The Last Jews of Kerala Read online

  As I waited outside his house, chatting to the Kashmiri family who ran the emporium opposite the Hallegua home, word had reached the warden that a stranger was in town who was asking questions about the history of the Jews of Cochin.

  A servant emerged from the Hallegua house and crossed the lane to speak to me: “The Master wishes to know what you want.” As I explained, he listened avidly, head wobbling from side to side in careful appreciation and then scuttled through the brown shuttered doors to report back. At the upstairs windows of the Hallegua house, the curtains fluttered and one could discern the shadow of someone looking out onto the street. I sat on a stool and waited, my only source of amusement being the ambling promenade of tourists who ran the gauntlet of the Kashmiri merchants.

  A while later he emerged, a gaunt figure in white kurta pyjama, accompanied by his wife, Queenie, who followed behind. Queenie lived up to her aristocratic reputation, blessed with an imperial bearing and melodramatic glamour that seemed out of place amidst the provincial goings-on of Cochin. Like a Picasso masterpiece-made-flesh, she made her way toward the car, her mouth a gash of lipstick red across a white, meticulously powdered face, her hair carefully coiffed into a halo of curls around a domed forehead. The two were on their way to a shopping expedition and their driver was polishing down the white Ambassador car in anticipation of their departure. He then stood to attention by the backseat door, holding it open for them. With a look of regal curiosity, as if examining a new species of insect under a microscope, Queenie gave me the once over before sweeping into the back of the car, uttering not a word.

  An audience of local Keralites and Kashmiris had gathered by now to witness the encounter with Sammy, who came over to speak with me. His face was a mask of small, hard features, with any emotion disguised beneath a veneer of hauteur. His light eyes were clouded over with milky cataracts, his mouth a tight little line, complexion blanched under the pitiless light of the noon sun and the only discernible color in his face was the bulbous blue veins prominent at his temples. I extended my hand and took his in mine: his palm felt dry and papery, with neither warmth nor welcome in its touch.

  “You’re seeking information on the Jews of Cochin,” he said, aware of the people gathered around us, keen to play to the gallery. “What do you wish to know?”

  “I’m looking for some guidance on the history.”

  “I’ve no time for guidance. Every day we’re besieged by people like you: journalists, writers, tourists. They come knowing nothing, nothing of our history, thinking I’ve the time to do nothing but talk.”

  “I know you’re a busy man. So, I’ve come prepared . . .” I began, feeling less like the predator and more like a child protesting to the headmaster.

  “Then write your list of questions, leave them at my house and I’ll make an appointment for you Wednesday or Thursday, before the festivals begin again.”

  There were no pleasantries, no chit-chat. With that he was off, stooping to join his wife in the backseat before being driven into town, the wheels of the Ambassador leaving the rest of us engulfed in a puff of dust as the car peeled off. It was a cold little introduction, but it was a start.

  The gathered audience of Kashmiri storekeepers, servants and hangers-on broke into animated conversation, congratulating me on crossing the first hurdle. “Now all you have to do is get him to keep his promise,” added one. “Maybe he will, or maybe he won’t.” A few doors down I could see Gamy Salem standing at his doorway, hand jauntily propped up against the shutters as he looked on with a wry little smile. Something about that smile set off an alarm bell in my head.

  That same day I dropped off my list of questions with my local residence details attached. The servant opened the door of the Hallegua residence and accepted the piece of paper with lowered eyes and open palms, as if receiving an ambassadorial missive. “Thanking you, Madam. The Master shall see it.”

  Days passed. Tuesday came. Wednesday came, then Thursday. Tomorrow would be Friday, the beginning of a period of festivals which would go on for a couple of weeks. The Sabbath deadline was looming, so with rising anxiety, I paid another visit to the warden’s house. I was in luck. Sammy was conversing with one of the neighbors outside his home. He finished up his conversation and approached with a spark of malevolent delight in his eyes.

