Paradesi Synagogue

Listen to the lane outside before you step in. Bicycles tick past. A shopkeeper drags a wooden shutter. The air smells of dried ginger and old dust from the spice warehouses nearby. Then you reach a plain whitewashed wall and a clock tower, and the noise of Mattancherry seems to drop away. You are standing at the Paradesi Synagogue, in the quarter that people in Kochi still call Jew Town.

The building dates to 1568. That makes it one of the oldest working synagogues anywhere in the Commonwealth, the group of countries once tied to the British Empire. From the street it looks modest, almost shy. There is no grand facade and no dome. Like many old buildings on this coast, it keeps its best qualities inside. Take a moment here first, though, because where it stands matters as much as how it looks.

Look along the wall. The synagogue sits right beside Mattancherry Palace, the residence of the Rajas of Cochin, the Hindu kings who ruled this part of the Kerala coast. Tradition holds that the Raja granted the land for the synagogue next to his own palace and temple. A Jewish house of prayer and a Hindu royal temple share a boundary. On this coast, different faiths lived very close together, and this wall is the evidence.

The word Paradesi means foreigners in Malayalam, the language of Kerala. It refers to the congregation that built this place. Many of its founders were Jews who arrived in the sixteenth century and later, some descended from families expelled from Spain and Portugal. They were newcomers compared with the Malabar Jews, whose roots on this coast go back many centuries earlier. Some histories call the two groups White Jews and Black Jews, labels that reflect old divisions within the community.

The synagogue did not survive its first century untouched. In 1662, during the Portuguese attack on Cochin, it was badly damaged. The Portuguese were hostile to Jewish communities across their territories. Two years later, after the Dutch had taken the city, the building was repaired and restored. So the walls around you carry more than one chapter. Each power that passed through Kochi left a mark on this small building.

Now look up at the clock tower. It was added in the eighteenth century, and it is closely linked with Ezekiel Rahabi, a wealthy merchant who worked with the Dutch East India Company. The tower clock is unusual. Its faces show numerals in different scripts, including Hebrew and Malayalam. Even the clock reflects the mix of cultures that met on this street.

When you go inside, you will be asked to remove your shoes. That fits the building, because the floor is the first thing almost everyone notices. It is covered in hand-painted blue and white porcelain tiles from Canton, in China. They were brought here in the mid-eighteenth century, again connected with Ezekiel Rahabi. There are well over a thousand of them, and the floor seems to glow in the soft light.

Bend down a little and look closely. The tiles show willow trees, small figures, houses, and landscapes in cobalt blue. Locals like to say that no two tiles are exactly alike. Whether that is strictly true is hard to prove, but spend a minute comparing the ones near your feet. You will find small differences in brushwork everywhere. These were painted by hand, one at a time, thousands of kilometres away.

Then raise your eyes. Glass chandeliers and oil lamps hang from the ceiling in clusters, many of them said to come from Belgium. In the centre of the room stands the raised platform for reading the Torah, enclosed by a polished brass rail. Above, a gallery runs along one side. In traditional practice, the women of the congregation sat there during services, looking down through the screen.

Now for something many visitors miss. Among the synagogue's treasures are copper plates engraved in an old form of Tamil. They record privileges granted to a Jewish leader named Joseph Rabban by a king of the Chera dynasty, around a thousand years ago. Scholars debate the exact date. But the plates are among the oldest documents of Jewish life in India, and they show how long Jewish traders had been part of this coast before this building existed.

The second surprise is about the present. After the State of Israel was founded in 1948, most of Kochi's Jewish families emigrated over the following decades. The community that once filled Jew Town shrank to a handful of elderly people. Today, the synagogue is still a place of worship, but there are very few local Jews left to gather here. Much of the quarter's Jewish life now lives on in memory, in old photographs, and in family stories told in Israel.

When you step back outside, notice how the street has changed its purpose. Jew Town Road is now lined with antique shops, carved furniture, brass lamps, spice traders, and small cafes. Some shopfronts still show Hebrew lettering or Stars of David above their doors. Walk slowly and look above the shop signs. The upper storeys, with their wooden shutters and tiled roofs, often keep the shape of the old merchant houses.

Before you leave, stand for a moment with the clock tower behind you and the palace wall to one side. Listen again to the lane... the shutters, the bicycles, the bargaining in Malayalam and English. For more than four centuries, people of different faiths have walked this short street side by side. The blue tiles are inside now, out of sight. But you carry the picture of them with you as you walk back into the smell of ginger and pepper.