Traditionally, Mala had a Jewish population from the late 10th century onwards, but the first documented evidence to support a Jewish presence in the town is only from 1786 in the Hebrew letter of Ezekiel Rahabi, who estimates 50 families and one synagogue in the area. At the time of aliyah to Israel in 1950s, Mala's Jewish population was at the peak and the highest estimate puts their numbers to 300 distributed in about 50 families. Let us suppose that Mala had a Jewish presence from 18th century only, and even if we take into account of their minuscule number during late 18th to mid 19th century, there should still be around a thousand Jews who lived, died and were buried on the grounds of Mala cemetery. The irony being that, despite having the largest Jewish cemetery in India, the 4-acre Mala graveyard has only three tombs today! Where have all the graves gone? How many tombs were there at the time of transfer of the cemetery in 1955? I have come across various estimates, mostly online Malayalam articles and sites that have put forward their numbers from 20, 30, 34, 35, 40, 50 and 60. I don't know how these specific numbers are arrived, my own personal interactions with people in Mala who were old enough to remember the time of Jews, fail to recollect more than three tombs!
Photo 1) Mala Jewish Cemetery in 1968. Photo Courtesy: Rabbi Bernard W. Kimmel, published in the 1968 volume of 'B'nai B'rith Messenger'. The tomb positions are marked 1 and 2.
Let me share this rare photograph (Photo 1) of Mala Jewish cemetery taken in 1967-68 period, only a decade after Jews left Mala. To my knowledge, this is the earliest image of Mala Jewish cemetery available. The photograph appeared in an article by Rabbi Bernard W. Kimmel in B'nai B'rith Messenger (1968) and in all probability it was taken on his second trip to India in 1967. The tombs are designated 1 and 2 based on their position and labeling as dsescribed in my previous post here. This unique photograph generates a lot of curiosity and many unanswered queries. For instance, there are only two tombs in the image and if this is indeed the case, when did the third tomb appear in Mala cemetery which is however dated 1938? Another interesting observation is about the people who stand in front of the tombs. Are they from the local non-Jewish community since there were no Jews in Mala in 1967, but more importantly why would they pose before Jewish tombs? On the other hand, if they are indeed members from the Jewish community, was the photograph taken before 1955 and procured for the article independently. Is it me only that I see the men in the photographs with kippa? Where have all the other tombs gone which is estimated to range from 20 to 60? Have they been destroyed in the short span of 12 years? Also, the cemetery looks essentially empty and deserted without any vegetation, but the compound walls are complete without any damage and they denote the southern and eastern borders where currently the sports complex is located. See also that there is no partition wall separating the cemetery into two halves.
The title of the photograph reads: "MALA CEMETERY-about 30 miles from Cochin. The entire Jewish community has left for Israel. They left their synagogue property to the Town Fathers in exchange for their maintaining the cemetery. On this entire cemetery there are only two markers. The community was too poor to afford monuments". The 1968 article is very specific about only two tombs left in Mala and it is a mystery why the third tomb of 1938 is missing. Could it be that the cement plastering was done for the 3rd tomb later? It is therefore highly possible that a significant proportion of the tombs in Mala cemetery were graves without inscriptions, and if there were regular Hebrew epitaphs for every tomb, at least a few of them must have been visible at the time of Kimmel's visit. At the most, a single or two rows of laterite-stone boundaries marked the graves and probably they lacked tombstones with inscriptions or possessed blank stone grave markers instead. Even today you can see such simple tombs in Chendamangalam (Photo 2) and Ernakulam old Jewish cemeteries (Photo 3).
Photo 2) A tomb in the Chendamangalam Jewish Cemetery.The yellow dotted rectangle marks the tomb with a row of laterite stone boundary. Photo: February, 2018.
Photo 4) Remnants of a Jewish tomb in Mala? Photo Courtesy: Center for Jewish Art (Hebrew University of Jerusalem Israel. Photo: 1995.
Photo 5) Red dotted circle demarcating the laterite stone projections in the Mala Jewish Cemetery. Photo: January, 2020.
Photo 6) Red dotted lines marking the laterite stone base near the 3rd tomb in the Mala Jewish Cemetery. Photo: February, 2020.
Photo 7) Mala Jewish Cemetery in 1988. 2 and 3: position of tombs based on previous post; Yellow arrow: person standing in the cemetery. Photo Courtesy: Prof. C. Karmachandran's Photo Collection.
Most Mala Jews were not wealthy enough to afford grave monuments that had plastered domes with quality marble tombstones containing Hebrew inscriptions. Similar plain graves could be traced in the cemeteries of their monotheistic contemporaries in Kerala. In the old graveyards of St. Thomas Syrian Christians, you might still be able to detect unplastered tombs raised in the shape of a dome and with a cross and epitaph at the western end (Photos 8a and 8b), such mud-built graves unless properly taken care of, easily wither under the harsh monsoon conditions of Kerala and that's why you don't see much of this kind anymore frequently. The Islamic graves are generally the simplest and sometimes so bland that the only way to know their existence is to look for an object used as a shallow vertical marker. For instance, in the Muslim cemetery of Chendamangalam near the synagogue, you can see flat roof clay tiles used as a headstones in some tombs, but majority of the graves are left unattended without any identification markers (Photo 9)!
Photo 8b
Photo 8a and 8b) Unplastered tombs of St. Thomas Syrian Christian Community. Photo 8a) Arthat St Mary's Syrian Orthodox Church; Photo 8b) Arthat St. Mary's Simhasana Church (Jacobite) Church; Photos: March 2020.
In short, vandalization could not be the main reason behind the scarcity of visible tombs in the Mala Jewish cemetery. It must be as Rabbi Kimmel concluded in 1968, Mala Jews were too poor to afford monuments or their tombs were very modest to survive the harsh weather conditions of Kerala. However, it is certain for sure that, hundreds of Jewish graves are lying beneath the ground and scattered through out the 4-acre cemetery of Mala. Who knows, in future, with proper support from the concerned authorities, we might discover more tombs or even tombstones with Hebrew inscriptions.
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