Nathan Katz and Ellen S. Goldberg Jerusalem Letter April 15, 1988

The End of the Indian Diaspora

One Shabbat in July 1987, for the first time since the synagogue was built
419 years ago, there was no minyan in the fabled Paradesi Synagogue of Cochin.
Since the beginning of 1987, the population of Jew Town, once about 300, has
diminished from 33 to 29 due to immigration to Israel. Similar forlorn
scenarios are being repeated throughout India.The one remaining Jewish family in
North Parur, Kerala, bravely keeps the synagogue’s ner tamid (eternal light)
burning and gathers each Shabbat for informal prayers. In Puna’s best known
landmark, the Ohel David Synagogue built by David Sassoon, the Sefer Torah is
no longer read for lack of a hazan. In “the grandest synagogue in the East,”
the Maghen David of Calcutta, a few old Jews of Baghdadi extraction gather
weekly; sometimes there is a minyan, sometimes not. The roof leaks badly at
Bombay’s Maghen David and there is no one to see to its repair. Only two Sifrei
Torah remain in Rangoon’s Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue where there were once 126
scrolls.Of the more than 25,000 Jews in India at independence, perhaps 5-6,000
remain, and many of them are highly assimilated Bene Israel in Bombay.
Jewish life has become all but impossible. The vast community matza bakeries of
Bombay and Calcutta have been all but silenced. The glorious Jewish community
of Cochin has now been reduced to a few old homes along Synagogue Lane, and
many of the unique observances of the Cochinis can no longer be continued. The
Director of the Bombay office of the Jewish Agency lives in Israel; there is
not enough for him to do in India to warrant full-time residence.In this
exotic corner of the diaspora, a realm in which Jews lived for millennia in
freedom and dignity, bathed in the affection of their Hindu brethren, India was
the most hospitable of homes, a nation which has been host for six distinct
Jewish communities: the ancient and celebrated Cochinim, the once-forgotten Bene
Israel, the courtiers of the Mughal emperors, Portuguese Marranos, the
commercially and industrially prominent Baghdadis, the scattered Ashkenazim, and
today’s tribal Jews of the far northeast.

The Jews of Cochin

The oldest Indian Jewish community is in the southwesternmost state, Kerala,
centered in the quaint port city of Cochin. They have been in India for at
least 1,000 years; medieval Muslim and Jewish travelers wrote of their high
status and favor of the Maharajahs. More likely, they have been there nearly
2,000 years, perhaps from the destruction of the Second Temple as their
tradition holds. The third-century Bishop of Caesaria, Eusebius, wrote of an Aramaic
copy of the Gospel of St. Matthew which had been seen in India a hundred
years before him. The earliest settlements may even have dated from King
Solomon’s time, since such luxury items as ivory, peacocks and linen were imported
from India during his reign.At the time of independence, there were seven
active synagogues in the princely State of Cochin and one in the State of
Travancore: three in Cochin, two in Ernakulam, and one each in Parur, Chendamangalam
and Mala.Today there is a regular minyan only in the Paradesi Synagogue of
Cochin. The 1568 synagogue, the oldest in the British Commonwealth, is
beautifully maintained, even if the community’s cemetery has deteriorated. Plans
have been made for the Archaeological Survey of India to convert the synagogue
into a museum when the remaining few Jews have gone. The Thekumbagam Synagogue
(1647), about 100 meters south along Synagogue Lane, was demolished in the
early 1970s, and the Kadavumbagam (1539), several hundred meters farther
south, is a warehouse.Ernakulam now has three Jewish families — the Eliases,
Nehemias and Abrahams — about 20 people all told; there were once about 1,000.
The Kadavumbagam Synagogue (1200) is in reasonably good repair. It was closed
in 1972 and is now a flower nursery; its spirit lives on at Moshav Nevatim,
near Beersheba, where its Sifrei Torah — including one with a solid gold case
– have been installed. The Thekumbagam Synagogue (1580) is a Jewish-owned
poultry farm.The Simon family clings tenaciously to its beloved synagogue
(originally built in 1164, rebuilt in 1616) in the town of North Parur, where
once around 1,000 Jews lived. Esther Simon tends the ner tamid in the
dilapidated building, and the family recites prayers there each Shabbat. For Rosh
Hashanah and Yom Kippur, relatives from nearby Alwaye join them and form a minyan.
Said Esther Simon, matriarch of the family, “We have only three things now:
the house, this synagogue and the cemetery. It’s very difficult to live here
now.”The nearby towns of Mala and Chendamangalam have no Jews left; both
synagogues are terribly run down. The Mala Synagogue (1597) was donated to the
town council of elders for use as a community center by the Jewish community
when they moved to Israel en masse in 1952. In Chendamangalam, the 1614
synagogue stands empty, its magnificent carved, wooden ark — an unsurpassed example
of Kerala Jewish art — silently decaying, its prayer books strewn about,
and a fine parchment Torah scroll awaiting rescue from oblivion.Sattu Koder is
the scholarly, octogenerian leader of the community and President of the
South India Jewish Association. The 29 Jews of the Paradesi community and perhaps
another 30 scattered throughout Kerala are all that remain of the 2,500
prior to mass aliya.

