Chendamangalam is a small town and a panchayat in Paravur Taluk, Ernakulam district in the state of Kerala, India.
Ernakulam is one of the 14 districts in the Indian state of Kerala, and takes its name from the eponymous city division in Kochi. It is situated in the central part of the state, spans an area of about 2,924 square kilometres (1,129 sq mi), and is home to over 9% of Kerala's population. Its headquarters are located at Kakkanad. The district includes Kochi, also known as the commercial capital of Kerala, which is famous for its ancient churches, Hindu temples, synagogues and mosques.
Cochin Jews are the oldest group of Jews in India, with roots that are claimed to date back to the time of King Solomon. The Cochin Jews settled in the Kingdom of Cochin in South India, now part of the present-day state of Kerala. As early as the 12th century, mention is made of the Jews in southern India by Benjamin of Tudela.
The history of the Jews in India dates back to antiquity. Judaism was one of the first foreign religions to arrive in the Indian subcontinent in recorded history. Desi Jews are a small religious minority who have lived in the region since ancient times. They were able to survive for centuries despite persecution by Portuguese colonizers and nonnative antisemitic inquisitions.
Paradesi Jews refer to Jewish immigrants to the Indian subcontinent during the 15th and 16th centuries following the expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal. Paradesi means foreign in Malayalam and Tamil. These Sephardic immigrants fled persecution and death by burning in the wake of the 1492 Alhambra Decree and King Manuel's 1496 decree expelling Jews from Portugal. They are sometimes referred to as "White Jews", although that usage is generally considered pejorative or discriminatory and refers to relatively recent Jewish immigrants, predominantly Sephardim.
The Paradesi Synagogue aka Cochin Jewish Synagogue or the Mattancherry Synagogue is a synagogue located in Mattancherry Jew Town, a suburb of the city of Kochi, Kerala, in India. It was built in 1568 A.D. by Samuel Castiel, David Belila, and Joseph Levi for the flourishing Paradesi Jewish community in Kochi. Cochin Jews were composed mainly of the much older Malabari Jews and the newly arrived Sephardic refugees from the Portuguese religious persecution of Jews in Spain and Portugal. It is the oldest active synagogue in the Commonwealth of Nations. Paradesi is a word used in several Indian languages, and the literal meaning of the term is "foreigners", applied to the synagogue because it was built by Sephardic or Portuguese-speaking Jews, some of them from families exiled in Aleppo, Safed and other West Asian localities.
Palayūr, also called Palayoor and historically as Palur, is a town near Chavakkad, Thrissur district, India. It is famous for its ancient church, Palayur Mar Thoma Church, which is believed to be one of the seven major churches founded by Saint Thomas the Apostle in Malabar in 52 AD. It is the assumed to be first Christian Church in India.
Fort Kochi, formerly known as Fort Cochin or British Cochin, is a neighbourhood of Kochi city in Kerala, India. Fort Kochi takes its name from the Fort Manuel of Kochi, the first European fort on Indian soil, controlled by the Portuguese East Indies. This is part of a handful of water-bound islands and islets toward the south-west of the mainland Kochi, and collectively known as Old Kochi or West Kochi. Adjacent to this is the locality of Mattancherry. In 1967, these three municipalities along with a few adjoining areas, were amalgamated to form the Kochi Municipal Corporation.
Mala is a small town in Thrissur district of Kerala state, India. There is a Jewish synagogue in Mala town. At the moment, it is in ruins. The famous Pambu Mekkattu Mana (temple) is located here and attracts thousands of devotees every year.
There are many synagogues in the Indian subcontinent, although many no longer function as such and today vary in their levels of preservation. These buildings dating from the mid-sixteenth through the mid-20th century once served the country's three distinct Jewish groups—the ancient Cochin Jews, and Bene Israel communities as well as the more recent Baghdadi Jews.
