Kochi sits on the Arabian Sea. (Christabel Lobo/ via JTA)
A sign denotes Kochi s Jew street, as it is known locally, which once was a hub of Indian Jewish life. (Christabel Lobo/ via JTA)
A look inside the 452-year-old Paradesi Synagogue in Kochi. (Christabel Lobo/ via JTA)
KOCHI, India (JTA) Take a walk down this coastal city’s “Jew street” today and you’ll find bustling Kasmiri storefronts selling Persian antiques, pashmina shawls and traditional Islamic handicrafts a stark contrast to the neighborhood’s heyday when every household was Jewish.
“There are only two people left in Jew Town. One very old, who spends most of her time in Los Angeles, and one other,” said Shalva Weil, a senior researcher at the Seymour Fox School of Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a leading figure on the Jewish communities of India.
Take a walk down the street here in coastal Kochi’s “Jew street” today and you’ll find bustling Kasmiri storefronts selling Persian antiques, pashmina shawls and traditional Islamic handicrafts a stark contrast to the neighborhood’s heyday when every household was Jewish.
“There are only two people left in Jew Town,” said Shalva Weil, a senior researcher at the Seymour Fox School of Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a leading figure on the Jewish communities of India.
Once a vibrant community of approximately 3,000 at its peak in the 1950s, only a handful of elderly Jews remain here now in a city of some 677,000. According to Weil, there really is no community in Kochi anymore.