Cochin Jews
Cochin Jews (also Malabar Jews ) is the name given to the Jews of the south Indian Malabar coast , especially the port city of Kochi (formerly Cochin), and their descendants. Almost all Cochin Jews emigrated to Israel .
As a result of several waves of immigration, three different groups emerged, classified according to their origin as "Malabari Jews", "Paradesi Jews" and "Meshuhrarim", but sometimes also according to their skin color as "Black", "White" and "Brown Jews" are designated. The strict demarcation of the groups from one another, similar to the Hindu caste system, was decisive .
immigration
Malabari Jews
The immigration took place in several waves. “Malabari Jews” are the descendants of the first Jewish immigrants, who have a similarly dark skin color due to their intermingling with the local population. They are sometimes called "Black Jews", they also call themselves "Meyuhassim" ( Hebrew : "privileged"). About 85 percent of all Cochin Jews are Malabari Jews. There are no more Malabari Jews in Kerala today; the last of them emigrated to Israel in 1972. They traditionally spoke a dialect of Malayalam interspersed with numerous Hebrew loan words . The Malabari Jews living in Israel today speak predominantly Hebrew; the Malayalam is in sharp decline.
Paradesi Jews
The "Paradesi" - or "Pardesi Jews" (Malayalam: "Stranger"), also known as "White Jews", are the descendants of the people from the 16th century, mainly from Spain and Portugal, but also from other European and Middle Eastern countries immigrated Jews and make up around 14 percent of all Cochin Jews today. They mainly follow the Sephardic rite. Elements of the Ashkenazi rite are rare.
What was unusual for a long time was the strict demarcation of the Paradesi from the Malabari Jews, who were not allowed to attend the services of the Paradesi synagogues. Mixed marriages between the two groups were undesirable. It was only when the number of Jews remaining in Cochin after 1948 continued to decrease that the Paradesi Jews became less demarcated.
Mesh watch arm
The Meshuhrarim or "brown Jews" were originally slaves of rich Paradesi and Malabari merchants and were converted to Judaism by them ( proselytism ). However, they make up less than 1 percent of all Cochin Jews. Your own name is Meshuhrarim, which means something like "liberated" in Hebrew. Although their customs correspond to those of the "white" Jews, they were not allowed to use the benches in their synagogues until the middle of the 20th century. Mixed marriages with “white” Jews were also undesirable.
history
The origin of the first Jews on the Malabar Coast is not clear. According to a legend, they were said to be as early as the 10th century BC. BC with King Solomon's merchant fleet landed there. In fact, there were trade relations between the empire of Solomon and the Malabar coast. Other theories suggest that the first Jews after the conquest of Judea by the Babylonians in 586 BC. Came to South India, or that the small people of the Todas who live in the mountains of the Nilgiris are one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel . Most Cochin Jews believe that their ancestors immigrated after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in AD 70. Historians today assume that they immigrated from Yemen and Iraq in the early Middle Ages as the most likely, but the exact time of their arrival can no longer be reconstructed today.
The first evidence of the existence of a Jewish community is a charter written in Old Tamil on two copper plates, which is now kept in the Paradesi Synagogue in Kochi . It confirms that the Jewish merchant Joseph Rabban was given the village of Anjuvannam near Kodungallur, along with the tax revenue, and that he, in addition to a few other privileges, was also allowed to own a litter and a parasol, which was actually reserved for the rulers at the time. This allowed the creation of a small Jewish state. However, there is disagreement about the author and thus the age of the charter. Various historians put the origins of copper plates between the 4th and 10th centuries. But most of them today consider the Hindu ruler Bhaskara Ravi Varma (962-1020) as the author.
Travelers of the 12th century, among them the Spanish Rabbi Benjamin von Tudela , reported repeatedly about the Jews of the Malabar Coast. Until the arrival of the Portuguese , they lived there peacefully and mingled with the local Hindus , Muslims and Christians . In the 14th century, a dispute between two brothers over the crown of the small Jewish empire led to the expropriation of the Jews by the princes of the surrounding empires. The two brothers moved with their followers to Cochin (today Kochi ) in 1341 and founded the first Jewish community there and soon afterwards the Kochangadi Synagogue.
With the support of the Zamorin of Calicut (today Kozhikode ), Arabs attacked the city of Cranganore (today Kodungallur ) - until then the Jewish center of the Malabar coast - under the pretext that the Malabar Jews wanted to break the Arab monopoly on spices and destroyed the city almost completely. Almost all Jews then fled to Cochin under the protection of the local Hindu ruler. 40 years after the destruction of Cranganore, the last of them also left for Cochin.
At that time, the Jewish quarter in the Mattancherry district emerged. In addition, there was a wave of immigration in the 16th century from Sephardi originally expelled from Spain and Portugal . These immigrants, referred to as "White Jews" by the local population, isolated themselves more than the "Black Jews". Mixed marriages were mostly frowned upon. When Cochin came under Portuguese rule, the local Jewish population suffered from the religious intolerance of the colonial rulers. Without the protection of the local ruler, it would probably not have been able to withstand the Portuguese reprisals. After the support of the Jewish population for a Dutch conquest attempt in 1662, their synagogue in Mattancherry was destroyed, but rebuilt two years later by the more tolerant Dutch. The latter even brought Torah scrolls and prayer books from Europe. During the almost 125 years of Dutch rule, there were close ties to the Jewish community in Amsterdam . In 1686 they sent a delegation to Cochin, the head of which, the Sephardic Moses Pereira da Paiva , reported on 465 Malabar Jews and nine synagogues (three of them in Cochin). Around a century later, according to the Dutch governor Moens, the community had already grown to around 2000 members, which was also due to further immigrants from the Middle East . Even under British rule (from 1795) the community could continue to develop freely.
With a letter to Theodor Herzl written in 1901 , the Cochin Jews expressed their approval of Herzl's emerging Zionist movement. In 1923 the first Zionist association in Cochin was founded.
After Israel gained independence in 1948 , almost all of the Cochin Jews emigrated there. While the Jewish population in all of Kerala was around 3,000 in the early 1940s , it had shrunk to less than 100 within a few years with the rise of Israel. The peculiarities of the Jewish community of Kochi thematized u. a. Salman Rushdie's novel The Moors Last Sigh .
Cochin Jews today
Today only about 20, mostly older White Jews live in Kochi (the former Cochin), the only city in Kerala that still has a Jewish community. The members of the Ernakulam , Aluva and Parur congregations all emigrated to Israel. Of the original three synagogues in Kochi, only the Paradesi Synagogue in Mattancherry is still in operation today. Since the small community has not had a rabbi for a long time, the religious ceremonies are carried out by the community elders. Often church services are only carried out if the required number of believers is reached by the presence of Jewish tourists.
The number of Cochin Jews living in Israel is estimated to be 5,000, with small groups in the United States and Great Britain .
particularities
Through centuries of contacts with other religions spread along the Malabar coast, some peculiarities have emerged. So the believers take off their shoes before visiting the synagogue, as is customary with Hindus and Muslims . In the synagogues, based on Hindu traditions, colorful oil lamps hang from the ceiling. Other special customs include wearing clothes of a set color for certain festivals and handing out grapes flavored with myrtle on festive days.
See also
Web links
- History of the Jewish community of Cochin (English)
- Nathan Katz: Who Are The Jews Of India?
- Stuck in a time warp, the last 7 Jews of Kochi (report on the gradually dying Mattancherry Jewish community in Cochin), rediff.com, July 9, 2015
Individual evidence
- ^ Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs: The Sephardi Diaspora in Cochin, India
- ^ Raphael Meyer: The Cochin Jews . the-south-asian.com