Skip to content

Where different views on Israel and Judaism are welcome.

  • Home
  • Subscribe / donate
  • Events calendar
  • News
    • Local
    • National
    • Israel
    • World
    • עניין בחדשות
      A roundup of news in Canada and further afield, in Hebrew.
  • Opinion
    • From the JI
    • Op-Ed
  • Arts & Culture
    • Performing Arts
    • Music
    • Books
    • Visual Arts
    • TV & Film
  • Life
    • Celebrating the Holidays
    • Travel
    • The Daily Snooze
      Cartoons by Jacob Samuel
    • Mystery Photo
      Help the JI and JMABC fill in the gaps in our archives.
  • Community Links
    • Organizations, Etc.
    • Other News Sources & Blogs
    • Business Directory
  • FAQ
  • JI Chai Celebration
  • JI@88! video

Search

Follow @JewishIndie
The Fringe Festival runs Sept. 7-17. Many members of the Jewish community are involved, including ira cooper (see video:). Check out the full offerings at vancouverfringe.com

Recent Posts

  • Vazana at Chutzpah! Fest
  • VIFF films explore humanity
  • Past, present & future
  • VIFF 2023 ticket giveaway
  • Dialogue on democracy
  • A land of contradictions
  • Love and relationships
  • Elana Wenner joins museum
  • New librarian at Waldman
  • Tulchinsky at VPL as 2023 writer in residence
  • A heartwarming gathering
  • Six weeks of fun
  • Obligated to warn of danger
  • Recovery from surgery
  • לקנדה יש תוכנית נוודים דיגיטליים חדשה
  • Resilience in facing fire
  • Trio launches campaign
  • Moment for gratitude
  • Gondar in need of help
  • Response to death sentence
  • Train as peer support
  • CJPAC bridges engagement
  • The traveling Hebrew school
  • Volunteer from your home
  • CIJA takes campaign public
  • Film is a tribute to Burquest
  • Local teens in JCC Maccabis
  • Value of community
  • Local among new olim
  • Rockower win leads to NOLA
  • Urban warfare training
  • Kalla’s toxic new thriller
  • Habonim role pivotal
  • A yearly reminder to return
  • About the Rosh Hashanah cover art
  • New recipes for a new year

Archives

Tag: Paradesi

Trip to India reveals much

Trip to India reveals much

Inside of Kadavumbagam Synagogue of Mattancherry, Cochin, facing what’s left of the women’s gallery. (photo by Deborah Rubin Fields)

In enormous and populous India, anonymity does not exist. And social or group orientation counts – in a big way. Ironically, this is apparent in laidback Kerala, a lush coastal farming state in the southwest of the country.

In Kerala, Jews, Christians, Muslims and Hindus basically lived in harmony for years. Yet, within the region’s small Jewish community – often referred to as Cochin Jews, since almost all the Kerala synagogues were built in the kingdom of Cochin – differences have existed between the apparently ancient Malabar Jews, the Meshuhurarum, whose ancestors were reportedly freed slaves, and the Paradesi Jews, who arrived hundreds of years later. Frequently, the groups referred to each other, sometimes derogatorily, as Black Jews, Brown Jews or White Jews. Even today, when one talks with those involved in these communities, issues related to paternalism, land rights and misappropriation of property enter into the conversation.

How have these divisions expressed themselves? A sense of imbalance sneaks in when learning about the famous Tamil script copper plates. The area’s ruler, Bhaskara Ravi Varman, presented these special plates upon the Malabar Jews’ arrival in 1069 CE, although the Malabar Jews often claim they arrived in southern India with King Solomon’s merchants. The plates provide a detailed list of the elevated rights and privileges the sovereign bestowed upon his new residents.

Somehow or other, these important proofs of status are no longer in the possession of the Malabar Jews. Rather, they are reportedly held by the Paradesi Jews who arrived in the 16th century from Spanish, Portuguese, Iraqi, Yemenite and European lands. Just how the Paradesi came to control them is not spelled out in historical accounts of these communities. It is simply presented as fact.

