A Jewish family from Cochin on the Malabar coast of India pose for a photograph taken circa 1880, now at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
Among the oldest groups of Jews in India, the Pardesi Jews of Cochin were settlers of the Mizrahi heritage. Benjamin of Tudela writes about black Jews of South India in the 12th Century. In the 15th Century, a group of European Jews arrived in Malabar after their expulsion from Iberia. A group of Arabic speaking Jews joined them in the 19th Cetury.
Zechariah Dhahiri wrote the following in his mid-16th Century travelogue:
“I arrived at the city of Calicut, which upon entering I was sorely grieved at what I had seen, for the city’s inhabitants are all uncircumcised and given over to idolatry. There isn’t to be found in her a single Jew with whom I could have, otherwise, taken respite in my journeys and wanderings. I then turned away from her and went into the city of Cochin, wherein I found what my soul desired, insofar that a community of Spaniards is to be found there who are derived of Jewish lineage, along with other congregations, although they are proselytes. They had been converted many years ago, of the natives of Cochin and Germany. They are adept in their knowledge of Jewish laws and customs, acknowledging the injunctions of the Divine Law, and making use of its means of punishment. I dwelt there three months, among the holy congregations.”
Most Cochin Jews migrated to Israel in the 1950s.
Among the oldest groups of Jews in India, the Pardesi Jews of Cochin were settlers of the Mizrahi heritage. Benjamin of Tudela writes about black Jews of South India in the 12th Century. In the 15th Century, a group of European Jews arrived in Malabar after their expulsion from Iberia. A group of Arabic speaking Jews joined them in the 19th Cetury.
Zechariah Dhahiri wrote the following in his mid-16th Century travelogue:
“I arrived at the city of Calicut, which upon entering I was sorely grieved at what I had seen, for the city’s inhabitants are all uncircumcised and given over to idolatry. There isn’t to be found in her a single Jew with whom I could have, otherwise, taken respite in my journeys and wanderings. I then turned away from her and went into the city of Cochin, wherein I found what my soul desired, insofar that a community of Spaniards is to be found there who are derived of Jewish lineage, along with other congregations, although they are proselytes. They had been converted many years ago, of the natives of Cochin and Germany. They are adept in their knowledge of Jewish laws and customs, acknowledging the injunctions of the Divine Law, and making use of its means of punishment. I dwelt there three months, among the holy congregations.”
Most Cochin Jews migrated to Israel in the 1950s.