The Bene Israel

Second in antiquity but by far the largest community is the Bene Israel of
Bombay and environs. These were the most “Hinduized” of India’s Jews. Cut off
from world Jewry for centuries, they forgot their Hebrew — except for the
Shema — and adopted such Hindu practices as abstention from meat-eating and
banning widow remarriage. They did not recognize the term “Jew” and formed the
shanwar teli or “Saturday oil-presser” caste, so-called because of their
abjuring work on Shabbat. They held firmly to the vestiges of Jewish observance,
however, and practiced circumcision on the eighth day, kept kashrut and
celebrated most Jewish festivals in dimly-remembered forms for uncounted and
uncountable centuries.As Bombay grew into a major industrial and commercial center
during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, many Bene Israel moved there
from the neighboring countryside of the Konkan coast. With a tradition of
military and government service, they settled in such diverse cities as Puna,
the monsoon capital of the old Bombay Presidency; Ahmedabad, India’s second
leading textile center in Gujerat state; Karachi, the Sindh’s leading seaport,
now in Pakistan; Delhi, the capital since 1912; Calcutta, the old capital and
home to thousands of Baghdadi Jewish industrialists and traders; and
Rangoon, a major seaport, now capital of Burma. In each of these cities, they built
synagogues and have left a distinguished mark of service to Indian
society.Before aliya to Israel, there were 20,000 Bene Israel in India; now there are
4-5,000, mostly in Bombay, with communities in Puna, Ahmedabad, and New Delhi,
and individuals scattered throughout India.Jewish life in Bombay is rooted
in its synagogues: Shaar ha-Rahamim (1796); Shaare Rason (1840); Tifereth
Israel (1886); Etz Haeem Prayer Hall (1888); Maghen Hassidim (1904); Kurla Bene
Israel Prayer Hall (1946); and India’s only Reform congregation, Rodef Shalom
(1925). Nearby is Shaar Hashamaim in Thane (1879). Around the Konkan region
are Maghen Aboth in Alibag (1842); Beth El in Panvel (1849); and Beth
Ha-Elohim in Pen (1863).There is a proliferation of Jewish organizations in Bombay –
on paper at least. Most really do not function. For example, the Jewish Club
does little more than sponsor card games for its largely non-Jewish
membership. However, ORT maintains schools for 125 boys in Mazagaon and 80 girls in
Worli, and its energetic young director, Ralph Jhirad, makes it a community
focal point. The unofficial spokespersons for the community include Professor
Nissim Ezekiel, the celebrated poet; Moses Sultoon, trustee of the Sassoon
Trusts; Sophy Kelly, headmistress of the Hill Grange School; I.S. Abraham,
senior Times of India writer; and attorney Shellim Samuel. The Consulate of Israel
is also present.Puna is the most active of the satellite Bene Israel
communities. We do not know the origin of the settlement; Bene Israel were soldiers
for the Puna-based armies of Shivaji, the great Maratha leader of the
seventeenth century. The first known Bene Israel of Puna was Subedar Abraham David
Charikar, who was appointed Superintendent of Police in 1863. A prayer hall
was established fifteen years later, and the Succath Shelomo Synagogue was
built in 1921. With about 150 members, the synagogue is active, especially on
Friday nights, and a warm Jewish spirit fills the modest building. The community
has an active Jewish Welfare Association (founded 1971), a small Jewish
library, a Puna Jewish Youth Group and a modest newsletter, Mikhtav Shelanu.
Hebrew and Jewish education is offered at the synagogue’s Sunday school, the
teacher being Professor S.B. David of the biology department of Puna University.
There is an old Jewish neighborhood near the synagogue, Rasta Peth and Nana
Peth, but community members who can afford it prefer more spacious homes
scattered throughout the expansive city. Despite the demise of the traditional
Jewish neighborhood, the Puna community remains cohesive and active.Ahmedabad,
