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Only 17 members of the community live to tell the story of their rich past.
From the moment I decided to explore the Jewish tenement of Cochin I started collecting stories about the community. Tales about their origin multiplied and each new one receded farther back into antiquity. �They were here before St Thomas arrived; they came in King Solomon�s ships; St. Thomas was welcomed by a Jewish flute girl,� were the suggested theories. The community of Kochi Jews resides in the Jewish town of Kochi. The name itself suggests a ghetto.
Today the most touching depiction of the extermination of the community is in World War films, but the morbid tales of their persecution goes back a couple of millennia. Throughout history we hear of instances of persecution of the followers of this ancient religion of Judaism. Very often they had little option than to flee. The first exodus took place in 605 B.C. when a Persian King released 10 families from prison. It is likely that these families boarded an ancient Phoenician or Greek vessel bound for the Spicy El Dorado of India. Perhaps they landed in Cranganore (Kodungallur). This great emporium of trade was known as Muzhiris to the Greeks and Shingly to the Jews. They found refuge here and the already flourishing trade offered them a livelihood. Subsequent waves of migration added to their number and soon they were a sizeable presence on the Malabar coast. The story of the origin of Kochi Jews is an ethnic apocrypha. The maze of bizarre information and contradictory anecdotes prompted me to make an appointment with their spokesperson, Samuel Hallegua. At the appointed hour I was in front of a block of Portuguese houses crammed on the sides of the street. After knocking on the door two or three times, I spent three to four minutes of uneasy silence and then discerned some life on the other side of the shiny door that looked at least 500 hundred years old. A small window set in the door flew open and a face appeared. The expression was wary.
That was not surprising; inquisitive tourists like me constantly badger this community. The next moment, the tall door flew open and I was admitted into a spacious house with thick walls and shiny seasoned wood. Hallegua ushered me into his sitting room and I was instantly enveloped by bric-a-brac which has a strange way of revealing intimate details about the occupants of the house. A wooden chest with carvings of galleons and seafarers seemed to tell a story of an era gone by. That was the case with every artefact in the room. They seemed to be showcasing a culture that flourished centuries ago.
There were a good number of blue and white urns and vases on a mantelpiece. Known as Delft pottery today, they are made in Holland. The Dutch, however, are simply continuing a tradition they picked up during their trading days with China. In the 11th century, Kaifeng, the capital of China�s Song dynasty, was considered the greatest city on earth. During this period, kilns and workshops specialising in ceramics sprouted around the capital. The term porcelain appears in the writings of Marco Polo who visited China in the 13th century from the Italian word porcella-meaning the little pig-a name given to a smooth white cowry shell. Porcelain, unlike pottery, is translucent. The popularity of Chinese porcelain reached an all-time high during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644).
Not until the early 18th century would any European country produce hard-paste porcelain and even then Europe eagerly imported Chinese products. The import of Chinese porcelain by Dutch traders began in the 17th century. Ezekiel Rahabi a merchant-diplomat in the service of the Dutch East India Company brought hundreds of old hand-painted porcelain tiles to India from Canton in 1762.
He had the floor of the synagogue at Cochin covered with them. Legends have grown around these 12-inch by 12-inch tiles. The guide books go to the extent of proclaiming "no two are alike�.
Hallegua showed me some books that were printed in Amsterdam more than 250 years ago. He fondly passed his hands over the fine calligraphic Hebrew script.
Black and white photographs, mostly family portraits, crowded one corner of the room. A wedding photograph showed the bashful young Queenie Hallegua (Samuel�s wife) in her bridal finery. She was not wearing a western dress. In fact, the traditional wedding dress of Kochi Jew brides is a saree worn over a longish blouse and a lovely flower tiara on the head. Another one featured a young couple. Hallegua glowed with pride as he narrated the story of his daughter�s wedding and her immigration to Israel. The proud father told me that she had completed a research on the history of the Cochin Jews and was awarded a Master�s Degree in Sociology in 1984.
Hallegua�s ancestors came from a highly cultured and erudite community of Spanish Jews. The period 711-1492 saw Moorish rule in al-Andalus, as Spain was known. Al-Andalus not only gave the world beautiful Arab buildings like the Alhambra, it was also a place where Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities co-existed for 600 years.
Al-Andalus was also known for its erudite scholars. Maimonides, the great Jewish thinker, was born in Cordoba in 1135. The poet and scholar, Samuel HaLevi, later known as HaNagid, created verse suffusing it with his rabbinic learning and drawing on both the Muslim and Jewish culture that reflected the diverse society of al-Andalus. He created what is considered to be one of the jewels of Hebrew literature.
Towards the end of the 15th century that golden period came to an end with the Catholic reconquest of Granada. When Christopher Columbus was setting out in search of India, another fleet carrying Jews was fleeing from its Catholic persecutors. Among the Jews who landed on the Indian coast were Hallegua�s ancestors. These Castilian Jews joined the Sephardic Jews who had already settled in Cochin.
The turbulent times, however, were far from over for the Cochin Jews. They had to face the hostile Portuguese community. The Portuguese sought permission from their king to exterminate the Jews of Kodungallur. They also destroyed the Jewish settlement in Cochin and damaged their synagogue as well as some historical documents. The Jews consider this period to be their dark age. When the Dutch came to India in 1661, the Jews got back their former glory.
The synagogue at Cochin, known as Paradesi Judas Palli, is 450 years old. In 1968 Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister, released a stamp to commemorate the 400 years of Jew settlements in India. However, their numbers were already dwindling by then.
When Israel came into existence in 1949, the Jews in India left on a large-scale exodus for their promised land. It became progressively difficult for the ones who stayed behind to find marriage partners.
I did not get to see the famous copper plates that were given to the Jewish ruler in 379 A.D. These are displayed only on special occasions. But I did get a chance to walk barefoot inside the sombre temple. The feel of the Cantonese tiles under my feet and the light of the lamps created a magical aura.
I silently mourned the extinction of a great community. It is ironical that after having survived the swords of the Portuguese crusaders and the might of the Moors they were finally defeated in a game of numbers.
Today the last 17 surviving members play out their parts in a story that took more than 2,000 years to tell.
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