the families who had formed the Kochangadi Synagogue in 1344 had come from Palur after that colony had been destroyed. There is a Sefer Torah case ( case or rinom??) rimon (ornament) from the Palur Synagogue that can be found today in the synagogue in Nevatim, near Be’erSheva, Israel where some Kerala Jews resettled in the 1950s and currently have a museum about their cultural heritage.
Just to the northwest of Kochi, on a small island in the bay called Tir-Tur that was once owned by a wealthy Paradesi trader by the name of Ezekiel Rahabi, was the site of another Kerala synagogue. It was built in 1750 or 1756 for the few dozen Jewish families living there. The Rahabi Family had fields on the island, which they used during the summer months as a retreat. According to local narrative, Rahabi settled ten Jewish families there to make sure that there was a minyan (quorum), although the congregation could have been larger. It had closed by 1761, when the Jews left for Kochi and other towns. Another source claims that the Tir-Tur Synagogue was abandoned because the Jews were fleeing from Tipu Sultan, with the result thatthe small congregation left the island. At that point the building was sold to the Chief Minister of Cochin.
Another Kerala synagogue dating from 1514 once existed at Saudi, which is the part of current-day Kochi located to the most northerly point of the city’s mainland “finger” peninsula. This building existed until 1556, yet services were rarely held there.
At one time a synagogue, the Tekkumbagam, stood in the Mattancherry area of Kochi on Synagogue Lane in Jew Town, very near the Paradesi Synagogue on the same, or west side of the street. A former leader of the Paradesi Jews, S. I. Hallegua, claimed (wrote?) that construction of the synagogue began in 1647 during Portuguese colonial rule and was completed by the Mudaliyar (high leader of Kerala Jews) Jacob Castiel in 1687 on property owned by Paradesi Jews. It is unclear whether the building was ever altered or renovated during its long history., It was in continuous use for about three hundred years. In 1955, most of the congregation immigrated to Israel,During Jewish holidays and life-cycle events such as Shimhat Torah and wedding ceremonies, all the Jews living in Jew Town, from both the Malabari and Paradesi communities visited the Tekkumbagam Synagogue as well as the two other synagogues in Jew Town, the Paradesi and Kadavumbagam.
When the Tekkumbagam Synagogue congregation left India for Israel, the propertywas turned over to the Paradesi community in Jew Town. The former synagogue sat for some time, and was eventually purchased by a Paradesi Jew. Despite community misgivings about tearing down a building that once served a religious function, a perceived bad omen among many Indians, it was demolished to make room for a private residence. Today the two storyhouse with its white exterior stands unoccupied.
At Fort Cochin, Jews known in the community as Meshuhrarim (the Hebrew word means “freed people”, and it is understood to refer to freed or converted slaves), , are believed to have initiated the building of a Jewish prayer hall in 1848. This was in response to their failed effort to secure equal rights and standing within the Paradesi community. As an act of protest, they formally separated and organized their own congregation. Its leaders, along with others, are said to have come down with the plague some time thereafter, so the building remained incomplete, and religious services were never held there. After these deaths, the remaining community are said to have returned to their former synagogue in Mattancherry.
For further information, please see: India's Jewish Heritage (Mumbai: Marg)
2009. The book documents the vanishing heritage of the relatively
unknown Indian Jewish communities - the Bene Israel of Maharashtra, the
Cochin Jews of the Malabar coast, and the “Baghdadi” Jews who settled in
Bombay and Calcutta - acquainting readers with their rich culture, and
their contribution to the colourful tapestry of India.
This book has been edited by Dr. Shalva Weil, a Hebrew University anthropologist and a world authority on Indian Jewry.
This book has been edited by Dr. Shalva Weil, a Hebrew University anthropologist and a world authority on Indian Jewry.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jews in India
By Shalva Weil
By Shalva Weil
India has consistently welcomed Jews over a period of two thousand
years, unlike almost every other country in the world; in fact, India's
Jews are the only Jewish community in the world who have never suffered
from anti-Semitism at the hands of their fellow countrymen (for
affinities between Indic and Judaic civilizations, click here)
Open Torah scroll David Nahoum, a Baghdadi Jew, New Market, Kolkata, 2000
There are three major recognised Indian Jewish communities today: the Cochin Jews, the Bene Israel, and the “Baghdadis”.*
The largest of India’s Jewish communities is the Bene Israel (“Children of Israel”). According to their story of origin, they came from the “North", perhaps as early as 175 BCE. Their ancestors were shipwrecked off the Konkan coast and lost all their holy books; they only remembered the Shema prayer, which declared their faith in monotheism. The seven men and seven women who survived took refuge in the village of Navgaon, where they buried the bodies of their relatives and friends. The survivors were offered hospitality by local Hindus, and the Bene Israel took up the occupation of oilpressing becoming known as Shanwar Telis or Saturday Oilmen, because they refrained from work on the Jewish Sabbath.
When discovered by David Rahabi, the Bene Israel observed the Sabbath since, as mentioned above, they did not work on this holy day, the dietary laws , circumcision and many of the Jewish festivals. The origins of David Rahabi are unclear but some Bene Israel assert that he may have been the brother of the Rambam, Maimonides, who was shipwrecked off the Indian coast in the century; others associate him with the Paradesi Cochin Jew, who acted as the principal merchantman of the Dutch East India Company in the 18th century. In order to ascertain whether the Bene Israel were indeed Jews, Rahabi requested the women to prepare him a fish meal.
When they singled out the fish with fins and scales – that is, the kosher fish from the non-kosher fish - Rahabi was convinced of the Bene Israel’s Jewish identity and agreed to instruct them in the tenets of Judaism.
From the 18th century on, theBene Israel began to move out of the Konkan villages south of Bombay (today Mumbai) to the metropolis, encouraged by the British, who enlisted the Bene Israel into the army and offered them positions in the railways and telegraphs and posts. By the 20th century, the majority of the Bene Israel had set up synagogues and communities in urban centres, such as Pune, Ahmedabad, New Delhi, Karachi and even in Aden.
The religious customs of the Bene Israel were unique. On Yom Kippur, known as the "The Festival of the Closing of the Doors", the Bene Israel arrived in synagogue before dawn so as to avoid contact with other people. They also observed particular folk customs, such as hair-shaving ceremonies for babies, pilgrimages, and special ways of celebrating the festivals. An unusual feature of Bene Israel religious worship is the intensive belief in Eliyahoo Hannabi. Whereas many Jews believe that Elijah ascended to heaven from a site somewhere near present-day Haifa in Israel, the Bene Israel believe that he departed on his chariot from a village called Khandalla in the Konkan. Bene Israel go on pilgrimage to the site, which is also revered by local Hindus, where they claim that they can see the footprints of Elijah’s horses. There, they make wishes for the redemption of vows or pray for thanksgiving.
The Bene Israel community has many educated professionals, including lawyers, professors, doctors, mayors and authors, who contributed to the cultural life of India. After Indian independence in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the majority of the Bene Israel gradually emigrated to Israel. In 1964, they were recognised as Jews "in every respect" by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate and by Israel’s Knesset.
Today, some 4,000 Bene Israel remain in India, largely in the Maharashtra region, and over 60,000 live in Israel. Many were sent to ‘development towns’, such as Kiryat Shmone, Kiryat Yam, Ramle, Lod, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Beersheba and even Eilat, with the largest concentration in the town of Dimona.
