Cochin Jews (also known as Malabar Jews or Kochinim from ) are one of the oldest groups of Jews in India, with roots that are claimed to date back to the time of King Solomon.The Jews of India: A Story of Three Communities by Orpa Slapak. The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. 2003. p. 27. .Weil, Shalva. "Jews in India." in M. Avrum Erlich (ed.) Encyclopaedia of the Jewish Diaspora, Santa Barbara, USA: ABC CLIO. 2008, 3: 1204-1212. The Cochin Jews settled in the Kingdom of Cochin in South India,Weil, Shalva. India's Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art, and Life-Cycle, Mumbai: Marg Publications, 2009. [first published in 2002; 3rd edn] Katz 2000; Koder 1973; Menachery 1998 now part of the present-day state of Kerala.Weil, Shalva. "Cochin Jews", in Carol R. Ember, Melvin Ember and Ian Skoggard (eds) Encyclopedia of World Cultures Supplement, New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2002. pp. 78-80.Weil, Shalva. "Cochin Jews" in Judith Baskin (ed.) Cambridge Dictionary of Judaism and Jewish Culture, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. pp. 107. As early as the 12th century, mention is made of the Jews in southern India by Benjamin of Tudela.
Following their expulsion from Iberia in 1492 by the Alhambra Decree, a few families of Sephardi Jews eventually made their way to Cochin in the 16th century. They became known as Paradesi Jews (or Foreign Jews). The European Jews maintained some trade connections to Europe, and their language skills were useful. Although the Sephardim spoke Ladino (Spanish or Judeo-Spanish), in India they learned Judeo-Malayalam from the Malabar Jews. The two communities retained their ethnic and cultural distinctions.Weil, Shalva. "The Place of Alwaye in Modern Cochin Jewish History", Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 2010. 8(3): 319-335. In the late 19th century, a few Arabic-speaking Jews, known as Baghdadis, also immigrated to southern India from the Near East.Weil, S. 2019 (ed.) The Baghdadi Jews in India: Maintaining Communities, Negotiating Identities and Creating Super-Diversity, London and New York: Routledge.
After India gained its independence in 1947 and Israel was established as a nation, most of the Cochin Jews made Aliyah and emigrated from Kerala to Israel in the mid-1950s. In contrast, most of the Paradesi Jews (Sephardi in origin) preferred to migrate to Australia and other Commonwealth countries, similar to the choices made by Anglo-Indians.Weil, Shalva. From Cochin to Israel, Jerusalem: Kumu Berina, 1984. (Hebrew)
Most of their synagogues still exist in Kerala, with a few being sold or adapted for other uses. Among the 8 synagogues that survived till the mid-20th century, only the Paradesi synagogue still has a regular congregation. Today it also attracts tourists as a historic site. The Kadavumbhagam Ernakulam Synagogue was restored in 2018, it now houses a sefer torah with occasional services managed by one of few remaining Cochin Jews. A few synagogues are in ruins and one was even demolished with a two-story house built in its place. The synagogue at Chendamangalam (Chennamangalam) was reconstructed in 2006 as Kerala Jews Life Style Museum.Weil, Shalva (with Jay Waronker and Marian Sofaer) The Chennamangalam Synagogue: Jewish Community in a Village in Kerala. Kerala: Chennamangalam Synagogue, 2006. The synagogue at Paravur (Parur) has been reconstructed as Kerala Jews History Museum."The Synagogues of Kerala, India: Architectural and Cultural Heritage." Cochinsyn.com, Friends of Kerala Synagogues, 2011.MWeil, Shalva. "In an Ancient Land: Trade and synagogues in south India", Asian Jewish Life. 2011.
History
First Jews in South India
P. M. Jussay wrote that it was believed that the earliest Jews in India were sailors from King Solomon's time.The Jews of Kerala, P. M. Jussay, cited in The Last Jews of Kerala, p. 79 It has been claimed that following the destruction of the First Temple in the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BCE), some Jewish exiles came to India.The Last Jews of Kerala, p. 98 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.Katz 2000; Koder 1973; Thomas Puthiakunnel 1973; David de Beth Hillel, 1832; Lord, James Henry 1977. 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".The Last Jews of Kerala, p. 102 Katz and Goldberg note the "symbolic intertwining" of the two cities.The Last Jews of Kerala, p. 47
Ophira Gamliel notes however that the first physical evidence of the presence of Jews in South India dates only to the granting of the Kollam copper plates. The copper plates are a trade deed dated to the year 849 C.E bestowed upon the Nestorian merchant magnate Maruvan Sapir Iso and the Saint Thomas Christian community by Ayyan Atikal, the ruler of the Kingdom of Venad. The copper plates include signatures in Kufic, Pahlavi, and Hebrew and serve as evidence of West Asian mercantilism in Kerala.
