The Last Jews of Kerala Page 21

  Here, Nazeeh had little optimism for relations between the two warring brothers and pointed to the partition wall that was being constructed at that time along the West Bank, severing the Palestinian community from their source of work, the outside world and their water supply. He believed this effective apartheid was a way of crushing his community’s future into the dust.

  This division was part of the unease that plagued some of the older Cochini Jews who came to Israel. Some, but not all. The issue of division within the Holy Land itself had not been a cause for concern for the Zionists among them. Whenever we discussed the subject of the Arab-Israeli conflict, men like Bezalel and Isaac viewed the battle for survival as necessary, part of a destiny that had been set out for the Israeli people. It was not for them to question.

  Yet others, among the Malabari immigrants in particular, sensed an echo of their own tragedy in the Palestinians. They too knew what it was to be usurped in their historical narrative, to face separation. In Kerala, division had led to destruction. Perhaps their fear was of the cycle repeating itself.

  This was all part of the “tension” that Abraham spoke of. His faith was one which was rooted in Judaism as a religion of justice. He remembered that the Jews and Muslims sprang from the same founding father.—the Prophet Abraham. Therefore, theirs was an unnatural enmity.

  After so much anticipation and the grievance of the history of the Black and White Jews in Kerala, Abraham, his son Sam and others like Babu found the just society they had craved, the shalom that comes from harmony was absent even in the Holy Land, just as it was once absent in Cochin. Sam and Babu’s judgment had been swift: Israel was not home.

  It had taken Abraham thirty years to make his decision to leave. In the end he was defeated by a spiritual dislocation and insecurity that was too high a price to pay. In the period that followed my visit, the suicide bombings would worsen, magnifying the nightmare.

  His imminent return took the saga of the Kerala Jews full circle. It had begun three thousand years ago in the magnificent fortress city that stretched before me. The Temple, that touchstone of faith was destroyed, and pain resonated to this day in all the Jews who came to the Western Wall. India was meant to be no more than an interim paradise, but two thousand years had made the Jews as much a part of the fabric of India as the Hindu or Muslim or Christian. After nourishing the dream of Jerusalem for millennia, Abraham’s generation finally made the joyous pilgrimage home.

  Men like Bezalel found their mission completed. It was as if they were whole again. In a remarkable reinvention, they relinquished the past, choosing to renew all that was best from India in the motherland. Their homecoming provided the deliverance of renewal at a time when the old life in Cochin was beyond redemption.

  Yet Abraham encountered alienation and sorrow. Sixty years have passed since Indian independence, since the formation of Israel, geopolitical landmarks which ushered in the compulsion for change in the lives of ordinary men and women. After three decades of war and the guerilla warfare of terrorism and counter-terrorism, Abraham remained unable to reconcile faith with conflict. It was true it was over for his people in Kerala. Yet he foresaw his own imminent demise and preferred it to be within the embrace of the past. This desire to return provided an unexpected epitaph, compelling Abraham to find rest in a land that had given the Jews so much, a peace that history has rarely bestowed. In the end it was an age-old tolerance that drew him.

  * * * *

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to the people who made this book possible. First, I am fortunate to have publishers who are both inspiring individuals as well as great editors. Thank you to my London publisher Philip Gwyn Jones, publisher of Portobello Books and Granta, and his team, including Laura Barber and Hannah Marshall. Thank you to Brando Skyhorse and his team at Skyhorse Publishing in New York, and to Ravi Singh, publisher at Penguin India in New Delhi. I’m also grateful to freelance editor Daphne Tagg for her insightful copy-editing and to my literary agent Ayesha Karim at Aitken Alexander Associates for her valued support. Thank you to Storm Design for my website: www.ednafernandes.com.

  The book was made possible by the kind co-operation of the Cochini Jews of Ernakulam, Mattancherry and Israel. Throughout, I have valued their trust, generosity of spirit in the face of adversity and stories. I am appreciative of the help I received at the British Museum, the Paradesi and Chennamangalam synagogues, as well as the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

  Last, love and thanks to my friends and family, particularly: Felix, Andrew Atkinson, Max and Elfina Fernandes, Maria Fernandes, Tania Fernandes, and Bernard and Sylvia Atkinson.

  E. F., 2008

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