The “Baghdadis” migrated to two major urban centres, Calcutta and Bombay, from Iraq and Syria from the 18th century on. One of the founders of the Bombay community was Joseph Semah, who arrived in India in 1730 from Surat; another was Shalom Cohen, a merchant who settled in Calcutta in 1798. These Jewish merchants, who escaped deteriorating conditions in Iraq and the pogroms of Daud Pasha in the mid-nineteenth century, were followed by other Jews, who established thriving businesses in the East, as far afield as Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai. The Sassoon family built prayer houses and synagogues and built hospitals, libraries and schools in India for the benefit of the Jews and the general population, too. One of the synagogues they built, the Knesset Eliyahoo synagogue has been designated a historic landmark and is open for visitors on weekdays and for shabbat services on Saturdays. It is in the Fort area, walking distance from the Gateway of India and the Sassoon Library. In Calcutta, as many as eight Baghdadi synagogues operated regularly, as well as several Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic printing presses, which translated holy texts into local vernacular and published original works.
After the withdrawal from India of the British, many of the Baghdadis decided to emigrate to England and other English-speaking countries; they were educated in English and had associated with the British Raj; a couple of thousand came to Israel. Today, there are fewer than 200 Jews of Iraqi origin left in India.
* In recent years, other groups, notably the Shinlung or Bnei Menashe of the Indo-Burmese borderlands, and the Bnei Ephraim of Andra Pradesh, are claiming Israelite status and attempting to identify as Jews. Well over 1,000 Bnei Menashe have immigrated to the State of Israel from the states of Manipur and Mizoram and have converted to Judaism in Israel.
Bene Israel women kneading dough for Matzot before Pesach.
Open Torah scroll David Nahoum, a Baghdadi Jew, New Market, Kolkata, 2000
There are three major recognised Indian Jewish communities today: the Cochin Jews, the Bene Israel, and the “Baghdadis”.*
The largest of India’s Jewish communities is the Bene Israel (“Children of Israel”). According to their story of origin, they came from the “North", perhaps as early as 175 BCE. Their ancestors were shipwrecked off the Konkan coast and lost all their holy books; they only remembered the Shema prayer, which declared their faith in monotheism. The seven men and seven women who survived took refuge in the village of Navgaon, where they buried the bodies of their relatives and friends. The survivors were offered hospitality by local Hindus, and the Bene Israel took up the occupation of oilpressing becoming known as Shanwar Telis or Saturday Oilmen, because they refrained from work on the Jewish Sabbath.
When discovered by David Rahabi, the Bene Israel observed the Sabbath since, as mentioned above, they did not work on this holy day, the dietary laws , circumcision and many of the Jewish festivals. The origins of David Rahabi are unclear but some Bene Israel assert that he may have been the brother of the Rambam, Maimonides, who was shipwrecked off the Indian coast in the century; others associate him with the Paradesi Cochin Jew, who acted as the principal merchantman of the Dutch East India Company in the 18th century. In order to ascertain whether the Bene Israel were indeed Jews, Rahabi requested the women to prepare him a fish meal.
When they singled out the fish with fins and scales – that is, the kosher fish from the non-kosher fish - Rahabi was convinced of the Bene Israel’s Jewish identity and agreed to instruct them in the tenets of Judaism.
From the 18th century on, theBene Israel began to move out of the Konkan villages south of Bombay (today Mumbai) to the metropolis, encouraged by the British, who enlisted the Bene Israel into the army and offered them positions in the railways and telegraphs and posts. By the 20th century, the majority of the Bene Israel had set up synagogues and communities in urban centres, such as Pune, Ahmedabad, New Delhi, Karachi and even in Aden.
The religious customs of the Bene Israel were unique. On Yom Kippur, known as the "The Festival of the Closing of the Doors", the Bene Israel arrived in synagogue before dawn so as to avoid contact with other people. They also observed particular folk customs, such as hair-shaving ceremonies for babies, pilgrimages, and special ways of celebrating the festivals. An unusual feature of Bene Israel religious worship is the intensive belief in Eliyahoo Hannabi. Whereas many Jews believe that Elijah ascended to heaven from a site somewhere near present-day Haifa in Israel, the Bene Israel believe that he departed on his chariot from a village called Khandalla in the Konkan. Bene Israel go on pilgrimage to the site, which is also revered by local Hindus, where they claim that they can see the footprints of Elijah’s horses. There, they make wishes for the redemption of vows or pray for thanksgiving.
The Bene Israel community has many educated professionals, including lawyers, professors, doctors, mayors and authors, who contributed to the cultural life of India. After Indian independence in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the majority of the Bene Israel gradually emigrated to Israel. In 1964, they were recognised as Jews "in every respect" by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate and by Israel’s Knesset.
Today, some 4,000 Bene Israel remain in India, largely in the Maharashtra region, and over 60,000 live in Israel. Many were sent to ‘development towns’, such as Kiryat Shmone, Kiryat Yam, Ramle, Lod, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Beersheba and even Eilat, with the largest concentration in the town of Dimona.
The “Baghdadis” migrated to two major urban centres, Calcutta and Bombay, from Iraq and Syria from the 18th century on. One of the founders of the Bombay community was Joseph Semah, who arrived in India in 1730 from Surat; another was Shalom Cohen, a merchant who settled in Calcutta in 1798. These Jewish merchants, who escaped deteriorating conditions in Iraq and the pogroms of Daud Pasha in the mid-nineteenth century, were followed by other Jews, who established thriving businesses in the East, as far afield as Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai. The Sassoon family built prayer houses and synagogues and built hospitals, libraries and schools in India for the benefit of the Jews and the general population, too. One of the synagogues they built, the Knesset Eliyahoo synagogue has been designated a historic landmark and is open for visitors on weekdays and for shabbat services on Saturdays. It is in the Fort area, walking distance from the Gateway of India and the Sassoon Library. In Calcutta, as many as eight Baghdadi synagogues operated regularly, as well as several Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic printing presses, which translated holy texts into local vernacular and published original works.
After the withdrawal from India of the British, many of the Baghdadis decided to emigrate to England and other English-speaking countries; they were educated in English and had associated with the British Raj; a couple of thousand came to Israel. Today, there are fewer than 200 Jews of Iraqi origin left in India.
* In recent years, other groups, notably the Shinlung or Bnei Menashe of the Indo-Burmese borderlands, and the Bnei Ephraim of Andra Pradesh, are claiming Israelite status and attempting to identify as Jews. Well over 1,000 Bnei Menashe have immigrated to the State of Israel from the states of Manipur and Mizoram and have converted to Judaism in Israel.
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Trade with the Malabar Coast
By Shalva WeilLinguistic evidence suggests the possibility of ancient Jewish communities and early commercial connections between India and the Holy Land. The articles brought on King Solomon’s ships and mentioned in the Biblical Book of Kings by designations only known in ancient Tamil, such as kofim (apes) tukim (peacocks), almag (sandalwood =valgum), were of Indian origin.
In the Book of Esther, King Ahaseuerus’ kingdom stretched from Hoddu, (generally accepted to be India), to Kush (generally accepted to be Ethiopia).
Travellers’ tales in the Talmud mention trade with India, including specific commodities, such as Indian ginger and iron.
Archeological excavations at the site of Pattanam, near Muziris in Kerala, have unearthed identification of the port of Muziris, mentioned by the Romans, as well as in local Tamil texts. Dr. P.J. Cherian, a researcher and director of the Pattanam excavations since 2007, is optimistic that archaeologists will find some material evidence of Jewish or Middle Eastern trading links. “One of the interesting finds of the last season,” he said,” was the turquoise glazed pottery of West Asian origin in the pre-Roman layers. We are awaiting its analytical report and hope it will be of help in tracing the early Jewish links with the Malabar Coast.”