in Gujerat state, is India’s second textile city, located to the north of
Bombay. It, too, attracted Bene Israel civil servants, military personnel,
railway workers and traders as early as 1848 when Dr. Abraham Benjamin Erulkar, who
had been assigned to the government hospital, settled there with his family,
converting his home into a prayer hall in 1850. The community built the art
deco-style Maghen Abraham Synagogue in 1934. Located opposite a Zoroastrian
temple in a poor, Muslim section of town, the synagogue is architecturally
striking but neglected. Prayer services are held twice on Shabbat and on
festivals. Once numbering more than 2,000, the 300 Jews who remain in Ahmedabad are
spread around the city. many are involved in education, especially much
sought-after English medium education. According to R.M. Best, headmaster of the
Best Schools, the preeminence of Jewish-run schools in Ahmedabad emerged since
Indian independence and was part of the general trend towards indigenization
of Indian institutions. Prior to independence, English-medium education was
firmly in Christian missionary hands. Whether run by foreigners or Indians,
Christian missions have always been suspect in India as tools of foreign
domination. However, many Indians were — and are — caught in the conflict
between seeking the best education for their children and avoiding alien religious
indoctrination. Jews began to move into the education field soon after
independence, and Hindu, Jaina and Muslim students flocked to them. Gradually,
standards at the seven Jewish-run schools of Ahmedabad matched those at the
mission schools and today the missionaries have been displaced by Jews.Early in
the twentieth century, Bene Israel moved to the new British capital at New
Delhi. While there had been Persian-speaking Jews in Delhi during Mughal times,
and the tomb of one of them — Sarmad, near the Juma Masjud, is a significant
Muslim pilgrimage site — there is no evidence that they overlapped the
arrival of the Bene Israel. In 1956 the community built the modest Judah Hyam
Prayer Hall; before that time prayers were said in a rented house in the Bara
Tooti section of town. The New Delhi community has always been small, and even
today a minyan is regularly obtained only with the participation of Jewish
diplomats and tourists. There is an active Jewish Welfare Board and a Centre for
Jewish and Inter-Faith Studies, which has published some pamphlets on Indian
Judaism and holds classes in Hebrew and Jewish studies. It is also a venue
for various community organizations, Jewish and non-Jewish. There are about
eight Bene Israel families in New Delhi today; nevertheless, the Jewish
community there is active and visible and here are services in the synagogue every
Friday evening and on holy days and festivals.Ezra Kolet, President of the
Indian Council of Jewry, is the leader of the New Delhi community, the
community’s hazan and frequent liaison between India’s Jews and the government of
India. For years he has attempted to move the Indian bureaucracy to grant visas
to Israeli citizens of Indian origin with a minimum of delay, a thankless task
which has met with moderate success at best. A retired senior civil servant
and accomplished violinist, Kolet founded the Delhi Symphony Orchestra in
1964.

Mughal Courtiers

Persian speaking Jews from Afghanistan and Iran came with the Ghaznavad,
Ghori and Mughal invasions of Mahmud (11th century), Muhammad (12th century) and
Babur (16th century). The most obscure of Indian Jews, they were traders and
courtiers of the Mughals. Jewish advisors at the Court of Akbar the Great in
Agra played a significant role in Akbar’s liberal religious policies and
built a synagogue there. In Delhi, one Jew was tutor to the Crown Prince, Dara
Shukah; the teacher and student were later assassinated by Aurangzeb when he
usurped the throne. Jews traded freely in Kashmir, the Punjab, and throughout
the Mughal Empire.

