ERNAKULAM or KOCHI or COCHIN

Where is the Paradesi synagogue located? A simple google search will give you at least seven names, Cochin, Kochi, Fort Cochin, Fort Kochi, Mattancherry, Kochangadi (Cochangadi) and Ernakulam! Sometimes, even scholarly articles written on the subject too are not accurate with the location of synagogues in Cochin. Although, these places are interconnected, not all of them are same in the current context. 

First, Kochi and Fort Kochi are the new names for Cochin and Fort Cochin, respectively. The old colonial name of Kochi, ‘Cochin’ is still used in several circles and official records that many especially from outside Kerala get confused. In Kerala, for all practical purposes, Ernakulam and Kochi generally refer to the same place. Thus, if someone is going to Ernakulam, he or she may be referring to Ernakulam district or Ernakulam city. Similarly, traveling to Kochi means one is going to Ernakulam city or the harbour region of the city, mainly Fort Kochi-Mattancherry area. If you want to book a flight ticket you will find Kochi; if it’s a rail ticket you will have to select Ernakulam. If you are taking a flight from the ‘Cochin International Airport’, it is not in Cochin but in Nedumbassery 30 km away. 

Mapping the Jewish Monuments of Mattancherry.

Inside the ‘Kochi Corporation’, there are two pairs of synagogues; one pair in Mattancherry (Kadavumbagam and Paradesi) and the other in Ernakulam (Kadavumbagam and Thekkumbagam) city, respectively. If you consider Ernakulam District as a whole, two more synagogues, Parvur (Parur) and Chendamangalam add to the list. In other words, out of the seven surviving synagogues in Kerala, six are in Ernakulam District. The only exception is the synagogue at Mala that comes under Thrissur (Trichur) District. Once there were four more synagogues in Kochi area (Thekkumbagam of Mattancherry, Kochangadi, Saudi and Fort Kochi), but none of them exist now. Had all the synagogues remained intact today, Ernakulam District would have 11 synagogues (including the one at Tir-tur) and Mattancherry  alone would be having four!

So far I have discussed about four synagogues (Kochangadi, Kadavumbagam, Thekkumbagam and Paradesi); two Jewish cemeteries (Paradesi and Malabari); the Tomb of Nehemiah Motta, a 1761 Clock Tower; a Jewish Children’s Playground and a few Jewish residences, in Mattancherry. Here are a few maps that can give you an overall view of these monuments. All the maps are taken and modified from the google map site here.

Jewish Monuments in Mattancherry-Overall view

Paradesi Jewish Monuments in Mattancherry

Malabari Jewish Monuments in Mattancherry

The extinct Jewish Colonies in Fort Kochi and Saudi.

Courtesy, google maps

The Lost Synagogue (1848) and Jewish Cemetery of Fort Kochi.

At Fort Kochi, a small Jewish community started praying in a private house in Lily Street by 1848. It was a brave attempt to start a new congregation in response to the harsh treatment they received from the Paradesi Jews. For Paradesis, they were manumitted slaves and did not deserve an independent congregation of their own! The prayer hall didn’t attain the status of a synagogue in the beginning, probably due to the lack of enough worshippers. Ruby Daniel remembers about a second wave of migration to the British ruled Fort Kochi in early 1860s after the Paradesi and Kadavumbagam Jewish communities targeted their leaders (Ruby of Cochin, p13-18). The Jewish population of Fort Kochi increased and a synagogue was built, probably in the same house by Ava (Abraham), son of the Mudaliar Solomon Hallegua and Hannah. Ava was the maternal grandfather of A B Salem.‘Our family had three shofars from that synagogue’, recalls Ruby Daniel (Rubby of Cochin, p.17, and also p. 66). The ‘Synagogue House’ as it was known was abandoned after a fatal cholera attack wiped out 75 of its members. Some of the remaining rebels went to Mumbai and Kolkatta and the rest rejoined the Jew Town of Mattancherry after paying a fine. Ruby Daniel also mentions about a Jewish Cemetery in Fort Kochi near the beach, where many of the prominent leaders of the community were buried including Ava and his son Itzahak. The cemetery was closed by early 20^th century, but was reopened under the influence of A B Salem to bury his cousin Japeth, the grandson of Ava and son of Itzahak (Ruby of Cochin, p.18).