From the sixth to the eleventh century CE, Jewish merchantmen known as Raadanites traded between East and West, from the Middle East to South Asia and back.
Medieval Jewish texts, dating from the 11th to the 13th centuries, discovered in the Cairo Genizah, include documents describing the trade carried out between Arab-speaking Jews and Hindu partners in spices, pharmaceuticals, textiles, metals, gold, silver and silks.
In the 17th century, Jewish merchant centres were established in Madras, Calicut don't know what states they were in the 17th century and other places. Ezekiel Rahabi (1694-1771), a Paradesi (literally: "Foreign") Cochin Jew, acted as the principal merchant for the Dutch in Cochin and signed his memoranda in Hebrew.
During the 19th century, Jewish emissaries travelled to Asia in order to make contact with the Jews in far-flung places, often in the belief that they were members of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israelites who were exiled from the Kingdom of Israel by Assyrian kings in the eighth century BCE.
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India Traders of the Middle Ages Letters from the Cairo Geniza
By Marian Scheuer SofaerTrade between India, the Middle East, and Europe was “the backbone of the international medieval economy in the Middle Ages;” writes Prof. Mordechai A. Friedman in the 2006 publication of India Traders of the Middle Ages: Documents from the Cairo Geniza, a research project begun by the eminent scholar Dr. S.D. Goitein and published after his death with additional text and commentary by Prof Friedman.
India Traders of the Middle Ages Geniza is a collection of late eleventh and early twelfth century letters, court documents and other writings which were written in medieval Judeo- Arabic in Arabic script and preserved in the Cairo Geniza.
One famous letter from the Geniza was written to Moses Maimonides by his brother David, who was on his way to India and was later lost at sea. Other letters report the arrival of shipments, losses through shipwreck or piracy, and personal and social news. Jewish merchants used the Geniza to deposit letters where the name of God was written, thus fulfilling a religious duty to dispose of them properly.
Most of the India trade correspondence in the Geniza dates from 1090 to 1160; Almohad violence brought an end to the shipping trade by non-Muslims by 1247. Yet, until then, Jewish and Christian traders could send goods across the Indian Ocean to a variety of ports, and Prof. Friedman notes that scholars observe “an astonishing degree of interdenominational cooperation, matched by almost complete absence of animosity against other communities.” Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Christians appear in the documents as partners, united in the pursuit of commerce and in the hope of avoiding death and property loss at sea.
The Geniza letters in this volume by Goitein and Friedman give a taste of the India trade in the period before Portuguese control. Over a hundred commodities appear on lists of merchants’ exports from India. Among these, the most common were spices, especially pepper, stored in large sacks, perfumes, herbs and textiles. Gold and silver was sent to India by merchants to pay for the goods. Ships from Malabar carried back to the Middle East trading centers a variety of merchandise including red silks (called lalas from the Sanskrit word for red), cottons, festive clothing, aromatic woods, furniture, lac, spices like mace, cloves and cardamom, nuts, medicinal herbs and ointments, and copper and brass vessels.
Some ships were named for ports in India, like the Kulami, a ship that set sail from Aden to Kulam (later Quilon) on the Malabar Coast, but was shipwrecked off the coast of Aden. A letter deposited in the Geniza tells the story of what passengers on a sister ship heard and observed, including the cries of the doomed sailors, the wreckage, the sharks, and the lack of survivors, recounted in a request to release a young widow so that she could remarry.
It is easy to imagine the anxiety of family members hearing of difficult sea voyages. One man wrote his brother that their mother was in such a state that “no food or drink entered her mouth until your esteemed letter arrived.” Biblical blessings were offered: “When you pass through water, I will be with you” (Isa 43:2).
The joy of knowing that a family member survived an attack by pirates tempered the loss felt from losing merchandise in the raid, as Joseph Yiju wrote in a letter to his son Moses, who was taken captive by pirates but later released while traveling east from Sicily:
“Do not think, my son, that I was grieved by what was lost….and how happy I was that you were saved. For us, my son Moses, your being saved is the whole of this world.”
Another twelfth century letter in the book expressed the same sentiment this way: “Everything can be replaced except life.”
The original texts of the letters together with Hebrew translations were published by the Ben-Zvi Institute and the Rabbi David Moshe and Amalia Rosen Foundation in 2009-2010.
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Origins of Cochin Jews
By Shalva WeilThe settlement of Jews on the Malabar coast is ancient. One theory holds that the ancestors of today’s Cochin Jews arrived in south India among King Solomon’s merchants, who brought back ivory, monkeys and parrots for his temple. Sanskrit- and Tamil-derived words appear in 1 Kings. Another theory suggests that Cochin Jews are descendants of captives taken to Assyria in the eighth century BCE. The most popular and likely supposition, however, is that Jews came to south India some time before or in the first century CE, after the destruction of Solomon’s second temple.
The presence of Jews already settled on the Malabar coast in ancient times is mentioned in local South Indian Christian legends, according to which Thomas the Apostle and Abbanes, an Indian merchant, arrived at Cranganore, the ancient capital of Cochin, on the wedding day of the king's daughter. Thomas recited poetry in Hebrew and only a young female Jewish flautist understood him.Thomas subsequently converted her to Christianity. The implication of this narrative is that the advent of the Jews preceded the Christianity brought by Thomas the Apostle to south India.
Documentary evidence of Jewish settlement on the southern Indian coast can be found in the famous Cochin Jewish copperplates in the ancient Tamil script (vattezuthu). These copperplates are the source of numerous arguments, both among scholars as to their date and meaning and among the Cochin Jews themselves as to which particular subgroup of Cochin Jews are the true owners.
Until recently, the Jewish copperplates were dated 345 CE, but contemporary scholars agree upon the date 1000 CE. During the reign of Bhaskara Ravi Varman (962-1020 CE), that the Jews were granted 72 privileges. Among these were the right to use a day lamp; the right to erect a palanquin; the right to blow a trumpet; and the right to be exempt from and to collect particular taxes. The privileges were bestowed upon the Cochin Jewish leader Joseph Rabban, “proprietor of the ‘Anjuvannam’, his male and female issues, nephews and sons-in-law.” The meaning of the word ‘Anjuvannam’ is also the subject of controversy. The theory that the word refers to a kingdom or a place has been superseded by newer theories that it was an artisan class, a trade center, or a specifically Jewish guild.
When the Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela visited India in about 1170, he reported that there were about 1000 Jews in the south, "all of them black". After Vasco de Gama’s expedition to India, some European and Middle-Eastern Jews know as the “Paradesi” (Foreigners), and sometimes referred to as “Whites” settled in Cochin. They came from Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Syria and Iraq. The Paradesi synagogue, which they built, was established in 1568.
In 1686, Moses Pereira de Paiva listed 465 Jews residing on the Malabar coast. In 1781 the Dutch governor A. Moens recorded 422 families or about 2000 persons. In 1948, 2500 Jews were living on the Malabar Coast. In 1953, 2,400 Cochin Jews immigrated to Israel. Only about 100 Paradesi Jews remained on the Malabar Coast, while the others emigrated to Israel or English- speaking countries.