Portuguese Marranos

It is likely that no one will ever know the extent to which Marranos,
principally from Portugal, settled in India in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, but it is clear that some did, accompanying the Portuguese colonizing
and trading fleets. The earliest Jewish, or at least Marrano, settlements in
Bombay date from Portuguese times in the mid-sixteenth century. Unfortunately,
by the very nature of their situation, they left us traces and are known to
us only through scattered references.

Baghdadi Jews

Arabic-speaking Jews came to India as traders in the wake of the Portuguese,
Dutch and British. These “Baghdadis,” as they came to be known, especially
the Sassoons of Bombay and the Ezras of Calcutta, eventually established
manufacturing and commercial houses of fabulous wealth.They first settled in
Surat, in the Sindh, during the seventeenth century, where there were 95 Jewish
families and a synagogue soon thereafter. However, as Bombay rose to replace
Surat as west India’s leading port and commercial center, Jewish attention was
directed there. The Syrian Suleiman ibn Ya’qub was the first prominent
Arabic-speaking Jewish businessman of the city, his activities spanning the period
from 1795 to 1833. However, it was the arrival of the Baghdadi merchant,
industrialist and financier David Sassoon (1792-1864) in 1833 that heralded the
remarkable sojourn of the Baghdadi Jewish community of Bombay. The Sassoon
family, “the Rothschilds of the East,” played a major role in the
industrialization of Bombay, and Jews provided the city with three of its mayors,
professors in its university and producers and stars for its film industry. During its
heyday, Bombay had several Jewish newspapers (in Judeo-Arabic, Hebrew,
Marathi and English), a Jewish publishing industry, Zionist and community
organizations. The Sassoons built two beautiful synagogues to serve the Baghdadi
community: Maghen David (1863) in Byculla and Kenesseth Eliyahu (1883) in Fort,
both of which usually manage to obtain a Shabbat minyan today. By 1950 there
were nearly 20,000 Jews in Bombay, but immigration to Israel, America,
Britain, Australia and Canada have drastically reduced those numbers. Of the
Baghdadi community, around 200 remain. As did many upper-class Bombayites, David
Sassoon established a summer home in Puna, a hill town 120 miles east which
served as capital of the Bombay Presidency during the monsoon. The best-known
landmark in Puna is the 90-foot tower of the red brick Ohel David Synagogue
(1863), known locally as Lal Deval, “red temple.” Sassoon’s impressive mausoleum
is found in the synagogue’s courtyard. Only a handful of Baghdadis remain in
Puna, mostly middle-class merchants living in the Cantonment area. The
magnificent synagogue more often than not fails to attain a minyan, even on
Shabbat, and no member of the community is qualified to read the Torah.The Calcutta
community was founded by Shalom Obaidah ha-Kohen (1762-1836), who arrived
there from Surat in 1798. His commercial interests took him from the Punjab to
Dacca across the great Gangetic plain of northern India, and small Jewish
trading outposts — often including a prayer hall and a cemetery — sprang up in
his footsteps from Lucknow to Darjeeling. The fortunes of the Baghdadi
families began with the opium trade to China and gradually reached all phases of
industry and commerce. The leadership of Calcutta Jewry was held by the Cohen
and Ezra families, the latter ranking among the city’s most prominent
industrial and commercial houses.The city has three synagogues located within a few
paces of each other in China Bazar: Neveh Shalom (1831), Beth El (1856) and
the magnificent Maghen David (1884). The three obtain a minyan on a rotating
basis, using paid congregants. Two small synagogues, since closed, were founded
in 1897 and 1924 in the fashionable Park Street area as Jews moved there
from China Bazar. Calcutta has had Jewish schools, a religious court, a matza
board, charitable and burial associations, a Jewish hospital, several
newspapers, a publisher since 1840 and Zionist groups. Calcutta has had three Jewish
sheriffs, and Jews have provided Bengal’s first female attorney, several
scholars — both secular and religious — and journalists, writers, musicians and
sportsmen. The most famous Calcutta Jew of recent times is Lt.-Gen. Jack
Frederick Ralph Jacob who commanded Indian forces on the eastern front during the
1971 war which led to the establishment of Bangladesh. Before the Second
World War there were 3,800 Jews in Calcutta, a number which grew to more than
5,000 with the influx of Jewish refugees from Rangoon; now there are around
120. Jewish visitors are welcomed by the Nahoum family — one need only drop by
at Nahoum’s Bakery in New Market.