  “Your questions are no good,” he announced in a booming voice that ensured everyone heard. “I don’t have time to answer your questions.” Was this a genuine “no” or the usual Indian prelude to negotiations? I cast my mind back to my list. But the warden was unmoved and raised the temperature of our exchange.

  “The answers are obvious. You’ve chosen to ask questions about the history of the Black and White Jews. We don’t wish to discuss the past. That history is finished.”

  “Perhaps it’d be helpful to hear your side of the story.”

  “We are the first. What else to say? I don’t care what the history books claim. I’ve no time for questions. I’ve no time for interviews.”

  “What about next week. Anytime,” I responded. “I’ve come especially from London to meet you.”

  “Then you’ve wasted your journey, Madam.”

  A look of triumph flitted across his face as he shoved the piece of paper back into my hands, turned and went into his house. Through all this exchange, Gamy was standing on his threshold overlooking the scene, his face a picture of wry amusement still, as if to say “I could have told you this was coming.”

  The exchange had been the nearest thing to drama that Jew Town had seen in weeks. It was amusing viewing: the foreigner spending her days stalking the cantankerous Paradesi warden, day in, day out. Who would break first? After watching in silence, the traders and hangers-on broke into renewed chatter, a cacophony of Malayalam, Kashmiri and Hindi as they gathered around in a conspiratorial huddle, hands gesticulating as if swatting flies above their heads as they expressed particular outrage that I should be addressed so brusquely while several months pregnant.

  “Sit down, come into the shade, take water. To speak to a pregnant woman like this! They say he’s arrogant and now you see it yourself,” said one of the shopkeepers, offering me a stool next to a basket of bronze Ganeshes, the Hindu god for removal of obstacles. The Kashmiri, ever the wily salesman, quietly suggested the purchase of a Ganesh might prove fortuitous.

  “Now you’re seeing the nature of this man. This isn’t the first time, I’m telling you,” added another. “Arre, Gamy. Tell her.”

  Gamy wobbled his head, a typically ambivalent Indian gesture for tricky situations that could be taken any number of ways: yes, no, possibly, or no comment. I showed Gamy my list of questions. He sucked his long yellowed teeth and then with great deliberation untied and retied his lunghi extra tight beneath his small round stomach, as if preparing to deliver a devastating verdict.

  “See. This question here,” he pointed halfway down the page. “You mention innocently, ‘What is the historical relationship between the Black and White Jews’. Then you mention in passing the great ancestor of the Cochini Jews, Joseph Rabban,” said Gamy, head now bobbling excitedly as he tapped away at the list.

  “See. The problem is not that you know too little of our history. The problem is you know too much. Our Sammy doesn’t want people to know the truth. That the White Jews persecuted the Blacks. That there was apartheid. That the great forefather Joseph Rabban was a Black Jew, not a White. If you had come knowing nothing, you’d have your interview by now. You’d be welcomed with open arms. Then Sammy could tell it the way he wanted. He knows you know the real story. That Madam, is your problem.”

  According to Gamy, Sammy was not just the warden but the keeper of its legacy, charged with preserving what remained: a wonderful story of endurance. As I sat sweating amid the raffia baskets, the pregnancy hormones were raging. I decided I would bide my time, calm myself and then return to the synagogue the next day to try again. Surely even the notorious Sammy Hallegua could not say no to a pregnant woman in
side the synagogue just hours before the Sabbath?

  The next day at the synagogue, I readied myself to meet Sammy on his own territory. It was approaching eleven o’clock and already the humidity had left man and beast listless. The neighborhood crows hunched in the trees in a sun-drunken stupor like intoxicated sleepy old men about to keel from their branches. The street was quiet. Most of the residents were holed up inside, legs aloft on their planters’ chairs as they sipped nimbu panni and iced lassi beneath softly whirring ceiling fans. Cotton bed sheets hung from the open doorways to block out the fierce light, periodically catching a breath of breeze and fluttering up towards the sky like white-gloved hands waving their goodbyes. The Kashmiris, used to the pine-cool climes of the Himalayas, were the only ones who stood by their trading posts, wilting by the roadside as they lifted rosewater-soaked handkerchiefs to cool their brows. In the local police station next door to the synagogue, the sole sign of life was the khaki-clad duty officer spread-eagled in a chair near the door, danda skew-whiff as he snored in happy oblivion with a litter of pups fast asleep at his feet.