Within what is now the state of Kerala, the Malabar Jews were dispersed in different locations over the centuries. In 1341, a type of tsunami occurred; the Periyar river was silted up and it diverted into two tributaries at Thottummukham. The Jews, who were then living in Cranganore, were forced to move, and they established communities in Cochin and elsewhere. The first synagogue of Cochin is attributed to a man named Joseph Azar at Cochangadi. In time, the Malabar Jews concentrated in five major settlements in eight communities (yogi) in Kerala: Cochin, Ernakulam, Chendamanglam, Mala and Parur.
Benjamin of Tudela
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Where are Cochin Jews today?
By Shalva WeilMost Cochin Jews live today in Israel. They number some 8,000 (including spouses who "married in" to the community). In 2010, around 40 Jews remained in Kerala.
Every moshav and every neighbourhood in a city with a substantial number of Cochin Jews has a synagogue, and the “Shingli” rites are still followed. The largest group is at Nevatim, which has a synagogue built in the Kerala style and has Torah scrolls from Cochin. Nearby is the Cochin Jewish Heritage Center. See the virtual tour here. Descriptions of the museum are available on Israel's MFA website and on tourism websites.
Some Cochin Jews who emigrated from the village of Chendamangalam live at Givat Koach, near the Ben-Gurion airport. In 2010, they built and inaugurated the Eliahu Motta Synagogue, named for the Yemenite kabbalist revered by Cochin Jews, as well as by members of other faiths in Cochin.
A large crowd of Cochin Jews from all over Israel came to Givat Koach for the inaugural event. Prof. Shalva Weil was the curator for the synagogue’s heritage room and poster exhibition.
The interior of the Kadavumbagam synagogue from Cochin was restored by the Israeli Museum in 1996, and it is now a prominent part of the display of world synagogues in the museum. The heichal (ark) and tebah (podium) were originally from the Parur synagogue in Kerala. The original heichal from the Kadavumbagam synagogue has been in use at a moshav in Israel, Nehalim, since the 1950s, in a congregation of orthodox German Jews.
A few Cochin Jews have migrated to the United States, but there is no significant concentration in any one geographic area.
Cochin Jews travel more between Israel and India than they did in the decades immediately after aliyah. Some take children to visit Kerala on trips to show them their roots in India. Others have returned to conduct business or purchase property in Kerala.
In February, 2006, the 1614 synagogue in Chennamangalam, restored by the Kerala Archaeological Survey in conjunction with the Kerala Department of Tourism, was inaugurated, and many Cochin Jews from Israel attended the event.
Cochin Jewish folksongs in Malayalam, traditionally sung by Jewish women in Kerala,are currently being revived in Israel. A CD entitled "Oh, Lovely Parrot" has been produced in an international collaborative project and is available through the Jewish Music Research Center of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and music websites.
Where are Cochin Jews Today?
Five Cochini settlements in Israel
Cochin Cultural Heritage Center in Nevatim
Givat Koach
Cochin Jews in the news
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Cochin Cultural Heritage Center
The Cochin Jewish Heritage Center in Nevatim, Israel, was set up by the Association for Culture and for Preservation of the Heritage of Cochin Jewry.The aims of the Center are:
· To preserve and present the material and spiritual culture of the Jewish community of Kerala,
· To serve as spiritual and cultural center for the Jews of Kerala and
· To encourage research on the community.
The idea of collecting artifacts and material was initiated by a few dedicated people from Nevatim, among them: Mr. Yitzhak Elia, who has served as the director of the center since 1995, Mr. Shalom Nehemia and Mr. Nechemia Itzhack. The center was inaugurated at the end of 1995. The founding curator of the heritage center was Ms.Tirza Muttath Lavi and the designer was Ms. Rachel Lev. Tirza Lavi has served as curator since 2006 .
In the permanent exhibition at the center, the visitor sees a panorama of the atmosphere and life of the Jews in Kerala before their immigration to Israel: daily life, celebration of Jewish holidays, especially Hag Simchat Tora which was the highlight of holidays in Kerala, and transitional rituals (wedding, circumcision, bar mitzvah etc). Most of the artifacts came from Kerala and were donated by members of Kerala Jewish families.
The Cochin Jewish Heritage Center also has a collection of photographs, some of which are exhibited in the front hall.
The Heritage Center is part of a larger innovative plan, which still awaits funding. This project intends to recreate the atmosphere of Jews Street as it used to exist in the Cochin region of Kerala State. This Jews Street replica will serve as a living museum for visitors from Israel and abroad. The street will include several buildings in the traditional Kerala architectural style. Each building will be related to a different aspect of Jewish life in Kerala. Since the landscape, townscape and climate of Nevatim are far from the environment of southwest India, lush tropical vegetation will surround the entire compound. By producing a complete environment, we hope to create a living memory of Jewish life in Kerala, which will make it possible for visitors to enjoy the cultural preservation of this heritage.
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The Muziris Heritage Project
by Shalva WeilThe Muziris Heritage Project (henceforth MHP) is a huge heritage conservation-cum-archaeological excavation project carried out by the Kerala Council for Historical Research (KCHR) at Pattanam in Kerala’s Eranakulam district in conjunction with the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), and a number of universities and research institutes in India and abroad. So far, two million pottery sherds have been uncovered, metal tools, including a golden axe have been excavated, items of personal adornment have been revealed and botanical specimens have been examined. Recently, a proposal has been submitted to UNESCO to recognize the Kerala coast as a World Heritage Site and, in collaboration with the Indian Tourist Ministry, in order to develop the whole region as a “Spice Route” which will attract global tourists to the area.
Muziris used to be an important port on the Kerala coast in the first century BCE and was the commercial destination of traders of different faiths, including Jews, Christians, Muslims and others. Trade between the Mediterranean and Kerala, as well as the existence of temples and settlement of Romans at Cranganore, has been well-documented in Roman texts, So too has commerce between Egypt, Greece and Muziris. At a later period, spices were exported to China, as can be witnessed by today’s Chinese fishing nets, still in place over the Periyar river. Local Christians believe that St.Thomas, the apostle of Jesus Christ, arrived at Muziris, or Cranganore. whence he spread the word about Christianity to the indigenous inhabitants; Jews may have already been residing there by that date.
The MHP is an ambitious project that aims at restoring 23 historic buildings in only the first phase of the project, 14 canal jetties for the canal renovation part of the project and the construction of roads connecting the different sites. Among the buildings to be renovated are the Jewish houses in Parur (Paravur) and the synagogue. The renovation of the latter is almost complete.
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Restoration of the Parur Synagogue
photos by Issac Sam
The Muziris Heritage Project
Restoration of the Parur Synagogue
News
Updates
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Some Books and Articles about Cochin Jews
Astren, Fred, The Jewish Printed Book in India, Magnes Museum, Berkeley, CA (list of collection in the museum's Blumenthal Rare Book and Manuscript Library), 1992Bar Giora, Source Material, Jerusalem: Hebrew University Press, 1958.