Jews in Burma

Bene Israel and even some Cochinim followed the trail of prosperity to
Calcutta and even beyond, to Rangoon, where another major Jewish community grew
up. The first Jew known to settle in Burma was one Solomon Gabirol, probably a
Bene Israel, who served as a commissar in King Alaungpaya’s army. The
community itself dates from the early nineteenth century when Baghdadis from
Calcutta pursued their opium-based fortunes eastward, stopping in Rangoon en route
to Singapore, Jakarta, Bangkok, Saigon, Manila, Tokyo, Hongkong and
Shanghai.It was not until the 1870s, however, that a sufficient number of Jews was
concentrated in Rangoon to form a proper community, and they built the beautiful
Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue in 1896. The community once had 126 Sifrei Torah, a
Talmud Torah, a Zionist group and numerous charitable and communal
organizations. A second synagogue, Beth El, was opened in 1932, and some 700 graves are
found in the well-kept cemetery on 91st Street. Satellite communities
developed in Mandalay (where there remain a few Jews and a cemetery), Maymo,
Moulmein, Bassein, Akyab and Toungyi. Bassein even had a Jewish mayor, a Mr.
Raphael, as did Rangoon, one David Sophaer during the 1930s. The community was
virtually destroyed when the Japanese, suspicious of Jews as potential British
sympathizers, conquered Burma, driving most of Burma’s 1,200 Jews to Calcutta.
About 500 returned after the war, and Burmese Judaism enjoyed a brief
flowering after independence and the establishment of cordial Israeli-Burmese
relations, which were based on the warm friendship between Prime Ministers David
Ben-Gurion and U Nu. When Ne Win launched a successful coup in 1962, the
position of minorities in Burma generally deteriorated, as did the nation’s
economy, and most Jews left. Today there are but a handful of Jews and half-Jews in
Rangoon. The synagogue is beautifully maintained through the efforts of Jack
Samuels, the community’s leader, even though the last regular Shabbat service
was held as far back as 1965. While open for all festivals, a minyan is
obtained only with assistance from Israeli, American and Canadian diplomats and
tourists during the High Holy days. Sadly, the Burmese interlude for Jews has
already passed into history.

India’s Ashkenazim

The Ashkenazim were the smallest and shortest-lived group of Jews in India.
Never forming separate communities, Ashkenazi contributions to India were
made by individuals such as Walter Mordechai Haffkine (1860-1930), the developer
of the anti-cholera vaccine. A medical research institute bearing his name
flourishes in Bombay today. As temporary home to about 2,000 refugees from
Nazi Germany, India benefitted from an influx of Jewish physicians who attached
themselves to the various communities of their co-religionists in India’s
major cities.

Tribal Jews

The most mysterious of India’s Jews are also the most controversial. Several
Chin-kuki tribal groups in the northeastern Indian states of Manipur,
Mizoram, Assam and Nagaland, the western Burmese Chin state and Bangladesh’s
Chittagong hill tracts claim to be descendents of the tribe of Menashe. According
to them, they came from China and lost their religion during centuries of
wanderings through remote Asia. A curious religious revival has emerged among
them involving dreams and revelations about their history and a return to their
“true identity.” Living in remote and conflict-ridden tribal areas, they are
as inaccessible as they are tantalizing. There are an estimated 4,300 Jewish
tribals in India, with more in Burma and Bangladesh. No one knows quite what
to make of these tribals, animists until the last generation, nor what to do
about their claims to Jewish identity and their aspiration to immigrate to
Israel. Several groups, especially Jerusalem-based Amishav, have made efforts
to reintroduce them to Jewish observance, and some have undergone Orthodox
conversion. The Israeli ambassador to Burma, Itiel Pann, is sympathetic to their
cause, but the Israel government recently denied visitor visas to a
delegation of Indian tribals.

