Author: Emily Wax
Publication: Washington Post
Date: August 27, 2007
URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/26/AR2007082601112.html?hpid=topnews
After Many Emigrated to Israel, Once-Thriving
Community on Southern Coast 'Is Dying Out'
Down a narrow, stone-paved road in a quarter
known here as "Jew Town," a woman with salt-and-pepper hair was
sewing glittery beads onto the rim of a Jewish prayer cap. It was just after
3 p.m., and Sarah Cohen, wearing a housedress and flip-flops, sat in the sunny
doorway of her shop, waiting for the visitors from around the world to come
in for a visit.
Cohen lives right near the Pardesi Synagogue,
which was built in 1568 when Jewish spice traders set up businesses in this
small outpost of the Jewish world on the South Indian Malabar coast. The synagogue
sparkles with colorful Indian chandeliers and green and red glass candleholders
that swing from the ceiling beams. The floor is intricately patterned with
blue and white tiles imported from a Jewish community in China in the 15th
century.
As visitors wandered by on their way to the
synagogue, one of the oldest in the world, they looked curiously at the little
Jewish woman speaking in Malayalam, the language of the southern state of
Kerala.
Cohen explained that she is a part of a dying
tradition here that will probably no longer exist in 10 years, because most
of the Jews who used to live here emigrated to Israel during its creation
in 1948. Now, there are believed to be only 13 elderly Indian-born Jews --
from seven families -- still living in Kochi, a sun-dappled city thick with
coconut palms.
"We couldn't bring ourselves to leave.
We are Indians, too. Why should we leave the only place we have known as home?"
Cohen said with a gentle wobble of her head, an Indian gesture sometimes used
for emphasis. "Besides, I like this place. And I like the people."
Jews flourished in India for centuries --
from biblical times, some scholars say. The country also gave safe haven to
Jews during World War II.
Small but active Jewish communities remain
in Mumbai, including the so-called Baghdadi Jews who come from Iraq, Iran,
Syria and Afghanistan and are thought to have arrived about 250 years ago.
In northeastern India, an estimated 9,000 Indians started practicing Judaism
in the 1970s, saying they were a lost tribe and descendants of the tribe of
Manasseh. Israel has recognized them as ethnically Jewish.
But in Kochi, there is concern that Jew Town
soon will be little more than a quirky tourist destination.
On a recent afternoon, Cohen's friend Abdul
Anas, 33, stopped by to check on her. He often looks in on her, since he was
good friends with her husband, Jacob Cohen, a lawyer who died eight years
ago.
Sarah Cohen and Anas spoke easily to each
other in Malayalam. They laughed when Anas said that he was a Muslim but didn't
mind working in Jew Town. They don't discuss Israel or politics, they said.
"Who cares?" Sarah asked. "That's over there, and we are here,"
Anas shrugged.
"To me, it's a part of Indian history.
Her husband always gave me fair work. I call her auntie. And she's alone now
so I take her to the hospital when she is sick," said Anas, who sells
postcards of the synagogue from his pushcart. "I feel bad for her. And
actually I feel really sad that the community is dying out."
Israeli tourists to India, along with Jews
from the United States, sometimes drop off boxes of matzoh ball soup mix and
kosher cookies. "They tell me I remind them of their bubby," Cohen
said, using the Yiddish word for grandmother.
Cohen displayed her frilly white bread covers,
used on the Jewish Sabbath during a blessing over the bread. The covers were
stamped with her name: "Sarah Cohen: Kochi, India."
"We are kosher, but also Indian,"
she said, adding that she uses chapati, an Indian flatbread, rather than the
braided challah bread of European Jews.
The Jewish community here eats no beef, out
of respect for the Hindu prohibition on eating cow meat. But they do keep
kosher, eating chicken cooked with cloves, chickpeas and cardamom and fish
curry steeped in coconut milk along with pineapple and mango for dessert,
Cohen said. "Why not? Fruit is kosher."
She shuffled into her small living quarters
next to her shop for some ginger tea and cookies.
Outside, some tourists were lining up to visit
the synagogue. In Kerala, there are still three synagogues, but the one here
is the only one still open and is a protected heritage site.
A series of large oil paintings in an entry
room of the synagogue tell the history of the Jews in Kochi. The first painting
depicts King Solomon's merchant ship greeting Indian leaders and trading peacocks,
ivory, spices and teak wood.
The inscriptions under the paintings say that
the Book of Esther in the Old Testament contains the first written mention
of Jews in India. The Jews blended many of their customs with their host country's.
For instance, a dialect called Judeo-Malayalam, a mix of Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam
and Hebrew, was spoken. In Kochi, shoes are taken off before entering the
main prayer room, as in Hindu tradition, and flowers are used as a part of
prayer.
K.J. Joy, the Hindu caretaker of the synagogue
for 25 years, said it's only a matter of a short time before the Jews of Kochi
disappear, and with them the unique mix of Indian and Jewish culture. "This
will become a monument, not a working synagogue," he said. "For
that, we feel really horrible."
He showed a visitor a small pamphlet written
by members of the community in the 1980s, which tells the history of Jew Town.
The booklet praises India for giving shelter and respect to the Jews throughout
history.
"After some years the story of the Jews
of Malabar may come to an end," reads the small book handed out to visitors
for 10 rupees, or about 20 cents. "If this happens, history can record
that their emigration was not motivated by intolerance or discrimination by
India."