Barmouth, Eliyahu, The Jews of Cochin, In Search of Roots, Jerusalem, 2001
Bernier, Ronald M. Temple Arts of Kerala: A South Indian Traditino, New Delhi: S. Chand & Company Ltd., 1982
Bhednde, Asha and Jhirad, Ralphy, Demographic and Socio-Economic Characteristics of Jews in India, ORT, Worli, Mumbai, 1997
Cherian, P. J. “Essays on the Cultural Formation of Kerala: Literature, Art, Architecture, Music, Theatre, and Cinema”, Unpublished
Cooper, Ilay and Dawson, Barry, Traditional Buildings of India, London: Thames and Hudson, 1998
Daniel, Ruby and Johnson, Barbara C., Ruby of Cochin: An Indian Jewish Woman Remembers (by Ruby Daniel and Barbara Johnson), Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1995
Das Swami Das Yehudi, The Shingly Hebrew, Trivandrum, India: Sachethana, 2000
Elias, E. Indian Jewry, Haifa: Beit Eliahu v’Leah, 1986
Eliyahu-Oron, Orna, Heichalot from the Synagogues of Cochin Jews in India, Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 2004
Fischel, Walter J. “The Exploration of the Jewish Antiquities of Cochin on the Malabar Coast”, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 87, 1967, pp. 230-48
Folberg, Neil, And I Shall Dwell Among Them: Historic Synagogues of the World, New York: Aperture Press, 1995
Freund, Michael, “Cochin’s Tekkumbagam Synagogue in Peril” Jerusalem Post, July 10
Fuks, Suzon, Keeping the Light, A Diary of South India (photographic essay), B'nai B'rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum, Washington, D.C., 1997
Ghosh, Amitav, In an Antique Land, Vintage Books, New York, 1992
Goitein, S.D., Letters of Medieval Traders, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1972
Goitein, S.D. and Friedman, India Traders of the Middle Ages: Documents from the Cairo Geniza, Ben-Zvi Institute, Jerusalem, 2008
Gruber, Samuel D, Synagogues, Metrobooks, Friedman/Fairfax, New York, 1999
Hacohen, Dr. Devora and Rabbi Menachem, One People, the Story of the Eastern Jews, Adama Books, N.Y., 1986
Hallegua, Fiona, The Jewish community of Cochin, Its Twilight Years, Master of Sociology dissertation, St. Teresa's College, Ernakulam, India, 1984
Hunt, W. S. The Anglican Church in Travancore and Cochin, 1816-1916, London, 1910
Hyman, Mavis, Jews of the Raj, Hyman Publishers, London, 1995
Israel, Benjamin J., The Jews of Israel, Mosaic Books, Jewish Welfare Association, New Dehli, 1982
Israel, Benjamin J., The Jews of India and the Jewish Contribution to India, Centre for Jewish and Inter-Faith Studies, Jewish Welfare Association, New Dehli
Israel, Rachael Rukmini, The Jews of India, Their Story, Mosaic Books, New Dehli, 2002
Johsua, Isaac, “Settlements of Jews in Kerala: A Chronology of Synagogues from 70 CE – 1988” Kochi: Self published, 1988
Johnson, Barbara C., Oh Lovely Parrot!: Jewish Women’s Songs from Kerala, (Book & Compact Disk). Selections, Introduction, Notes, English translations of 42 songs in collaboration with Scaria Zacharia. 126 pp. The Jewish Music Research Center, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. Anthology of Music Traditions in Israel No. 18, Edwin Seroussi, ed., 2004
Johnson, Barbara C., Jutapalli Yogam in Kerala Jewish Communal Organization: Some Hebrew Sources Translated (with Galia Hacco). Tapasam: A Quarterly Journal for Kerala Studies 6(1):111-139, 2010
Johnson, Barbara C., New Research, Discoveries and Paradigms: A Report on the Current Study of Kerala Jews, In Indo-Judaic Studies in the Twenty-First Century: A View from the Margins, pp. 129-146. N. Katz, R. Chakravarti, B. Sinha and S. Weil, eds. NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007
Johnson, Barbara C., Intertextuality in the Oral Interpretation of Malayalam Jewish Biblical Songs, Tapasam: A Quarterly Journal for Kerala Studies, 1(3):518-534, 2006
Johnson, Barbara C., Afterword: The Songs and the Project. In Karkulali-Yefefiyah- Gorgeous!: Jewish Women’s Songs in Malayalam with Hebrew Translations, pp. 208-228. Scaria Zacharia and Ophira Gamliel, ed. & transl. Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute Press, 2005
Johnson, Barbara C., Till the Women Finish Singing: An Historical Overview of Cochin Jewish Women’s Malayalam Song, Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies, 4:7-22., 2001
Johnson, Barbara C., Jewish Communities of Cochin. In The Jews of India: A Story of Three Communities, pp. 27-35. Orpa Slapak, ed. Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1995
Johnson, Barbara C., "For Any Good Occasion We Call Them": Community Parties and Cultural Continuity among the Cochin Paradesi Jews of Israel, In Studies of Indian-Jewish Identity. Nathan Katz, ed. pp.53-82. New Delhi: Manohar, 1995
Johnson, Barbara C., The Emperor's Welcome: Reconsideration of an Origin Theme in Cochin Jewish Folklore, In Jews of India. Thomas Timberg, ed. pp. 161176. New York: Advent Books. Hebrew version: Cranganore, Joseph Rabban and Cheraman Perumal. Pe'amim: Studies Oriental Jewry. 1982. 13:7183, 1986
Katz, Chakravarti, Sinha and Weil, Indo-Judaic Studies In the Twenty-First Century
Katz, Nathan, Studies of Indian Jewish Identity, New Delhi: Ajay Kumar Jain/Manohar Publishers, 1995
Katz, Nathan and Goldberg, Ellen, The Last Jews of Cochin, Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press, 1993.
Koder, S., ed. Cochin Synagogue: Quatercentenary Celebrations, Kerala, India, 1968
Koder. S. S., History of the Jews of Kerala, Cochin, 1974
Kramer, Cheryl with Waronker, Jay, Jay Waronker: India’s Synagogues, Ithaca NY: Ithaca College Press, 2007.
Steven M. Lowenstein, The Jewish Cultural Tapestry, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp 18-19, 30-31, 98, 109
Mandelbaum, David G. “The Jewish Way of Life in Cochin”, Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 1, 1939, pp. 423-60.
Mandelbaum, David G. Society in India, Vols 1 and 2. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970, pp. 550-63
Meek, H. A., The Synagogue, London and New York: Phaidon Press, 1995
Meister, Michael W., ed. Encyclopedia of Indian Temple Architecture, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983
Mendelssohn, Sidney, The Jews of Asia, published in 1920 by E.P. Dutton, N.Y. reprinted by BiblioLife, LLC., 1916
Menon, A. Sreedhara, Social and Cultural History of Kerala, New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Pvt Ltd, 1979
Parasuram, T. V. India’s Jewish Heritage, New Delhi: Sagar Publications, 1982
Patai, Raphel, The Vanished Worlds of Jewry, Weidenfeld and Nicolson Ltd, London, 1980
Roland, Joan G., Jews in British India, Identity in a Colonial Era, Brandeis University Press, Hanover and London, 1989
Roland, Joan, The Jewish Communities of Cochin, New York: Rowe Press, 1999.
