Cochin's "once-thriving Jewish community has become microscopic. The island's Jewish area has become a tourist attraction, complete with palm trees and a picturesque coastline. People like Hallegua live out their days under the curious gaze of voyeuristic visitors. When Hallegua says his community is dying, he isn't kidding. Only 14 Jewish residents remain, most in or approaching their 70s."
Cochin's Jewish community
can be traced back to traders in King Solomon's fleet some 2,000 years ago. Numbers grew in the fourth century, when thousands of Jews arrived in India and the community was granted privileges by the Hindu rulers. But in the 1500s, the Moors, contemptuous of the Jews' success in the booming spice trade, burned Jewish houses and synagogues and forced Kerala's Jews onto Cochin, where they sought protection under the island's Hindu raja, or leader.
In 1567 Jew Town was built, and the following year, the synagogue. Jews endured harsh rule under the Portuguese, after which the British provided the community much needed protection. When British rule over India ended in 1947, Cochin's Jews maintained a high social status and comprised several hundred families.
But then Israel was founded, and most Jews started making aliyah.
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