The Jews of Kochi - going, going...(gone?)
T P Alexander
October 30, 1999
Kochi: The once prosperous and vibrant Jewish community in Kochi in Kerala is close to passing into history after surviving many turbulent centuries.
With the death of patriarch Jacob Elias Cohen, the oldest of the surviving Kochi Jews, on Thursday, the community's strength has come down to 16. Cohen, 86, is survived by his wife Sana.
Till he became bed-ridden following a fall a year ago, Cohen, a former lawyer, used to lead the prayers offered at the Kochi synagogue, the fifth oldest Jewish place of worship in the world and the oldest in the Commonwealth. The community is now left with just one priest. Most of the surviving Jews are above 60.
Of the 16, eight are women. Hence, even the bare minimum of ten males for the weekly prayers has become impossible. To fill the quorum, the Jews often request some non-Jew males in the locality to help conduct the prayers. It is only during the tourist season that they can muster enough strength for the prayers as visiting Jews come to their help.
In its heydays, the Jewish community in Kochi, one of the oldest Jewish quarters in the world with the ancient synagogue and a Judaic tradition that dates back to 72 AD, had a population of 40,000. Successive migrations to their Holy Land and deaths have brought their number down.
The synagogue is in Jew Town, next to the Mattancherry Palace, in the busy hub of Kochi city. Regular chanting of ancient Hebrew prayers is now rarely heard, even on Sabbath days, in the 16th century synagogue.
The tiles of the blue-and-white floorings of the synagogue were brought from Canton, China, in the 18th century by Ezekiel Rahabi, a trader who also erected a clock tower atop the synagogue.
A pulpit stands in the centre of the room and, at one end, is the holy tabernacle with gilded doors. Kept within are the great scrolls of the old Torah capped with golden crowns.
There are divergent views on the origin of the Jewish settlement. The first settlers are said to have used Odu, the trading route to India that finds mention in the Bible, to escape from Palestine after a Roman onslaught in 72 AD.
The oldest Kochi Jewish history book, printed in 1686 and authored by a Dutch Jew, Moses Pereira de Paiva, however, asserts that 7,000 to 8,000 Jews arrived at this coast in 370 AD from Majorca, where their forefathers had been taken captive by Titus Vespasianus. The Babylonian Talmud, compiled between the third and sixth centuries, refers to a Rabbi Judah, a Hindu convert to Judaism.
None had heard of anti-Semitism, and there was no persecution then. The Hindu rulers of the Vijayanagar dynasty, two centuries before building the synagogue, were tolerant of all beliefs. This explains why the Kochi Jews enjoyed such relative harmony and security among the majority Hindus, compared to their peers in Europe.
Successive waves of immigration reinforced the Jews' presence to such an extent that between the 5th and 15th centuries, Cranganore, near here, was a self-administered Jewish principality, ruled by Joseph Rabban.
Strengthened by an influx of Jews from Spain and other parts of Europe, they continued to prosper for more than 1,000 years. The eventual destruction of Cranganore, following the Moors' onslaught against the Jews in 1524, was thought of as sacrilege of "Palestine in miniature. "To this day, Cranganore sand is put in the coffin of every Jew along with that from the Holy Land.
The abandonment of Cranganore by the Jewish survivors was followed by an appeal to the Hindu Raja (king) of Kochi for refuge. The Raja granted them a site for a town by the side of his own palace and temple. Soon, the Raja's best fighting men were the Jewish battalion.
The Jew Town was built in 1567, and the synagogue a year later. The Portuguese, who brought anti-Semitism with them, derided the Hindu Raja as "the King of Jews". One hundred and sixty years of Portuguese occupation were the darkest period for the Jews of Kochi. Alfonso de Albuquerque sought the Portugal King's permission to exterminate them one by one. They destroyed even the remnants of the Jewish principality of Cranganore.
The Dutch were different and were openly supported by the Jews who prospered for the 132 years of Dutch supremacy. The Jews continued to be accepted in secular India, which gained independence in 1947, but their desire to live in a land of their own became a reality when Israel was established in 1948.
Though migration to Israel has had brought down their strength markedly, in 1968 the Kochi synagogue celebrated its 400th anniversary in a big way. The then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi graced the occasion. Only 85 Jews were present, though.
(India Abroad News Service via Indiainfo.com)
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