Salem. A. B., Jew Town Synagogue, Cochin, 1929 and Haifa: Eliya Ben Eliavoo – Beit Eliahu V’leah, 1972
Samuel, Jacob, The Remnant Found, published in 1841 by J. Hatchard & Son, Piccadilly, and reprinted by BiblioLife, LLC, 1838
Sarkar, H., An Architectural Survey of Temples of Kerala, New Delhi: Archeological Survey of India, 1978
Sarkar, H., “Early Kerala style, c. AD 800-100” in Encyclopedia of Indian Temple Architecture: South India – Lower Dravidadesa, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983
Sassoon, David Solomon, Ohel David, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932
Scaria, Zacharia, In meinem Land leben verschiedene Volker: Baustein zu einem Dialog der Kulturen und Religionen, Texte alter judischer Lieder aus Kerala, Sudindien (by Albrecht Frenz and Scaria Zacharia)(Ostfildern: Schwabenverlag). German, 2002
Scaria, Zacharia, Karkulali – Yefefiah – Gorgeous!: Jewish Women’s Songs in Malayalam with Hebrew Translations. Scaria Zacharia and Ophira Gamliel, editor & translator (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute and Kottayam, India: Association for Comparative Studies), 2005
Scaria, Zacharia, “Jewish Malayalam” Jewish Language Research Website, 2003
Scaria, Zacharia, “Possibilities of Understanding Jewish Malayalam Folksongs” The Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies 6:29-47, 2003
Scaria, Zacharia, “Jewish Malayalam Folk Songs — Text, Discourses and Identity” International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics 34(2), June 2005
Segal, J. B., A History of the Jews of Cochin, London: Vallentine Mitchell & Company, Ltd., 1993
Slapak, Orpa, The Jews of India, a catalogue of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel (Hebrew), 1995
Timberg, Thomas A. Jews of India, New York, Advent Books, Inc., 1986
Tomber, Roberta, Indo-Roman Trade, From Pots to Pepper, Duckworth, London, 1989
Velayhdhan, P. S. Commemoration Volume: Cochin Synagogue Quatercentenary Celebrations, Cochin: The Kerala History Association, 1971
Walterstein, M. “The Cochini Jewish Wedding of the Malabar Community in Indian and Israel: Change in Custom, Symbol, and Meaning”, in I. Ben-Ami, The Separadi and Oriental Jewish Heritage Studies. Jerusalem, 1982, p. 529
Waronker, Jay, India’s Synagogues, Ithaca, New York: Ithaca College, 2007
Waronker, Jay, “The Restoration of the 16th-Century Parur Synagogue in Kerala, India” in Kulanu, Volume 19, Winter 2010/11
Waronker, Jay, "The Synagogues of Kerala, India: Their Architecture, History, Context, and Meaning" M. Thesis, Department of Architecture, Cornell University, 2010.
Waronker, Jay, “The Synagogue in Parur, India: Its Architecture and Spatial Experience” The Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies. Saskatoon: Society for Indo-Judaic Studies, Volume 11, 2010.
Waronker, Jay, “A Synagogue in Chendamangalam: Its Community and History” in Welcome Kerala, State of Kerala Publication, Volume 8/Issue 5, 10/2007- 1/2008.
Watts, Johnathan, Kerala: of Gods and Men, New Delhi: Timeless Books, 2004.
Weil, Shalva, “Symmetry Between Christians and Jews in India: the Cananite Christians and the Cochin Jews of Kerala”, Indian Sociology, Vol. XVI, 1982, pp. 175-96.
Weil, Shalva, India’s Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art, and Life-Cycle, Mumbai: Marg Publications, 2002/6.
Weil, Shalva and Waronker, Jay, The Chendamangalam Synagogue: A Jewish Community in a Kerala Village, Kochi: Friends of Kerala Synagogues Publications, 2006.
Weil, Shalva, 'Bene Israel in Britain', New Community 3(1-2): 87-91, 1994
Weil, Shalva, 'Names and Identity among the Bene Israel', Ethnic Groups 1(3): 201-219, 1977
Weil, Shalva, 'Verbal Interaction among the Bene Israel', International Journal of the Sociology of Language 13: 71-85, 1977
Weil, Shalva, 'The State of Research into Bene Israel Indian Jews', Indian Economic and Social History Review 17(4): 397-408, 1980
Weil, Shalva, 'Literature of Jews in India', in Heda Jason (ed.) Journal of Indian Folkloristics 3(5-6): 58-71, 1980
Weil, Shalva, 'Contacts Between the Bene Israel and the Holy Land from the Eighth Century B.C.E. until 1948: An Ethno-historical Perspective' in Issachar Ben-Ami (ed.) The Sephardi & Oriental Jewish Heritage, Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University, pp. 165-178, 1982
Weil, Shalva, 'Symmetry between Christians and Jews in India: the Cnanite Christians and the Cochin Jews of Kerala', Contributions to Indian Sociology 16(2): 175-196, 1982
Weil, Shalva, From Cochin to Israel, Jerusalem: Kumu Berina. (Hebrew), 1984
Weil, Shalva, 'Interpersonal Relations & Uses of Language among Bene Israel in Israel' in Shlomo Deshen and Moshe Shokeid (eds) Oriental Jews, Jerusalem: Schocken, pp. 306-311. (Hebrew) , 1985
Weil, Shalva, 'Symmetry Between Christians And Jews In India: The Cnanite Christians And The Cochin Jews Of Kerala' in Tim Timberg (ed.) The Jews of India, Delhi: Vikas Publication, pp.177-204, 1986
Weil, Shalva, 'An Overview of Research on the Bene Israel' in Tim Timberg (ed.) The Jews of India, Delhi: Vikas Publication, pp. 12-27, 1986
Weil, Shalva, 'Anthropology becomes Home: Home becomes Anthropology' in Anthony Jackson (ed.) Anthropology at Home, ASA Monograph No. 25, London: Tavistock Publications, pp. 196-212, 1987
Weil, Shalva, 'The Influence of Caste Ideology in Israel', in Meir Gottesmann (ed.) Cultural Transition: the Case of Immigrant Youth, Jerusalem: Magnes Press, pp. 150-161, 1988
Weil, Shalva, 'Beyond the Sambatyon: the Myth of the Ten Lost Tribes', Ariel 85-86: 25-31, 1991
Weil, Shalva, 'The Secular & Religious Elite among the Bene Israel Jews in India', Pe’amim 60: 49-63. (Hebrew), 1994
Weil, Shalva, 'Yom Kippur: the Festival of Closing the Doors' in Hananya Goodman (ed.) Between Jerusalem & Benares: Comparative Studies in Judaism & Hinduism, New York: State University of New York Press, pp. 85-100, 1994
Weil, Shalva, 'Remote Jewish Communities' in Ely Ben-Gal (ed.) The People of the Menorah, Tel-Aviv: Maccabi World Union, pp. 68-73, 1995
Weil, Shalva, 'Religious Leadership vs. Secular Authority: the Case of the Bene Israel', Eastern Anthropologist 49(3- 4): 301-316, 1996
Weil, Shalva, 'Double Conversion among the "Children of Menasseh"' in Georg Pfeffer and Deepak K. Behera (eds) Contemporary Society Tribal Studies, New Delhi: Concept, pp. 84-102, 1996
Weil, Shalva, 'From Persecution to Freedom: Central European Jewish Refugees and their Jewish Host Communities in India', in Anil Bhatti and Johannes H. Voigt (eds) Jewish Exile in India 1933-1945, New Delhi: Manohar and Max Mueller Bhavan, pp. 64-84, 1999
Weil, Shalva, 'Flora Samuel', Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies 1(2): 150-151, 1999
Weil, Shalva, India, The Larger Immigrations from Eastern Countries, Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute and the Ministry of Education. (Hebrew), 2000
Weil, Shalva, 'The Jewish Communities of India' in Avshalom Mizrachi and Aharon Ben-David (eds) The Tribes-Evidence of Israel: Exile, Immigrations, Absorption, Contribution and Integration, Netanya: Association for Society and Culture, Documentation and Research, pp. 272-281. (Hebrew), 2001
Weil, Shalva, 'The Bene Israel of India', in Eliyahoo Hanabee (to accompany CD- Rom). Tel-Aviv: Beth Hatefutsoth, the Nahum Goldman Museum of the Jewish Diaspora, 2002
