Home to one of India’s most important ports, the city of Cochin was also once home to a thriving Jewish community, of which but a handful of its members remain. Alyssa Pinsker writes:
In addition to the six remaining Pardesi Jews, there are reputedly 29 Malabar—once called “black”—Jews across the city and surrounding areas. In the 1950s . . . there were eight synagogues in all of Kerala, a region roughly a quarter of the size of Florida, serving 2,500 people. Now there is but one functioning synagogue, the Pardesi, which welcomes Jews of all castes. (The separation of Jews was parallel to, and based on, the Hindu caste system.)
[In lieu of rabbis], the community . . . is led by elders or ḥazanim (cantors) who come from Mumbai or Israel to oversee holidays or funerals. It is one that has enjoyed distinct customs: two bimahs [lecterns] at every synagogue, a tradition of public singing by women, donning special colors for each Jewish holiday, and a celebration of Simḥat Torah with grand lighting of towering candelabras—the decorations are called aalivelakku, named for a local ivy plant and are inspired by designs in Hindu temples and further embellished with stars of David. . . .
Those Jews who have not left Cochin for Israel, the U.S., or elsewhere are mostly old and infirm, and depend on friendly Muslim neighbors both for everyday assistance and for help preserving their community’s physical heritage:
So passionate is [Thaha Ibrahim, a local Muslim with close ties to a Jewish family] about the Jews, that in 2013, he and his friend Thoufeek Zakriya, twenty-six, produced Jews of Malabar, a documentary, and a complementary exhibition. . . . Like Ibrahim, [Zakriya is] a Muslim, a devout one. Yet at age sixteen he taught himself to read and write Hebrew. . . .
Hussein (who asked that his last name be withheld) . . . sells postcards near Sarah [Cohen’s] embroidery shop. For the past two years, he has also tended to the only operational Jewish cemetery in Cochin. There were a total of seven Jewish cemeteries; the other six are now mostly unrecognizable and overgrown. Hussein arrives each day around 6:00 in the morning . . . to prune the graveyard and assist the cemetery caretaker. He helps because the Jews asked him to. And because the Jews are his neighbors.
Read more on Tablet: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/196124/pillars-of-cochin-community