Leslie Rübner

Cochin is the commercial capital of Kerala, a cosmopolitan town and a major port, situated in the west-central Kerala State in south-western India. The Cochini Jews come from the former State of the Malabar Coast, which is now incorporated in to Kerala. The social structure developed in Kerala is unique in the Jewish world; there was a division based on skin pigmentation. There were the white, black and brown Jews. The Keralite Jews followed the Hindu caste system and the divisions between these Jewish groups were absolute. The White Jews (called “Paradesi” or ‘foreign’) were a mixture of Jewish exiles from Cranganore (also in Kerala), Spain, Aleppo, Holland and Germany. They follow the Sephardi custom with some Ashkenazi.

The “black” Jews had separate synagogues from the “white” ones. The “black” Jews, better known as Malabari Jews, were an ancient community, which may have originated at the time of the destruction of the Second Temple. Both the “black” and the “white” communities were slaveholders, and the Meshuchrarim (freed slaves) from the Paradesi (the white) community were called “brown” Jews, while freed slaves from the Malabari (the black) community were known in the Malayalam language term as Orumakers. Paradesi Jews originally would not count any of the other groups for their minyan (quorum of ten Jewish males needed for certain religious obligations), would not allow them synagogue honours (except on Simchat Torah), would not marry them, and would not accept their hechsher (kashrut supervision).

Two copper plates belonging to the “white” Jews, serve as evidence of a Jewish presence on the Malabar Coast. The text of this inscription is dated 974 CE and not later than 1020.

Benjamin of Tudela, a medieval Spanish Rabbi, traveller and explorer, passed through Europe, Asia, and Africa. His vivid descriptions of Asia preceded those of Marco Polo by one hundred years. His account of India (c.1170) apparently states that there were about 1,000 Jews in this region, who meticulously observed the Torah and, besides the Written Law, knew a little of the Oral Law too.

There were two waves of Jewish immigration to the City of Cochin in the early 16th century: firstly, Jews who, as I mentioned before, came from Cranganore, the original Jewish settlement on the Malabar Coast, after it was destroyed by the Portuguese about 1524, and secondly Jews and Marranos from Spain and Portugal. The Jewish traveller and respected scholar from Yemen, Zechariah al-Dahiri (c.1550), composed his rhymed narrative, Sefer HaMusar, while imprisoned along with the rest of the Sanaʽa (Yemen) Jewish community in 1568. In this he says that he “met with many Jews in Cushi (Cochin)”, where he stayed for three months.

In an enquiry made for David ben Solomon Ibn AI Zimra (The Radbaz, born in Spain about 1479; died in Safed in 1573) and Rabbi Jacob ben Abraham Castro in Alexandria around 1600, the number of Cochin Jews was estimated at about 900 householders.

Under the Portuguese rule of the Malabar Coast (1502-1663), the Jews would not have survived had it not been for the protection afforded them by the Rajah of Cochin, who had welcomed the new Jewish immigrants, gave them land to build their homes and synagogues (in the town of Mattancheri, now known as Jewtown in Cochin) and granted them religious and cultural autonomy. He appointed a hereditary Mudaliar (chief) from among the Jews as their recognised spokesman and invested him with special privileges and prerogatives and with jurisdiction in all internal matters of the Cochin Jews, though with no political power. This office continued in force under the Rajah and even the Dutch. The first Mudaliar was apparently Baruch Joseph Levi of Cranganore, who was succeeded by his son, Joseph Levi. The Jews of Cochin repaid the benevolence of the Rajah by helping him in his military struggles with his neighbours, earning a reputation as courageous and loyal fighters. They never went in to battle on the Sabbath day. Most of the Mudaliars became the Rajah's close advisers, and assisted him in diplomatic and economic affairs. The first Dutch attempt to take Cochin was thwarted in 1662 due, in no small measures, to the courage of a Cochin Jew, but they conquered a year later, in 1663. The Dutch rule lasted until 1795, when the British took over. Dutch rule offered the Jews complete cultural autonomy and religious freedom; it also broke their isolation from the rest of the Jewish world.

In 1686, the community in Amsterdam dispatched a delegation to Cochin, headed by Moses Pereira de Paiva, to visit the Jewish community and to collect data on its history and way of life. The visitors made a considerable impact on the Jewish community, mainly because of a consignment of Hebrew books that they brought for the community. The 15th of Av, the day of their arrival, was celebrated as a festival in Cochin. The close contact between the Jews of Amsterdam and Cochin lasted throughout the 125 years of Dutch rule over Malabar. Dutch rule also brought unparalleled prosperity to the Jews. The records of the Dutch East India Company of the 18th century in The Hague and in the Indian Archives, provide abundant documentary evidence on the emergence of a class of Jewish merchants, bankers, and leaders in diplomacy, negotiators, and interpreters. In the 17th century Moses de Pereira listed 465 Malabar Jews, and found nine synagogues, three in Cochin and six in the surrounding countryside. Nearly a century later, the Dutch governor A. Moens (1781) mentions 422 families, or about 2,000 persons.

The Cochin community maintained close contact with Jewish communities outside India as well as with the Jewish settlements within India. However, the closest contacts were maintained with the Jews of Amsterdam, who provided them with books and learning. Most of the published writings of the Cochin Jews were printed in Amsterdam, for example the Seder Tefilot (Amsterdam, 1757); this was later republished under the name Chuppat Chattanim (1769, 1842, and 1917). A native of Cochin founded the first Hebrew printing press in India in Calcutta in 1840-41. Between 1841 and 1856 he produced about 28 books of a halachic, liturgical, and literary nature. Jews of Cochin were imbued with a strong messianic spirit. Shabbetai Zvi, the false Messiah in the 17th century, found an unwelcome echo even in this remote corner of the Diaspora.

A close contact between Cochin and the Holy Land was established from the middle of the 18th century, through shlichim (emissaries) from Eretz Israel. The Cochin Jews sympathised with Zionism in a letter wishing Herzl success, written in Cochin in 1901 by Naphtali Eliahu Rahabi (Roby). In 1923, the first Zionist organisation was founded in Cochin, and the Jews sent representatives to the Zionist Federation in London and even appointed Israel Zangwill as their representative to one of the Zionist congresses, being unable to send a delegate.

In 1948, most of the 2,500 Jews that lived in Cochin left for Israel, leaving less than 100 there.