In 1768, the influential banker Tobias Boas (nl) of The Hague 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 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 CE, 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,Place unidentified; possibly Keezhallur in Kerala State. MadaiPlace unidentified; poss. Madayikonan in Kerala State. [and] Plota.Place unidentified; poss. Palode in Kerala State. Most were in Cranganore, which is also called Mago dera Patinas; it is also called Sengale."J. Winter and Aug. Wünsche, Die Jüdische Literatur seit Abschluss des Kanons, vol. iii, Hildesheim 1965, pp. 459-462 (German)A similar tradition has been preserved by David Solomon Sassoon, where he mentions the first places of Jewish settlement on the Malabar Coast as Cranganore, Madai, Pelota and Palur, which were then under the rule of the Perumal dynasty. See: David Solomon Sassoon, Ohel Dawid (Descriptive catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon Library, London), vol. 1, Oxford Univ. Press: London 1932, p. 370, section 268.
Saint Thomas, an Aramaic-speaking Jew from the Galilee region of Israel and one of the disciples of Jesus, is believed to have come to Southern India in the 1st century, in search of the Jewish community there. It is possible that the Jews who became Christians at that time were absorbed by what became the Nasrani Community in Kerala.
A number of scholars have noted that the Cochin Jews maintain striking cultural similarities to the Knanaya, Jewish-Christian migrants from Persia who settled in Kodungallur, Kerala in the 4th or 8th century. These symmetries are noted in both the wedding traditions and especially the folk songs of the two communities, some songs maintaining the exact same lyrics with few corruptions and variations.
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.Weil, Shalva. "Symmetry between Christians and Jews in India: the Cnanite Christians and the Cochin Jews of Kerala", Contributions to Indian Sociology, 1982. 16(2): 175-196. The date of these plates, known as "Sâsanam",Burnell, Indian Antiquary, iii. 333–334. is contentious. The plates are physically inscribed with the date 379 CE,Haeem Samuel Kehimkar, The History of the Bene-Israel of India (ed. Immanuel Olsvanger), Tel-Aviv : The Dayag Press, Ltd.; London : G. Salby 1937, p. 64David Solomon Sassoon, Ohel Dawid (Descriptive catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon Library, London), vol. 1, Oxford Univ. Press: London 1932, p. 370, section 268. According to David Solomon Sassoon, the copper plates were inscribed during the period of the last ruler of the Perumal dynasty, Shirman Perumal. but in 1925, tradition was setting it as 1069 CE. 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".Ken Blady, Jewish Communities in Exotic Places. Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson Inc., 2000. pp. 115–130.Weil, Shalva. "Jews of India" in Raphael Patai and Haya Bar Itzhak (eds.) Jewish Folklore and Traditions: A Multicultural Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, Inc. 2013, (1: 255-258).
The Hindu king gave permission in perpetuity (or, in the more poetic expression of those days, "as long as the world, sun and moon endure") for Jews to live freely, build synagogues, and own property "without conditions attached".Three Years in America, 1859–1862 (pp. 59-60) by Israel Joseph BenjaminRoots of Dalit History, Christianity, Theology, and Spirituality (p. 28) by James Massey, I.S.P.C.K. 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 Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela, speaking of Kollam (Quilon) on the Malabar Coast, writes in his Itinerary:"[t]hroughout 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."The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela (ed. Marcus Nathan Adler), Oxford University Press, London 1907, p. 65These people later became known as the Malabari Jews. They built synagogues in Kerala beginning in the 12th and 13th centuries.Weil, Shalva. From Cochin to Israel. Jerusalem: Kumu Berina, 1984. (Hebrew)Weil, Shalva. "Kerala to restore 400-year-old Indian synagogue", The Jerusalem Post (2009). The oldest known gravestone of a Cochin Jew is written in Hebrew and dates to 1269 CE. It is near the Chendamangalam Synagogue, built in 1614, which is now operated as a museum.The Last Jews of Kerala, pp. 81–82.Weil, Shalva (with Jay Waronker and Marian Sofaer) The Chennamangalam Synagogue: Jewish Community in a Village in Kerala. Kerala: Chennamangalam Synagogue, 2006.
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.The Last Jews of Kerala p. 111.Weil, Shalva. "The Place of Alwaye in Modern Cochin Jewish History", Journal of Modern Jewish Studies. 2010, 8(3): 319-335.
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.
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.