Weil, Shalva, 'Dual Conversion Among the Shinlung of North-East India', Studies of Tribes and Tribals 1(1): 43-57 (inaugural volume), 2003
Weil, Shalva, 'Bene Israel Rites and Routines', Marg: A Magazine of The Arts, 54(2): 26-37, 2004
Weil, Shalva, 'Lost Israelites from North-East India: Re-Traditionalisation and Conversion among the Shinlung from the Indo-Burmese Borderlands', The Anthropologist 6(3): 219-233, 2004
Weil, Shalva, 'Motherland and Fatherland as Dichotomous Diasporas: the Case of the Bene Israel' in Lisa Anteby, William Berthomiere and Gabriel Sheffer (eds) Les Diasporas 2000 ans d'histoire, Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, pp. 91-99, 2005
Weil, Shalva, 'The Impact of Hindu-Jewish Studies in Israel, or, The Salience of Spirituality', Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies 7: 5-11, 2005
Weil, Shalva, 'Obituary: Professor J.B Segal', Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies 7: 117-119, 2005
Weil, Shalva, '"Today is Purim": A Cochin Jewish Song in Hebrew', TAPASAM Journal: Quarterly Journal for Kerala Studies 1(3): 575-588, 2006
Weil, Shalva, 'Indian Judaic Tradition' in Sushil Mittal and Gene Thursby (eds) Religions in South Asia, London: Palgrave Publishers, pp. 169-183, 2006
Weil, Shalva, Indo-Judaic Studies in the Twenty-First Century: A Perspective from the Margin, Katz, N., Chakravarti, R., Sinha, B. M. and Weil, S. (eds) New York and Basingstoke, England: Palgrave-Macmillan Press, 2007
Weil, Shalva, 'On Origins, the Arts and Transformed Identities: Foci of Research into the Bene Israel' in Nathan Katz, Ranabir Chakravarti, Braj M. Sinha and Shalva Weil (eds) Indo-Judaic Studies in the Twenty-First Century: A Perspective from the Margin, New York and Basingstoke, England: Palgrave-Macmillan Press, pp. 147-157, 2007
Weil, Shalva, Karmic Passages: Israeli Scholarship on India, Shulman, D. and Weil, S. (eds) New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2008
Weil, Shalva, Shulman, D., 'Prelude: The Israeli Quest for India' in David Shulman and Shalva Weil (eds) Karmic Passages: Israeli Scholarship on India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 1-7, 2008
Weil, Shalva, 'Esther David: The Bene Israel Novelist who Grew Up with a Tiger' in David Shulman and Shalva Weil (eds) Karmic Passages: Israeli Scholarship on India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 232-253, 2008
Weil, Shalva, India's Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art and Life-Cycle, Mumbai: Marg Publications [first published in 2002; 3rd edn.], 2009
Weil, Shalva, 'The Heritage and Legacy of Indian Jews' in Shalva Weil (ed.) India’s Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art and Life-Cycle, Mumbai: Marg Publications [first published in 2002; 3rd edn.], pp. 8-21, 2009
Weil, Shalva, 'Bene Israel Rites and Routines' in Shalva Weil (ed.) India’s Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art and Life-Cycle, Mumbai: Marg Publications [first published in 2002; 3rd edn.], 78-89. Reprinted in Marg: A Magazine of The Arts, 54(2): 26-37, 2009
Weil, Shalva, 'The Place of Alwaye in Modern Cochin Jewish History', Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 8(3): 319-335, 2010
Weil, Shalva, 'The Bene Israel Indian Jewish Family in Transnational Context', Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 2011 (accepted for publication)
Weil, Shalva, "Coming of age in Jewish communities in India: the Baghdadis and the Bene Israel", in Shulamith Reinharz and Barbara Vinick (eds.) Today I am a Woman: Bat Mitzvah Around the World, Indiana University Press, 2011 (accepted for publication)
Weil, Shalva, "A rich history now stained with blood", The Jerusalem Post, December 1, 2008
Weil, Shalva, "The Chennamangalam Jews: A village community", Welcome Kerala 8(1), pp. 11-12, 2008
Weil, Shalva, Samuel Hallegua: Obituary, The Jerusalem Post, September 24, 2009
Weil, Shalva, "Kerala to restore 400-year-old Indian synagogue", The Jerusalem Post, 2009
Weil, Shalva, "A Revival of Jewish Heritage on the Indian Tourism Trail", Jerusalem Post Magazine, July 16. pp. 34-36, 2010
Weil, Shalva, "Eine Geschichte der friedlichen Koexistenz", Aufbau 10, pp. 15-17, 2010
Weil, Shalva, "The History and Disappearance of the Jewish Presence in Pakistan", International Relations and Security Network (ISN), 2011 Link
Weil, Shalva, "The Tomb of Rachel - The Bene Israel Connection: Wanderers, emissaries, matriarchs and a holy site", Asian Jewish Life, 2011 Link
Weil, Shalva, "In an Ancient Land: Trade and synagogues in south India", Asian Jewish Life, 2011 Link
Weil, Shalva, "Tomb or Mosque? Contesting Historical Memory", International Relations and Security Network (ISN), 2011 Link
Weil, Shalva (as curator), The Jews from the Konkan: the Bene Israel Community of India, Tel-Aviv: Beth Hatefutsoth, the Nahum Goldman Museum of the Jewish Diaspora, 1981
Weil, Shalva (as curator), Beyond the Sambatyon: the Myth of the Ten Lost Tribes, Tel-Aviv: Beth Hatefutsoth, the Nahum Goldman Museum of the Jewish Diaspora, 1991
Weil, Shalva (as curator), with Waronker, Jay and Sofaer, Marian, The Chennamangalam Synagogue: Jewish Community in a Village in Kerala, Kerala: Chennamangalam Synagogue, 2006
Weil, Shalva (as curator), The Jews of Chennamangalam: Community and Religions Life, Moshav Givat Koach, Israel, 2010
Weil, Shalva, The Bene Israel in India: Some Studies by Benjamin J. Israel, reviewed in Asian & African Studies 19(1): 131-132, 1985
Weil, Shalva, Veda and Torah by Barbara Holdrege, reviewed in International Journal of Hindu Studies 1(2): 427-428, 1997
Weil, Shalva, Jews of the Raj, by Mavis Hyman, reviewed in Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies 1(1): 105-107, 1998
Weil, Shalva, The Jews of India, by Benjamin J. Israel, reviewed in Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies 4: 119-122, 2001
Weil, Shalva, The Jews of India, by Benjamin J. Israe,l reviewed in Biblio: A Review of Books, New Delhi, Manohar 6(9-10): 18-9, 2001
Weil, Shalva, Letters to Auntie Fori, by Martin Gilbert, reviewed in Biblio: A Review of Books, New Delhi: Manohar, 2002
Weil, Shalva, The Book of Esther, by Esther David, reviewed in Biblio: A Review of Books, New Delhi: Manohar, p. 26., 2003
FILMS & INTERACTIVE
Agadat Cochin, DVD, Israel Film Service, State of Israel Ministry of Science Culture and Sport, Ramat Eshkol, JerusalemThe Heritage of the Bene Israel of India by Nissim Moses – An electronic publication of 5 CD-ROMs, one on Bene Israel recipes
Salaam Shalom: The Jews of India by Vanessa C. Lauffer
The Bene Israel: A Family Portrait by Karen Nathanson and Jean- Francois Fernandez
The Cochin Jews of India by Dr. Johanna Spector
About the Jews of India: Shanwar Telis/Bene Israel by Tana Hobart
Agadat Cochin, Israel Film Service
Cookbooks
Eti Gilad, The Cochini Cuisine, Rehovot, 2007Jaffrey, Madhur, A Taste of India, Pavilion Books, Ltd., has a section about Kerala which includes a recipe from the Koders (p.232), 1985
Marks, Copeland, Sephardic Cooking, Donald I. Fine, New York (Cochin recipes pp.369-384), 1992
Roden, Claudia, the Book of Jewish Food, Alfred A. Knopf, New York (recipes from Queenie Hallegua p. 371, 601), 1997
Please contact us if you can recommend books or articles with references to Cochini Jewish cooking or a url that has Cochini Jewish recipes.