Issues Facing Indian Jewry Today

The most significant issue confronting India’s Jews is the poor relationship
between India and Israel. India extended diplomatic recognition to Israel in
the early 1950s and allowed Israel to establish a consulate in Bombay. But
relations never developed to the expected exchange of ambassadors. Indeed, a
pro-Arab policy has become so embedded in the Indian government that not even
the sympathetic Janatha government led by Morarji Desai in the late 1970s was
able to reverse this trend.Indian Jews feel ambivalent; they want foreign
Jews to appreciate that India’s policies are not antisemitic, but reflect such
factors as the importance of the Arab world for India’s foreign trade, the
political views of its 80,000,000 Muslim citizens, and its aspirations to Third
World leadership. On the other hand, the Indian bureaucracy can be
remarkably petty in its day-to-day operations, often to the detriment of Jewish
concerns. For example, Israelis of Indian origin have a difficult time obtaining
visas to visit their homeland.Indian Jews are well aware that their
government’s anti-Israel policies do not reflect popular sentiment, especially among the
Hindu majority. For example, when the Israeli tennis team were refused visas
to participate in the Davis Cup competitions in New Delhi in 1987, a
groundswell of pro-Israel opinion emerged in the press, leading India to relent and
allow the match to be held, although this year India has announced that it
will not send its team for a scheduled Davis Cup round in Tel Aviv. Indian Jews
are closely following the rise of Hindu fundamentalism in such organizations
as the Shiv Sena of Maharashtra, the Janatha Party and the Vishwa Hindu
Parishad. Many see in these movements allies; they reason that while a secular
Indian government has been hostile to Zionism, perhaps a more Hindu one would
not be — and these organizations propose precisely to “Hinduize” India. The
affinities between Hindus and Jews go beyond their shared perception of a
Muslim adversary, and while secularism has been in the interest of Jews in most
nations of exile, it may be that the Indian case is a notable exception.An
issue which concerns foreign Jews visiting India is the rescue of prayer books,
ritual objects and Torah scrolls which are being ravaged by a tropical
climate and neglect. Books which are salvageable should be brought to Israel where
they could be put to use; others should be buried. Many Indian ritual
objects, carved arks especially, are unique in the Jewish world. Deserted synagogues
contain unenumerated treasures which shall soon be lost forever unless their
rescue is prompt.Another issue concerns the Jewish status of the tribals.
Until recently, they were welcomed as quasi-Jews for training by ORT, but for
whatever reasons a new policy has been adopted, one which treats them like any
other Gentiles. While the question of their Jewish ancestry, in all
likelihood, will never be resolved, it remains to be determined how to interpret
their claims and whether to make a serious effort to afford them with the
conversion they desire, along with prayer books, prayer shawls, Sifrei Torah and,
ultimately, immigration to Israel. The Indian press, incidentally, treats
Israel’s refusing them visas as an instance of Israeli racism and
anti-Indianism.The Bene Israel community of Bombay is faced with the question of
assimilation. There are no specific data, but estimates of intermarriage run to about 50
percent. Often the Gentile spouse is converted by a committee of Bene Israel
elders, but the status of these conversions is questionable. Related to this
issue is the generally poor state of Jewish education among the Bene Israel.
They had been more or less dependent upon Cochinim — and to a lesser degree,
Baghdadis — as teachers, shohatim and hazanim. Now they perform many of
these functions themselves, but knowledge and facilities are sparse. The twin
questions of assimilation and education, aspects of the generally increasing
secularization of Indian society, threaten the continued existence of the
community.Our generation will likely witness the extinction of Indian Jewry. This
makes study and collecting imperative. There is much to be learned from an
ancient Jewish community which never experienced persecution. For one thing,
the commonly-held view of Zionism as simple a response to persecution is called
into question by the case of India, where Zionism was embraced despite the
affection and hospitality of the host nation. For another, the independent
Jewish principality at Cranganore lies buried beneath a thin layer of earth,
awaiting archaeological examination. There remain manuscripts in Jewish homes
throughout India containing a wealth of poetry, hymns, and Kabbalistic tracts
which have never been analyzed or studies, just as there are Jewish artifacts
desperately in need of rescue and transfer to museums in Israel and America.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 11th, 2003 and is filed under history.