 | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 7,000-8000 (estimated) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Israel | 7,000-8000 (estimated)[1] |
 India | 100+[2] |
| Languages | |
| Traditionally, Judeo-Malayalam, now mostly Hebrew in Israel | |
| Religion | |
| Judaism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Paradesi Jews Knanaya Sephardic Jews in India Bene Israel Baghdadi Jews | |
Cochin Jews, also called Malabar Jews, are of Mizrahi heritage. They are the oldest group of Jews in India, with possible roots claimed to date to the time of King Solomon.[3][4] The Cochin Jews settled in theKingdom of Cochin in South India,[5] now part of the state of Kerala.[6][7] As early as the 12th century, mention is made of the Black Jews in southern India. The Jewish traveler, Benjamin of Tudela, speaking ofKollam (Quilon) on the Malabar Coast, writes in his Itinerary: "...throughout the island, including all the towns thereof, live several thousand Israelites. The inhabitants are all black, and the Jews also. The latter are good and benevolent. They know the law of Moses and the prophets, and to a small extent the Talmud and Halacha."[8] These people later became known as the Malabari Jews. They built synagogues in Keralabeginning in the 12th and 13th centuries.[9][10] They are known to have developed Judeo-Malayalam, a dialect of Malayalam language.
Following expulsion from Iberia in 1492 by the Alhambra Decree, a few families of Sephardic Jews eventually made their way to Cochin in the 16th century. They became known as Paradesi Jews (or White Jews). The European Jews maintained some trade connections to Europe, and their language skills were useful. Although the Sephardim spoke Ladino (i.e. Spanish or Judeo-Spanish), in India they learned Judeo-Malayalam from the Malabar Jews.[11] The two communities retained their ethnic and cultural distinctions.[12] In the late 19th century, a few Arabic-speaking Jews, who became known as Baghdadi, also immigrated to southern India, and joined the Paradesi community.
After India gained its independence in 1947 and Israel was established as a nation, most Cochin Jews emigrated from Kerala to Israel in the mid-1950s.[13] Most of their synagogues have been sold and adapted for other uses. The Paradesi synagogue still has a congregation and also attracts tourists as a historic site. The synagogue at Chennamangalam was reconstructed in 2006.[14] The one at Parur is currently being reconstructed.[15][16]
Descendants of Cochin Jews have had their DNA analyzed. A 2009 DNA report states that Cochin Jews "cluster with neighbouring autochthonous populations in Ethiopia and western India, respectively, despite a clear paternal link between the Bene Israel and the Levant.[17]
History[edit]
Further information: History of Kochi
First Jews in South India[edit]
P. M. Jussay wrote that it was believed that the earliest Jews in India were sailors from King Solomon's time.[18] It has been claimed that following the destruction of the First Temple in the Siege of Jerusalem of 587 BC, some Jewish exiles came to India.[19] Only after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE are records found that attest to numerous Jewish settlers arriving at Cranganore, an ancient port near Cochin.[20]Cranganore, now transliterated as Kodungallur, but also known under other names, is a city of legendary importance to this community. Fernandes writes, it is "a substitute Jerusalem in India."[21] Katz and Goldberg note the "symbolic intertwining" of the two cities.[22]
In 1768, a certain Tobias Boas of Amsterdam had posed eleven questions to Rabbi Yehezkel Rachbi of Cochin. The first of these questions addressed to the said Rabbi concerned the origins of the Jews of Cochin and the duration of their settlement in India. In Rabbi Yehezkel’s hand written response (Merzbacher's Library in Munich, MS. 4238), he wrote: “…after the destruction of the Second Temple (may it soon be rebuilt and reestablished in our days!), in the year 3828 of anno mundi, i.e. 68 of the Christian Era, about ten thousand men and women had come to the land of Malabar and were pleased to settle in four places; those places being Cranganore, Dschalor, [23] Madai[24] [and] Plota.[25] Most were in Cranganore, which is also called Mago dera Patinas; it is also called Sengale.”[26]
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St. Thomas, one of the disciples of Jesus, is believed to have visited India while proselytizing.[27] Many of the Jews who converted to Christianity at that time were absorbed by what became the Nasrani or Saint Thomas Christians.[28]
Central to the history of the Cochin Jews was their close relationship with Indian rulers. This was codified on a set of copper plates granting the community special privileges.[29] The date of these plates, known as "Sâsanam",[30] is contentious. The plates are physically inscribed with the date 379 CE,[31] but in 1925, tradition was setting it as 1069 CE.[32] Indian rulers granted the Jewish leader Joseph Rabban the rank of prince over the Jews of Cochin, giving him the rulership and tax revenue of a pocket principality in Anjuvannam near Cranganore, and rights to seventy-two "free houses".[33] The Hindu king gave permission in perpetuity (or, in the more poetic expression of those days, "as long as the world and moon exist") for Jews to live freely, build synagogues, and own property "without conditions attached".[34][35] A family connection to Rabban, "the king of Shingly" (another name for Cranganore), was long considered a sign of both purity and prestige within the community. Rabban's descendants led this distinct community until a chieftainship dispute broke out between two brothers, one of them named Joseph Azar, in the 16th century.
