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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 state of Kerala. As early as the 12th century, mention is made of the Jews in southern India by Benjamin of Tudela. They are known to have developed Judeo-Malayalam, a dialect of Malayalam language.
The history of the Jews in India dates back to antiquity. Judaism was one of the first foreign religions to arrive in India in recorded history. Indian Jews are a small religious minority who have lived in India since ancient times. They have experienced very sparse instances of anti-Semitism from the local non-Jewish majority.
Paradesi Jews immigrated to the Indian subcontinent during the 15th and 16th centuries following the expulsion of Jews from Spain. Paradesi refers to the Malayalam word that means foreign as they were newcomers. These Sephardic immigrants fled persecution and death by burning in the wake of the 1492 Alhambra decree expelling all Jews who did not convert to Christianity from Spain, 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, Fort Cochin in English, Cochim de Baixo in Cochin Portuguese creole, is a neighbourhood of Cochin (Kochi) city in Kerala, India. Fort Kochi takes its name from the Fort Manuel of Cochin, 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 Cochin or West Cochin. 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.
Mattancherry, is a locality in the city of Kochi, India. It is about 9 km south-west from the city center. It is said that the name Mattancherry comes from "Ancherry Mattom", a ''Namboodiri illam'' which the foreign traders then pronounced it as Matt-Ancherry, gradually became Mattancherry. The place where erstwhile 'Ancherry Mattom' located is now a Tamil Brahmin settlement.
The Mattancherry Palace is a palace popularly known as the Dutch Palace, in Mattancherry, Kochi, in the Indian state of Kerala which features Kerala murals depicting portraits and exhibits of the Rajas of Kochi. The palace was included in the "tentative list" of UNESCO World Heritage Siteand hence it's yet to be in UNESCO. Despite the name Dutch Palace, the palace was built by the Portuguese Empire as a gift to the Kingdom of Cochin.
There are many synagogues in India, 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.
Indian Jews in Israel are immigrants and descendants of the immigrants of the Indian Jewish communities, who now reside within the State of Israel. Indian Jews who live in Israel include thousands of Cochin Jews and Paradesi Jews of Kerala; tens of thousands from the Bene Israel of Maharashtra and other parts of British India and the Bene Menashe of Manipur and Mizoram.
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. Popular 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 Paradesis 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.
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 Mala Synagogue is one of the oldest extant synagogues in India and was built by the historic Malabar Jews of Kerala. It is located at Mala, a small town in Thrissur district of Kerala state in south India.
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 Chendamangalam Synagogue is one of the oldest known synagogues built by the Malabar Jews,in Chendamangalam, a village in the Ernakulam district of the coastal state of Kerala. It is dated to 1100 A.D, though the synagogue structure itself dates to 1420 A.D or 1614 A.D., making it the oldest synagogue in the Commonwealth of Nations. A tombstone recovered from Shingly was stored in this synagogue and is presently on display in the courtyard in front. This tombstone with the inscription of Sarah bat Israel is the oldest Jewish relic found in India, dating to 1270 A.D.
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.
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 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 from the ancient times of Mediterranean sea trade with Kerala. The earliest synagogue of the ancient Malabar Jews is today submerged in the sea following the gradual rise of sea level over several millennia. Although the Chendamangalam Synagogue is the oldest surviving synagogue structure in Kerala and Indian subcontinent, its Torah scrolls were taken to Israel by it congregation in 1952. This makes the Kadavumbhagham Ernakulam synagogue the oldest Malabar Jewish synagogue today with a Torah scroll that is occasionally used for services. The Paradesi Sephardic synagogue at Mattancherry also has Torah scrolls but it was established much later in 1568.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Waronker, Jay (20 October 2010). "The Synagogues Of Kerala, India: Their Architecture, History, Context, And Meaning".
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - 1 2 3 4 Daniel, Ruby; Johnson, Barbara C. (2002). Ruby of Cochin: An Indian Jewish woman remembers. Varda Books. ISBN 1-59045-649-1. OCLC 1243580690.
- 1 2 Pereyra de Paiva, Mosseh (1687). Relacion de las noticias de los judios de Cochin. OCLC 233661908.
- 1 2 Jussay, P.M. (1990). "The Origins of the Kerala Jews – An Evaluation of their Traditional Sources". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 51: 66–74. ISSN 2249-1937. JSTOR 44148189.
- 1 2 3 Nathan., Katz (1993). The last Jews of Cochin : Jewish identity in Hindu India. University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 0-87249-847-6. OCLC 246707556.
- 1 2 3 4 S., Koder, S. (1974). History of the Jews of Kerala. [publisher not identified]. OCLC 3415398.
- 1 2 3 Isaac., Rabinowitz, Louis (1952). Far East mission. Eagle Press. OCLC 1116199220.
- ↑ Soltes, Ori Z. (2021). Growing up Jewish in India: Synagogues, Customs, and Communities from the Bene Israel to the Art of Siona Benjamin. ISBN 9789389136814.
- ↑ Isaac., Rabinowitz, Louis (1952). Far East mission. Eagle Press. OCLC 1116199220.
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