  As I entered the synagogue antechamber, Yaheh avoided eye contact as I paid my two rupees to get in. Clearly, the word on the street was that Sammy had no intention of helping, and I feared the community would now close ranks on me before I had even started. Unbowed, I slipped off my shoes and went into the main chamber.

  The synagogue was empty save for Joy doing some light dusting, and Sammy, holding court with a couple of foreign tourists clad in short pants, t-shirts and wraparound sunglasses. He was a different man from the one I’d met earlier: his eyes were animated and his countenance bright. He was regaling his audience with the story of how the White Jews were the original settlers in Cochin. I joined the group and listened in.

  “Are there any books for sale?” asked one man with an American accent, reaching for the wallet in his back pocket.

  “There’re no books, I’m afraid. But you can buy postcards just outside,” Sammy replied amiably.

  As the Americans prepared to leave, again I broached the subject of speaking with Sammy. But the impending Sabbath had not induced a new mood of benevolence, after all. Sammy exploded in fury. His face turned puce and his arms flailed to the rafters like the tentacles of a disturbed squid.

  “We have no need for any book on our history,” he screamed. “We had two professors live with us for one year. We helped them, we told them the truth and what did they write? Errors and lies.”

  “What lies?”

  “I have no time for you people. You can go to hell,” he said, and began to walk away.

  “I don’t give a damn,” he yelled. “This is my synagogue. Mine. And I will do what I wish with it. I can close the doors to all visitors. I can ban everyone if this is my wish and they can go to hell if they don’t like it.”

  He stormed out of the building in great sweeping strides, leaving us to digest the outburst in a silence only broken by the mocking chirruping of the parakeet outside. Within the hour, word had spread through the street about how Sammy had raged at a pregnant woman inside the synagogue. The neighboring bookseller, Godfrey, had told the neighboring Kashmiri shopkeeper, who told the antiques emporium manager who told the next store and the next, until the story was passed on to the other Jews living on the street. Only the sleeping policeman missed out on the drama. My worry now was that the White Jews would freeze me out, following the example of their leader. Instead, as news of the synagogue standoff spread, strangely, it brought out the best in the Paradesis. Even Isaac Ashkenazy, the resident Hitchcock look-alike, paused to give a fleeting glance of sorrowful condolence before vanishing once more like a zephyr into the shadows. As I walked past the Kashmiri shops, the stallholders paused to commiserate. “Don’t mind,” said one. “He’s like this. Sometimes he just goes crazy.”

  As I passed Gamy Salem’s house, the old cynic stood watching by his doorway. The wry smile of amusement had vanished, replaced by a look of mild concern. He called me over and ushered me into his parlor with the offer of a glass of Mirinda fizzy orange. It was the best offer I’d had since my arrival. After days of being stonewalled, finally there was a breach in the Paradesi defenses. Ironically, the breach had been made by the warden himself.

  “Sit. Drink,” instructed Gamy as his diminutive servant Mary laid out refreshments on paper napkins by way of reparation. “What you need to know? I’ve got five minutes.”

  * * * *

  What was this history, one that Sammy was so keen to bury? The White Jews, save for Gamy who was really a Black who married one of the “others”, fell silent when asked about the past. Yet the problem between the Black and the White Jews was central to understanding why the Cochin Jews had come to such a premature end.

  Gamy and Reema were the exception, not the rule, and their mixed marriage was accepted only now, when the end was in sight. But for centuries marriage between the Blacks and the Whites had been taboo. The two communities were distinct and the Blacks were effectively barred from the Whites’ synagogue. That more than anything rankled still.

  At the heart of the division was the argument over who came first, who were the real Jews of Cochin? While Sammy offered a sanitized account of the past, for the Black Jews of Ernakulam the shadows of past grievances merely lengthened with the passage of time.