Abraham ben Barak Salem was an Indian nationalist and Zionist, a lawyer and politician, and one of the most prominent Cochin Jews of the twentieth century. Popularly known by his epithet of "Jewish Gandhi", he was known as "Salem Kocha" to the resident Jewish community of Cochin. A descendant of Meshuchrarim, he was the first Cochin Jew to become an attorney. He practised in Ernakulam, where he eventually used Satyagraha to fight the discrimination among Paradesi Jews against Malabari Jews. An activist in the trade union and Indian national causes, he later was attracted to Zionism. After visiting Palestine in the 1930s, he later helped arrange the migration of most Cochin Jews to Israel by 1955. He stayed in Kochi for the remainder of his life.
North Malabar refers to the geographic area of southwest India covering the state of Kerala's present day Kasaragod and Kannur districts, Mananthavady taluk of Wayanad district, and the taluks of Vatakara and Koyilandy in the Kozhikode District of Kerala and the entire Mahé Sub-Division of the Union Territory of Puducherry. Traditionally North Malabar has been defined as the northern portion of the erstwhile Malabar District which lies between Chandragiri River and Korapuzha River. The region between Netravathi River and Chandragiri River, which included the portions between Mangalore and Kasaragod, are also often included in the term North Malabar.
Jewish copper plates of Cochin, also known as Cochin plates of Bhaskara Ravi-varman, is a royal charter issued by the Chera Perumal king of Kerala, south India to Joseph Rabban, a Jewish merchant magnate of Kodungallur. The charter shows the status and importance of the Jewish colony in Kodungallur (Cranganore) near Cochin on the Malabar Coast.
The Kochangadi Synagogue, or Misro Synagogue was a historic synagogue located in Kochangadi, south of Jew Town in Kochi, in the coastal state of Kerala. It was built in 1344 A.D by the Malabari Jews after fleeing from Cranganore, making it the oldest synagogue in India in recorded history. It was lost and never rebuilt. The subsequent Kadavumbhagam Synagogue and Thekkumbhagam Synagogue were built after this congregation was established. The name "Kochangadi" is an abbreviation of "Kocha Angadi" or "Jew Market", as jews were addressed as Kocha in colloquial Malayalam.
The Paravur Synagogue aka Parur Synagogue is one of the largest and most complete among the Jewish synagogues in Kerala, located in North Paravur (Parur). Built by the Malabar Jews, it has undergone successive phases of destruction and reconstruction. The present synagogue complex dates to 1616 A.D., but it was built on top of a much older building speculated to have been constructed as early as 750 A.D or 1105 A.D., making it one of the oldest synagogues in India and the Common Wealth of Nations. It is currently non-operational as a synagogue for worship. It has been renovated by the Government of Kerala and is open to public visits as the Kerala Jews History Museum.
The Thekkumbhagam MattancherrySynagogue aka Thekkumbhagam Synagogue was a synagogue located in Mattancherry Jew Town, a suburb of Kochi, Kerala, in South India. It was built in 1647 AD. by the Malabar Jews, on land donated by the Maharajah of Cochin and was one of the oldest known synagogues in India. It was the fourth to be built in Mattancherry after they fled to Cochin from Muziris and it was one of three in the area, the others being the Kadavumbhagam Mattancherry Synagogue and the Paradesi Synagogue of the Paradesi Jews of Cochin.
Kadavumbhagam Mattancherry Synagogue aka Kadavumbhagam Synagogue is a Jewish synagogue located in Mattancherry, a locality in Kochi, in the coastal state of Kerala. It is one of the oldest extant synagogues in India, built in 1544 A.D. It was built by the Malabar Jews who are the oldest jewish settlers in India, believed to have arrived as traders in the ancient port city of Muziris. It was the second to be built in Mattancherry, after the Kochangadi Palli in 1344 A. D., and is one of three synagogues in the area. The others being the Thekkumbhagam Mattancherry Synagogue (extinct) and the Paradesi Synagogue of the Paradesi jews of Cochin.
The Kadavumbhagham Ernakulam Synagogue in Kerala, India, is the restored oldest synagogue of the Malabar Jews with a Sefer Torah scroll and offering occasional services. It was established in 1200 CE and restored several times through the centuries on the same site. It is modeled on the earliest synagogue of the Malabar Jews at Muziris, which dated from the time of ancient sea trade between the Mediterranean and Kerala.
