The Last Jews of Cochin

Just like the Arabs, Portuguese, and the English, we too, have ended up in Cochin. They all flocked here to buy spices, as the city is a convenient outlet for Kerala's spice producing regions, up in the western ghats. Old Cochin is filled with long streets of warehouses, or godowns as they are locally called, once all filled with the fragrant riches of the East. Pepper was, and still is, one of Kerala's main exports, as it has been since Roman times, when Phoenician and Egyptian ships came to the Malabar coast for it's "black gold". Today, the warehouses are largely in a state of disrepair, although there is still a lot of spice trading going on behind their ornately carved, usually turquoise, doors. Most "enterprises" specialize in one sort of spice: Chillies, cardamom, pepper, nutmeg, ginger as well as rice, tea and tobacco.


Kerala is also known for its old Jewish community, possibly settled here since the first century CE, with a large influx in population around the 15th century, when Sephardi Jews found a safe haven here from the prosecution of the Catholic Kings and the Inquisition. Yesterday we set out for "Jew Town", as it officially called with no negative connotations intended, and went to see the Pardesi Synagogue, which dates from the 16th century. It was unfortunately closed, which was rather disappointing, and left us at the mercy of the the Kashmiri shopkeepers who run the "antique shops" and "craft emporiums" (read: expensive, new, badly-made crap for tourists). A trip up "Jew Street" led us into the embroidery shop of Sarah Cohen, a sweet old lady that reminded Boaz of his Iraqi grandmother. When we met Sarah she was in her kitchen at the back of her shop, making what she called "Jew Balls" for Friday night dinner. Further enquiries and observation led us to the conclusion that she was actually making Kubbeh, a common and very tasty Jewish-Iraqi dish, which all of Boaz's family will probably recognize as a family favourite. While she flattened the dough in a special press, she told us a the story of Cochin's Jewish community. Most of the Jews in the city emmigrated to Israel in the 50s, and all is left of this once large and prosperous community are just twelve elderly people, five men and seven women. Sarah's own children live in Ra'anana, the very same city where Boaz grew up and Kim spends about 15 hours week teaching, and they occasionally come back to visit her, bringing a special "hard meat" that she couldn't remember the name of. A few minutes (and Kubbeh balls) later she remembered that it was Naknik that they bring her - literally dried sausage (instead of freshly ground meat) that she was using to fill her Kubbeh balls as a special treat. As the community does not have a Jewish butcher any more (her husband used to do it but he died a couple of years back) they have no choice but to be vegetarians, and are mostly dependant on people visiting from Israel for their Naknik and kosher meat supply. One of the men we met later that evening (more about that later) told us how he smuggled three chickens from Israel in a little cooler when he come to visit. Our meeting with Sarah Cohen turned out to be a fortuitious meeting on both of our parts because she told us that there was a service in the Synagogue that evening. We were pleased to have a chance to see the synagogue and she was pleased, because they often miss enough men for a minyan (the requisite 10 Jewish men required for prayer) for Friday nights.

Later that evening we came back to "Jew street" in time for the evening prayer. We were very happy to see the Synagogue open this time, although the Shabbas goy at the entrance did make sure that we really were there for the service before letting us in. Once we passed the little door that led into the courtyard we were especially pleased that we had come, as this was one of the must beautiful synagogues we have ever seen. It is well-known for its tiled floor, lain with over a thousand blue and white tiles, imported from China in the seventeenth century and depicting a love affair between a Mandarin's daughter and a commoner. They are hand-made and each tile is slightly different then the next one. The Jewish community, the synagogue and especially the tiles were immortalized in Salman Rushdie's book The Moor's Last Sigh in which an old lady,(the sweeper of the synagogue) whose son has left the community after a quarrel, is able to see his every action in the changing pictures of the Chinese tiles. We had plenty of time to admire the tiles, the beautiful Belgian glass chandeliers and the old wood-carved ark, as we had to wait for almost an hour for a full Minyan. Eventually when we had three old men from the community, an Israeli businessman and his son, Boaz and two American backpackers, we had only one man missing. Eventually, one of the old men went to fetch an other guy who didn't really want to be there, but looked like he could be guilt-tripped into it.

After the service and before the Kidush we were shown around, and got to see the synagogue's ancient Torah scrolls, and their gold and silver decorations, some of which were presented to the community by the local Maharajah in the 18th century.


Tonight we are flyin back to Mumbai for the last leg of our trip. We have fond memories of the "unlimited food" and have a few more restaurants to check off on Kim's list. We also have some touristic and cultural sights to catch up on from our last visit, when we were too busy eating (or recovering from "unlimited food" meals) or shopping.

BARFI: Yet another contest! What spice ARE these pigeons eating? We spoke to many Indian people, and have also noticed in cookbooks mentions of people WASHING spices, and drying them before use.....we always thought it was strange, but after seeing them set out to dry on a burlap sack in the middle of the road, or with the pigeons nibbling at them we might consider doing this next time!