Been there ... Done that ...
Jew town of Mattancherry
1170: When the traveler Benjamin of Tudela visited India, he
reported that there were about a thousand Jews in the south.
1686: Moses Pereira
de Paiva listed 465 Malabar Jews.
1781: The Dutch governor, A. Moens, recorded 422 families or
about 2,000 persons. In
1948: 2,500 Jews were
living on the Malabar Coast.
1953 : 2,400 emigrated to Israel, leaving behind only about
100 Paradesi Jews on the Malabar Coast.
Amongst all the must see tourist destinations in Cochin is the
‘Pardaesi’ Synagogue . Paradesi in native Malayalam means the Foreigner. The Synagogue which is the main tourist destination
is a small place of Jewish worship.
The bylanes that approach the Jewish synagogue are strewn with Antique
shops selling tourist souvenirs and real
as well as fake Antique Trinkets, furniture and bric a brac from the era gone
by .
They are all not necessarily genuine, but if you really have an eye for
the antiques you can find them. On the
face of it they are exorbitantly priced, and a good deal of haggling is absolutely
necessary unless you want the shop keeper
to laugh his way to the bank.
As you finish looking around the synagogue, you would inevitably visit the
adjacent exhibition that has some artefacts that explain the history of the
Jews in Malabar. During Portuguese persecution in the 16th Century, they were
granted sanctuary by the Hindu Rajah of Cochin, Keshava Rama Varma. The present
day Paradesi
synagogue was built in 1568 on land granted by Varma, and the
Jew Town neighbourhood built up around it.
By 1953 when Israel declared independence many Jews from Mattancherry
emigrated back to their ome land, although most of them had been living in the
ocast of Malabar for generations.
Of the few who remained in Mattacherry is Sarah Cohen.
When you walk past the Synagogue you cannot miss the quaint ‘Sarah’s
Embriodery shop’ in the outer verandah of what once must have been a quaint
Jewish home.
As I look through the window I
see an incredibly old woman sitting up in a four poster bed calling out in a
feeble voice when the house keeper comes and props her pillow down for her to
sleep.
I enter the shop and look around for the things. I am not exactly a customer looking to buy a challah the jewish
Ritual Bread covers or the Mezuzah ,
intricately embroidered with Hebrew writings on them.
I must say I am
tempeted. But my main attraction is the lady of the house, now probably
resting down for her siesta. She speaks fluent Malayalam to the house keeper.
The house keeper is a middle aged muslim
lady.
She and her son are doing the day
duty today looking over Sarah’s aunty as well as the occasional customer to the
shoppe.
Her husband Thaha Ibrahim , when he was a young boy was a
frequent visitor to the house of Sarah and her husband to the extent that the
childless Sarah Cohen considers him her adopted son. His father used to work
next door at the post card shop and he would visit them as a young boy and was
intrigued by all things Jewish.
When Jacob Cohen died it was his wish that
Thaha Ibrahim take care of his wife. It has been nearly two decades since then
and the Ibrahim family is the caretaker of the shop as well as Sarah Cohen.
Thoufeeq Zakriya, a friend of Sara Cohen maintains a blog that Chronicles the Jewish Heritage
. A Chef by passion and a calligrapher by profession, Zakriya, learnt the Hebrew
language and helps tourists decipher some of the Hebrew script at the Paradesi
Synagogue.
Sarah Aunty’s memory has been relapsing on and
off in the last few months says Thaha Ibrahim’s wife. Her son who was showing
me around the shop is now sitting and studying.
Sarah is now listlessly gazing at the ceiling,
as I take her photopgraph. I ask if I
may click her photograph and I am told that she would hardly understand. In better days she has entertained many a
curious visitor and explained to them a lot about the interesting history of
Jew town.
Today she hardly remembers
things happening around her.
A nurse
comes and stays in the night when the Ibrahims get back home which is just at
the end of the lane.
As I
look around the shop I see many quaint black and white photographs that talk
about a vibrant social life that must have existed in the 50s and 60s in Jew
town among the Jews.
Sara & Jacob Cohen on their wedding day |
Today Sarah Cohen is too old to do her own
embroidery. Her hands shake and her memory relapses too often.
Most of the embroidery
in the shop comes from a village in Andhra Pradesh. Many Jews and non –Jew tourists who come to
Fort Kochi inevitably visit Sara’s Embriodery Shoppe where you still can buy
some very delicately embroidered Mezuzah and Challah covers.
It is one of the last remnants of a once
industrious and thriving Jewish community in this region.
Stay tuned for more from Kochi
To be continued
Source on Demographics : http://www.encyclopedia.com/places/asia/indian-political-geography/cochin-jew
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