Where exactly did the synagogue and Jewish cemetery of Fort Kochi exist? We know that the synagogue was in the Lily Street and the cemetery most possibly adjacent to it. Today, Lily Street of Fort Kochi is famous for its eating outlets and home stay units, but in earlier times it was a more historic avenue. For the Dutch it was Leliestraat and there were four Dutch households in 1792.  India’s first European Church, the 1503 built ‘St: Francis Church’, is a few feet west to the Lily Street. When Vasco de Gama died in Kochi in 1524, his body was originally buried here before it was taken to Portugal in 1539. Similarly, the 1724 consecrated Dutch Cemetery of Fort Kochi can be seen less than 200 meters from Lily Street and very close to the sea. It is quite logical to assume that the Jewish cemetery of Fort Kochi would have been near another graveyard and in this case the Dutch cemetery. See the map below: The red lines mark the 'Lily Street'.

Courtesy, google maps

The Lost Synagogue of Saude or Saudi (1514-1556).

(For an updated post on the Jewish and Christian angles of Saudi, see here). Saudi synagogue of Cochin (Kochi) was built in 1514. The synagogue functioned for four decades and ceased operational by 1556. Modern Saudi (also called as Saude, Saudhi, Southie or Southee in old records) is in the western shores of Kochi and south of Fort Kochi. What is the origin of the name Saudi in Cochin? There is a view held by some that a port existed at Saudi and was used mainly by the Arabs and later by the Portuguese for trade, and therefore the name derived from the Muslim influence of the region. However, evidences both documentary and circumstantial favour towards a Christian angle. The Portuguese built a church in this region in the 16th century for "Our Lady of Health". The name "Saudi" is a derivation of the Portuguese word  for health ("Saude"), as the church was called “Nossa Senhore da Saude” (‘Our Lady of Health’). 

In the 1723 ‘Letters from Malabar’ (Letter XVIII, p.115), Jacobus Canter Visscher, mentions about the Jews of Saudi; “A party of the white Jews came to a place called by the Portuguese Sinhora Savode, about half a league distant from the town of Cochin, where they maintained themselves for fifty years; but being unable to endure any longer the offensive vicinity of the Moors, and still more of the Christians, who keep unclean animals in their houses, they obtained from the Rajah of Cochin in a piece of ground near his palace, on which to build their houses. Here they have dwelt now for 202 years, but the place being small, their houses are poor and huddled together; they are chiefly built of stone, and covered with tiles”.

The Jewish settlement ‘called by the Portuguese Sinhora Savode’ most probably refers to Saudi. Visscher’s letter gives us two important information: 1) The first Jews of Saudi were Paradesis from Cranganore; 2) The Jewish settlement of Sinhora Savode was established by at least 1471 AD. A few queries remain unaddressed if Visscher’s version is accepted. First, why it took more than four decades to build a synagogue at Saudi in 1514, after Jews arrived there in 1471? Secondly, we know that the ‘Saudi Synagogue’ remained intact until 1556, but how did it function for an additional 35 years after the Paradesis left for Mattancherry in 1521? Had there been Malabari Jews too in Saudi?  What we know for sure is that the Saudi synagogue was rarely used for religious ceremonies.

A thumb rule for locating the Jewish monuments in Kerala is to look for Christian or Muslim religious structures from the parallel period. Today, we can still find a Catholic Church, “Our Lady of Health” and a cemetery in Saudi, Mundamveli. Traditionally, the church was established in early 16th century by the Portuguese and was later destroyed by sea. The church in the present location was established in 1804. It was rebuilt in 2006 and is currently under the Diocese of Alleppey (Alappuzha). The Jewish settlement of Senhora Savode was also known as 'Canaan-Nagar' or 'Canaan Town'(Nathan Katz and Ellen S. Goldberg, 'The Last Jews of Cochin', p. 63). Since the religious structures of the three monotheistic faiths are commonly built close to each other in Kerala, I believe ‘Saudi Synagogue’ existed somewhere near this Church in Mundamveli, and adjacent to the sea. 

 Courtesy, google maps.