In her autobiography Ruby of Cochin: An Indian Jewish Woman Remembers (1993), Ruby Daniels (1912-2002) and Prof. Barbara Johnson recall Daniels’ experience at the Paradesi Synagogue, “our family had to sit separately from the others … the men in the azarah (entrance room) and the women in the separate building just in front of the synagogue. We could see everything from there, but it was a shame for us.”

Daniels also relates that, around 1950, a mixed couple wanted to marry in the Paradesi Synagogue. “The White Jews … opposed the marriage … [so] they had the wedding in Bombay.” And, “these Paradesis didn’t marry among the Jews of the other seven synagogues. Sometimes, they called the others ‘Black Jews’ though in fact most of them were not very black in color. And, sometimes, they spoke of them as converts and slaves, even though these Jews had been in Kerala hundreds of years before them.”

Still, the Malabar Jews managed to live a peaceful existence, working largely as shop owners. Over time, they spread out to five different Kerala towns and villages: Cochin, Ernakulam, Parur (also written Paravur), Chendamangalam and Mala. For Zionist rather than antisemitic reasons, the Jewish population, especially the Malabar Jewish community, resettled in Israel in the 1950s. The cemeteries and the eight or nine synagogues they built in the 1500s through the 1600s were left behind.

Today, the Malabar Jewish community’s presence in southern India is still felt, albeit not strongly. The Kerala governing body took upon itself to restore the community’s Chendamangalam Synagogue and Parur Synagogue. These centres of former Jewish life are now museums. However, some empty Jewish institutions are now being used for other purposes, such as offices, storerooms, handicraft and antique shops.

While five aging Paradesi members (and outside sponsors) maintain their synagogue and cemetery, this is definitely not the case in the Malabar Jewish cemetery in Mala. A sizable portion of it has been parceled off to build a stadium, which, in turn, might be converted into the K. Karunakaran Sports Academy, and graves have been desecrated. Significantly, this land grab violates the cemetery and synagogue preservation agreement the Malabar Jews signed with the Mala panchayat (the elective village council in India) before making aliyah in 1955. Villas now stand on the northern edge of the cemetery, but these were built on land the Malabar Jews sold to locals, so that they would have enough money for the move to Israel.

photo - Mala Jewish cemetery, one of three graves left intact. The villa can be seen in the background
Mala Jewish cemetery, one of three graves left intact. The villa can be seen in the background. (photo by Deborah Rubin Fields)

How did the cemetery disrepair come about? According to a professor emeritus, historian and social activist who goes by the name C. Karmachandran: “The Jews [who emigrated] from Mala could not visit and monitor the developments in Mala due to the social and political problems they faced in the infant nation of Israel. I understand … Indian Jewish immigrants were given only exit visas, with which it was not possible to return to India for a visit … only [in] the 1990s, it became easy for the Indian Jews to visit.”

He continued, “From the side of the local authority, their initial enthusiasm to conserve the Jewish monuments began to decline in course of time…. It may be noted that there was no purposeful destruction at that time, but there was serious neglect. There was nobody in the locality to point out its historical significance as we do now. Whoever came to power … found the vast area of the Jewish cemetery ‘ripe’ for their ambition to make money in the pretext of useful developmental projects.”

According to Karmachandran, “the Mala Jews in Israel seemed to be weak in protecting their interest in Mala cemetery. Even today that is the case … there is no effective Jew[ish] organization in Kerala to approach a court of law … the Paradesi … have no interest or influence beyond … Jew Town. They don’t maintain much contact with the remaining Malabari Jews who have a strength of around 25 members in its fold.”

While Kerala has a Hindu majority, the area around the Mala Jewish cemetery is currently 75% Muslims and 25% Christians, so sectarian politics has become an issue in the cemetery’s preservation, as well. An anonymous local source stated, “political parties who want to get the votes of Muslims will keep mum because [those who] speak for the Jewish monuments are being pictured as anti-Muslims and agents of Israel.”