  Sammy may not have wanted to disclose his version of that history, but it was laid out for all to see in a series of simple mural paintings in the antechamber of the Paradesi Synagogue. A series of pictures with brief captions beneath told the Paradesis’ official story: that they were the ones that hailed back to the days of Solomon, that they were the first to land in Kerala, that their ancestor was the reputed elder and founding father Joseph Rabban. There was no mention of another community of Black Jews across the water in Ernakulam. Each year streams of visitors from around the world came to see the Paradesi Synagogue and its murals. As far as those visitors were concerned, this was the whole truth.

  Central to the identity and mythology of the Kerala Jews—whether Black or White—is a place called Cranganore, also known as Shingly. Just as Jerusalem lies at the core of Jewish identity, so Cranganore is at the core of the Cochini Jewish identity.

  The ruler was the so-called King of Shingly, Joseph Rabban, an elder who was welcomed like a raja by the people of Kerala when he first arrived. He has an almost mythological place in the heart of the community and its history, not unlike that of King David in Jerusalem.

  The two cities are twinned in the historical narrative of Cochini Jews. Jerusalem was sacked, leading to the dispersal of the Jews in 70 CE. So, a natural disaster and war drove out the Kerala Jews from that first kingdom, leading them to resettle in Cochin. The pain of exile from Jerusalem is matched by a second from Cranganore, that first settlement. To this day, the Cochini Jews will not visit Cranganore unless absolutely necessary and if they have no choice then they are careful to ensure they leave before sunset, fearing disaster will befall them if they remain when darkness sets in. Cranganore remains a name synonymous with tragedy, a place where the twin specters of death and banishment still linger. Yet in recognition of its symbolic importance to the Jews, every one of the community is still buried with a handful of earth from their old settlement, in memory of those first settlers.

  This symbolism meant that just as the Cochini Jews were keen to prove they hailed from Israel, so they were also keen to prove they came from the line of the first Jews to settle at Cranganore. Such lineage conferred status, a purity of heritage. Purity of heritage was also hugely important in Hinduism, and those who were seen as the oldest and purest among the Jews were accorded greatest respect by the Brahmin classes of Kerala. More importantly, in Hindu India, status translated into economic and political power. For these reasons, the need to prove a link with Jerusalem and Cranganore was vital.

  In the account A Jewish King at Shingly, authors Nathan Katz and Ellen Goldberg wrote about the “symbolic intertwining of Jerusalem a
nd Cranganore.” They also noted “there was a sibling-like rivalry between the Paradesi and Malabari Jews over who were the rightful heirs of the line of Joseph Rabban” and his ancient kingdom. The Malabari Jews were another name for the Black community of Ernakulam and its nearby villages.

  But who was Joseph Rabban? Centuries after he landed on Kerala’s shores, he remains the man who in many ways personifies Cochini Jewish identity, and his legacy is the subject of this tug of war. Inside the Paradesi Synagogue antechamber, Rabban features center stage in the paintings that depict the “history” of the Jews of Cochin. This is the version that the White Jews choose to give to the outside world, a blend of fact as well as myth.

  The early paintings show Shingly, as it is known in Malayalam or by its Anglo-Indian name of Cranganore. The first connection is established by a mural that depicts a teeming bazaar. The caption reads: “There was trade between King Solomon’s Palestine and the Malabar Coast.” That much is fact.

  The next painting shows the destruction of the Second Temple after which the Jews of the holy city scattered to all the compass points. The third painting shows a ship settling on a lush coastline. “Landing of the Jews at Shingly,” reads the legend beneath. Thus, the first proper Jewish settlement was established in India.

  The series then leaps several centuries forward to a seminal moment—the arrival of the legendary patriarch. An Indian king greets a shipload of Jewish migrants on their arrival in Kerala, bedecked in as lavish a finery as a maharajah could muster, with full entourage bearing colored parasols and beating drums. “The Raja of Cranganore receives the Jews,” declares the solemn caption.