Kochi: On Tuesday, a large piece of an ancient, non-operational black Jewish synagogue in Kochi fell due to heavy rain. It was previously known as ‘Karutha Palli’ (Synagogue of Black Jews) or Kadavumbagam Synagogue, and it serviced the Malabari Jews. It is located at Marakkadavu in Mattancherry, a little distance away from Mattancherry’s famous Paradesi…
(JTA) Take a stroll down Kochi, India’s “Jew street” today, and you’ll discover bustling Kasmiri businesses selling Persian antiquities, pashmina shawls, and traditional Islamic handicrafts, a far cry from the neighborhood’s heyday when every household was Jewish. “There are just two individuals left in Jew Town,” said Shalva Weil, a senior researcher at the Hebrew…
INDIA, KERALA – Not one, but two streets in Cochin, a prominent port city in southwest India, are named “Jew.” There’s Jew Street, which is lined with trinkets and is home to India’s oldest functioning synagogue, Paradesi, in the picturesque, touristy Mattancherry area, dubbed “Jew Town” by some. The second Jew Street is nine kilometers…
(JTA) — KOCHI, India — Today, a stroll along this seaside city’s “Jew street” will reveal lively Kasmiri businesses offering Persian antiques, pashmina shawls, and traditional Islamic handicrafts – a sharp contrast to the neighborhood’s heyday, when every household was Jewish. “There are just two individuals left in Jew Town,” said Shalva Weil, a senior…
A small Jewish community existed on India’s Malabar Coast for 900 years, coexisting peacefully with its Hindu, Muslim, and Christian neighbors. It served as an example of interfaith tolerance. However, as Fred de Sam Lazaro describes, the population has shrunk since Israel’s founding, and one of the last Jewish survivors, who runs the local synagogue,…
The Cochin Jews may have existed on the fertile Malabar Coast of southwest India for two millennia. This tropical region is now Kerala, a modern Indian state named after the kera, or coconut palm tree, which is so important to the state’s landscape and economy. While there were once thousands of Jews in Malabar, only…
Malayalam-speaking Jews from the Kochi (formerly Cochin) area of Kerala, situated along the Malabar Coast of southwestern India, are known as Cochin Jews, Cochini, or Kerala Jews. The Paradesis (White Jews), Malabaris (Black Jews), and Meshuchrarim (Meshuchrarim) were three caste-like classes of Cochin Jews (Brown Jews). Just about 50 Cochin Jews remained on the Malabar…
Recent attention has centered on the Indians of the Bnei Menashe who have just arrived in Israel, but there is an older Indian group that has been here since the nation was founded. Which way you look at it, Cochin’s Jewish culture is an ancient one. The Jews of the city of Cochin in southwest…
In a beach village where they previously sought safety, their numbers are falling, but their culture endures. “Can you tell me how to get to the synagogue?” In Mattancherry, a neighborhood is known around here as “Jew Town,” a woman walks into a candy-green shop. Outside, tourists and vendors haggle over the price of pashmina…
Although the largely Hindu city is well-known for its large Muslim and Christian populations, the Paradesi Jewish community, which is less well-known, is rapidly diminishing. Kashmiri traders in Islamic garb stand in front of businesses painted with banners saying “Shalom!” in the little neighborhood of Mattancherry in the South Indian city of Cochin. Hindu idols…