Importantly, Karmachandran and other Kerala Christians, Muslims and Hindus have mobilized themselves to form the Heritage Protection Society, Mala. The group’s goal is to save what they consider not just their former neighbors’ Jewish heritage, but what they maintain is their common Indian heritage. To assist in the preservation project, contact Karmachandran at [email protected].

More on Jewish India

  • Oh, Lovely Parrot is a composite of musical pieces sung in the Malayalam language by Kerala Jewish women. As part of its digitized Jewish music conservation project, the Israel National Library (in collaboration with Hebrew University) offers free listening from its website. The online Jewish art collection of the library also has about 200 of Zev Radovan’s 1995 black-and-white photos of religious objects from the Malabar Jewish community.
  • A few years ago, Essie Sassoon, Bala Menon and Kenny Salem published Spice & Kosher: Exotic Cuisine of the Cochin Jews. Also, in Claudia Roden’s The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York, there is a section devoted to “The Three Jewish Communities of India.” Finally, in his book Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities Around the World, Rabbi Gil Marks (z”l) devoted space to presenting a number of curried vegetarian Indian dishes.
  • Reconstructed Malabar synagogues are on view in different locations around Israel. Over a period of several years, Jerusalem’s Israel Museum restored the interior of Cochin’s Kadavumbagam Synagogue. It was opened to the public in 1996. The heichal (ark) and tebah (podium) originally came from the Parur Synagogue. Oddly enough, since the 1950s, the synagogue’s original heichal has been in use at Nehalim, an Israeli moshav composed of Orthodox German Jews. Moshav Netivim has an active synagogue and the Cochin Jewish Heritage Centre with artifacts of the Malabar Jewish community.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

Format ImagePosted on April 15, 2016April 13, 2016Author Deborah Rubin FieldsCategories TravelTags Cochin, India, Karmachandran, Malabar, Paradesi
A visit to the Jewish communities in India

A visit to the Jewish communities in India

Steven Finkleman in front of the restored Chennamangalam Synagogue.
(photo by Steven Finkleman)

I had bought my airline ticket to Mumbai in the fall, aiming to track down the remains of the Jewish community in India. I set out with my backpack on Jan. 9 and, after several days, arrived. I had pre-booked a stay at Sassoon House, which is a residence for Jewish travelers at Magen David Synagogue in Mumbai.

Lufthansa pulled in at 2:30 a.m. Perfect time for arrival into a strange city of 18,000,000 people. Somehow, I found a taxi and a Western traveler who wanted to share the ride with me. And, somehow, I managed to give some direction to the synagogue, which is currently situated in the predominantly Muslim district of Byculla. It does take a bit of guts.

We pulled into the synagogue compound around 3:30 a.m. under the watchful eyes of Mumbai’s finest, accompanied by huge spotlights, army tanks and AK47s (all in response to the terrorist attack at a Mumbai synagogue five years ago). I was as cool as a cucumber. My taxi partner at this point was in apoplectic shock.

Fortunately, Mr. David, the caretaker of Sassoon House did answer the phone and let me in for four hours of rest, prior to attending the Shacharit service for Shabbat at 8:45 a.m. Interesting service. I was #11 in attendance, so was superfluous to the congregation. (I often have been #10 in these circumstances, serving as the final man needed to allow the service to proceed.) The service was rapid, Sephardi Orthodox, and the accent of the Baghdadi congregation made following along somewhat challenging. The familiar tunes of the Barchu, the Shma, the Amidah, the Aleinu, were absent and keeping up with the service required heavy concentration on my part after a 36-hour flight and four hours of sleep.

I received an aliyah to the Torah and, when I gave my name as Zalman ben Yaacov, Zalman being a Yiddish name and, therefore, totally unheard of in Mumbai, they interpreted my name as Solomon, and called me up as Shlomo ben Yaacov. Lunch at the rabbi’s home followed. Considerable gin was flowing (considering it was a former British colony) accompanied by lots of traditional Judeo-Marathi songs. I was forced to sing a representative Canadian song and led them all in a rousing version of “Allouette.” The luncheon ended with everyone sharing some snuff! As they all snorted away, I was sure to ask, “Are you certain that this is only tobacco?” before trying some myself.