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http://cochinsyn.com/
Contributing Editors
Jay A. Waronker
Jay A. Waronker is an American architect and architectural historian educated at Cornell, Harvard, and the University of Michigan. In 1990, he began the study and documentation of India's thirty-five synagogue buildings. This has lead to various publications of his work, including a chapter in India's Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art, and Life-Cycle (Marg Publications, 2002), and an article in Journal for Indo-Judaic Studies (2010). Waronker has also extensively exhibited his watercolors of India's synagogues throughout the United States and abroad, including at the Manav Sangrahalaya Museum in Bhopal India, Mizel Museum in Denver, Smithsonian's International Museum of Art and Design in Atlanta, Skirball Museum in Los Angeles, and the Graham Foundation Gallery in Chicago. He and colleagues Dr. Shalva Weil and Marian Sofaer were founders of India's first Jewish museum in the restored synagogue in Chendamangalam, Kerala in 2006, and together he is serving as an advisor for the 2010 restoration of the Parur Synagogue, also in Kerala.
Shalva Weil
Marian Scheuer Sofaer
Marian Scheuer Sofaer, a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and Columbia Law School, is the Project Director of the exhibition in the Chendamangalam synagogue that opened in 2006. Mrs. Sofaer's husband grew up in the Jewish community in Bombay, and they are frequent visitors to India. After the synagogue in Chendamangalam was restored by the Kerala Department of Archaeology and the Department of Tourism, Mrs. Sofaer organized the exhibition to benefit the local population, give tourists an opportunity to visit, provide an outlet for local crafts, and help preserve a cultural landmark. Mrs. Sofaer is also part of the international group advising the Kerala conservationists on the restoration of the synagogue at Parur. Mrs. Sofaer is an attorney and co-founder of an arbitration firm in northern California.
V. ISAAC SAM
V. Issac Sam was born in Kochi and attended college in Kerala's Thrissur district. After his studies, Sam began his own graphic design and multimedia company in 1998. Two years later, Sam decided to shift the focus of his work exclusively on print media, and that same year he took up photography on a professional basis. Since that time, Sam has photographed a range of project types. Along with his assistant, Sam was commissioned by "The Friends of Kerala Synagogues" in 2009 and 2010 to photograph all six of the former synagogues in Kerala. Many of his color photographs appear in this website.
TIRZA MUTTATH LAVI
Tirza Muttath Lavi was born in Parur, in Kerala, and immigrated to Israel with her family at the age of 13. She graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Archaeology and History of Jewish People, and is completing her MA thesis about the history of the Cochin Jews. She was the founding curator of the Center for the Heritage of the Jews of Cochin in Nevatim, Israel. She has curated the collection of the Center since 2006. Tirza has been involved since 1995 in efforts to preserve and document the history and heritage of the Jews of Cochin, most of them now living in Israel.
Further Reading:
-Architectural Remnants of Jewish Life in Zambia
http://kulanu.org/zambia/remnants.php
- Parur Synagogue Restoration
http://asianjewishlife.org/images/issues/Issue8_Jan2012/PDFs/Feature-Synagogue.pdf
-Architectural Remnants of Jewish Life in Zambia
http://kulanu.org/zambia/remnants.php
- Parur Synagogue Restoration
http://asianjewishlife.org/images/issues/Issue8_Jan2012/PDFs/Feature-Synagogue.pdf
- India: ISJM's Jay Waronker Furthers Kerala Preservation Projects
http://samgrubersjewishartmonuments.blogspot.com/2009/08/india-isjms-jay-waronker-furthers.html
- Architect’s paintings bring African shuls to life
http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/39709/architects-paintings-bring-african-shuls-to-life/
- Mr. Jay A. Waronker
http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Jay-Waronker/808344003
- A Passage to India:
http://www.jidaily.com/Juo
- Synagogues in India
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synagogues_in_India
- The Last Jews of Kerala by Edna Fernandes
http://rationalist.org.uk/articles/1828/the-last-jews-of-kerala-by-edna-fernandes
- Sidestepping Jewish apartheid
Apartheid between the Black and White Jews lasted for centuries and resulted in a bitter conflict and civil rights battle that raged for four hundred years.
http://rationalist.org.uk/1834
- Kerala Jews
http://www.shalom2.20m.com/page3.htm
- Jewish Identity in Independent India - The Cochin Jews
http://www.confluence.org.uk/2008/11/28/jewish-identity-in-independent-india-the-cochin-jews-jews-in-india/
- Survey of Kerala Jewish Sites
http://www.isjm.org/jhr/IInos3-4/india.htm
- Cochin Jews
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochin_Jews
- The Chennamangalam Synagogue: Jewish Community in a Village in Kerala
http://chensyn.com/brochure/CochinBrochure.pdf
- Indian mission ends for a Rabbi : Israeli couple asked to leave on grounds of FEAR of 26/11 terrorist events in Mumbai
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120312/jsp/frontpage/story_15239298.jsp#.UjmwuT9AFXs
http://samgrubersjewishartmonuments.blogspot.com/2009/08/india-isjms-jay-waronker-furthers.html
- Architect’s paintings bring African shuls to life
http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/39709/architects-paintings-bring-african-shuls-to-life/
- Mr. Jay A. Waronker
http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Jay-Waronker/808344003
- A Passage to India:
http://www.jidaily.com/Juo
- Synagogues in India
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synagogues_in_India
- Jewish Monuments of Kerala
FIND THE : Kerala Jewish Association
- The Last Jews of Kerala by Edna Fernandes
http://rationalist.org.uk/articles/1828/the-last-jews-of-kerala-by-edna-fernandes
- Sidestepping Jewish apartheid
Apartheid between the Black and White Jews lasted for centuries and resulted in a bitter conflict and civil rights battle that raged for four hundred years.
http://rationalist.org.uk/1834
- Kerala Jews
http://www.shalom2.20m.com/page3.htm
- Jewish Identity in Independent India - The Cochin Jews
http://www.confluence.org.uk/2008/11/28/jewish-identity-in-independent-india-the-cochin-jews-jews-in-india/
- Survey of Kerala Jewish Sites
http://www.isjm.org/jhr/IInos3-4/india.htm
- Cochin Jews
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochin_Jews
- The Chennamangalam Synagogue: Jewish Community in a Village in Kerala
http://chensyn.com/brochure/CochinBrochure.pdf
- Indian mission ends for a Rabbi : Israeli couple asked to leave on grounds of FEAR of 26/11 terrorist events in Mumbai
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120312/jsp/frontpage/story_15239298.jsp#.UjmwuT9AFXs
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