The oldest known gravestone of a Cochin Jew is written in Hebrew and dates to 1269 CE. It is near the Chendamangalam (also spelled Chennamangalam) Synagogue, built in 1614.[9] It is now operated as a museum.[36]
In 1341 a disastrous flood silted up the port of Cranganore, and trade shifted to a smaller port at Cochin (Kochi). Many of the Jews moved quickly, and within four years, they had built their first synagogue at the new community.[37] The Portuguese Empire established a trading beachhead in 1500, and until 1663 remained the dominant power. They continued to discriminate against the Jews, although doing business with them. A synagogue was built at Parur in 1615, at a site that according to tradition had a synagogue built in 1165. Almost every member of this community emigrated to Israel in 1954[9]
In 1524, the Muslims, backed by the ruler of Calicut (today called Kozhikode and not to be confused with Calcutta), attacked the wealthy Jews of Cranganore because of their primacy in the lucrative pepper trade. The Jews fled south to the Kingdom of Cochin, seeking the protection of the Cochin Royal Family (Perumpadapu Swaroopam). The Hindu Raja of Cochin gave them asylum. Moreover, he exempted Jews from taxation but bestowed on them all privileges enjoyed by the tax-payers.[38]
The Malabari Jews built additional synagogues at Mala and Ernakulum. In the latter location, Kadavumbagham Synagogue was built about 1200 and restored in the 1790s. Its members believed they were the congregation to receive the historic copper plates. In the 1930s and 1940s, the congregation was as large as 2,000 members, but all emigrated to Israel.[39]
Thekkambagham Synagogue was built in Ernakulum in 1580, and rebuilt in 1939. It is the synagogue in Ernakulam sometimes used for services if former members of the community visit from Israel. In 1998, five families who were members of this congregation still lived in Kerala or in Madras.[40]
A Jewish Traveler's Visit to Cochin[edit]
The following is a description of the Jews of Cochin by 16th century Jewish traveler, Zechariah Dhahiri (recollections of his travels in circa 1558)
| “ | ...I travelled from the land of Yemen unto the land of India and Cush, in order to search out a better livelihood. I had chosen the frontier route, where I made a passage across the Great Sea by ship for twenty days… I arrived at the city of Calicut, which upon entering I was sorely grieved at what I had seen, for the city’s inhabitants are all uncircumcised and given over to idolatry. There isn’t to be found in her a single Jew with whom I could have, otherwise, taken respite in my journeys and wanderings. I then turned away from her and went into the city of Cochin, wherein I found what my soul desired, insofar that a community of Spaniards is to be found there who are derived of Jewish lineage, along with other congregations, although they are proselytes.[41] They had been converted many years ago, of the natives of Cochin and Germany.[42] They are adept in their knowledge of Jewish laws and customs, acknowledging the injunctions of the Divine Law (Torah), and making use of its means of punishment. I dwelt there three months, among the holy congregations.[43] | ” |
1660 to Independence[edit]
The Paradesi Jews, also called "White Jews", settled in the Cochin region in the 16th century and later, following the expulsion from Iberia due to forced conversion and religious persecution in Spain and then Portugal. Some fled north to Holland but the majority fled east to the Ottoman Empire.
Some went beyond that territory, including a few families who followed the Arab spice routes to southern India. Speaking Ladino language and having Sephardic customs, they found the Malabari Jewish community as established in Cochin to be quite different. According to the historian Mandelbaum, there were resulting tensions between the two ethnic communities.[44] The European Jews had some trade links to Europe and useful languages to conduct international trade,[12] i.e. Arabic, Portuguese and Spanish, later on maybe Dutch. These attributes helped their position both financially and politically.