The Indian community goes back about 2,000 years. Some date it to the expulsion after the destruction of the First Temple, others to after the destruction of the Second Temple. The community has four components.

The Bene Israel and Cochin communities came both around the same time. The Cochin community was likely from seafarers and merchants, possibly dating back to King Solomon’s time. The Bene Israel community around Mumbai dates from a shipwreck 2,000 years ago where seven men and seven women survived. Their holy books were lost, but they remembered to keep the Shabbat, kashrut and brit milah. Generations later, they were tutored by the Cochini community to improve their knowledge of Judaism.

The third community to arrive was the Paradesi community. Paradesi means foreigner, and this group was basically Sephardim who arrived from Spain or via Amsterdam in the 16th century, and headed to Cochin. The fourth group, led by David Sassoon, emigrated from Baghdad, and came in the 18th century, setting up congregations in Mumbai, Pune and Ahmedabad. The Sassoon dynasty was very dynamic both for the Jewish community and the Mumbai community at large.

There are several residual synagogues in Mumbai, with some still in use, such as the Baghdadi community’s Magen David (where I stayed) and Keneseth Eliyahoo, along with the original Bene Israel community’s Tiferet Israel synagogue. Five thousand Jews remain in Mumbai, and three or four synagogues hold services on Shabbat. Tiferet Israel has a strong component of younger men.

photo - Inside Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue, downtown Mumbai
Inside Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue, downtown Mumbai.
(photo by Steven Finkleman)

I was lucky to travel to Cochin (now called Kochi) in Kerala state and, besides spending a wonderful day in Jewtown, Cochin, and visiting the Paradesi synagogue, I also rented a taxi and went to search out the remnants of the Jewish community in more remote areas. I visited two restored synagogues at Parur (or Paravoor) and Chennamangalam (or Chendamangalam), and I visited the Kadavumbagan synagogue in Ernakulum, which was closed 40-50 years ago and remains unrestored.

There are about 12 Jews left in Kerala. I spent two days visiting Sarah Cohen. Sarah, 91, is the matriarch of the Cochin Jewish community. She reminded me totally of my Baba Sarah. On my first visit, I asked her if I could bring her anything that she needed. She asked for chocolate and beer, and I returned the next day with some Cadbury. Sarah has an embroidery shop on Jew Street in Jewtown, in the city’s Mattanchery neighborhood, two blocks from the Paradesi synagogue, which is spectacular – it is a national historic landmark, expertly renovated and with excellent historical information.

photo - TSteven Finkleman visits Sarah Cohen in her embroidery shop
The author visits Sarah Cohen in her embroidery shop.
(photo by Steven Finkleman)

I was also able to meet Elias Josephi at the Kadavumbagan synagogue. About 50 years ago, the synagogue disbanded because of lack of membership and Josephi purchased it. He currently runs a plant nursery and an aquarium/fish shop in the antechamber of the synagogue. Behind his desk, the closed door leads to the treasure of the sanctuary, exactly as it was left 40-50 years ago.

At the peak, there may have been about 100,000 Jews in India. Eighty percent of them emigrated to Israel in the 1950s/60s. It is interesting that they remained separate. The Cochinis went to Nevatim and the Bene Israel went to Dimona, Ashdod, etc. Fifteen percent of the Indian Jews went to English-speaking countries such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia, and five percent remain in India today.

What a fascinating Diaspora story. How intriguing that at all ends of the earth, one can find Jewish communities. I believe it was one of our sages who once said, “If there is oxygen, there are Jews.” Or, perhaps, it was me who made up that line!

Steven Finkleman, originally from Winnipeg, is a retired pediatrician living in Kelowna. He travels extensively and often researches and visits remote Diaspora communities on his adventures.

Format ImagePosted on April 11, 2014April 16, 2014Author Steven FinklemanCategories TravelTags Bene Israel, Chennamangalam Synagogue, Cochin, Kadavumbagan, Keneseth Eliyahoo, Magen David Synagogue, Mumbai, Paradesi, Sarah Cohen, Tiferet Israel
Proudly powered by WordPress