We've arrived in Sri Lanka where, ironically, we're catching the tail end of a hurricane. After days of devouring the news from New York, it is almost as though we've caught some strange echo of the storm over here, on the far side of the world.
We don't mind the rain. It's a good excuse to take a break from feeling we have to do things, which turns out to be as much an occupational hazard of traveling as it is of normal life for two hyperactive people. Our trip has reached its turn: we're talking in weeks, rather than months now, and beginning to talk about emails we should send, to jobs, or people with apartments to rent. Still, we've got two weeks in Sri Lanka and then we head home via a week in Greece and few days in Rome. In you are nearby, get in touch!
Photos are on their way: Kerala's tea estates and backwaters and our first few days in Sri Lanka. In the meantime, here's a brief story of our encounter with one of the last living Jews of Kerala.
That mass migration changed the face of the old Jewish quarter. Now, it is choc-a-bloc with antique shops (some started when the departing Jewish families sold off their furniture) and Kashmiri souvenir stands peddling the same trinkets sold in every tourist ghetto from Srinagar to Trivandrum. We were dismayed. We'd walked a long, hot way and there seemed to be very little left to even look at, much less connect to.
At the end of the street, the synagogue was bustling with domestic tourists. Two massive school groups from Tamil Nadu had arrived at the same time as we had and were dutifully filing in and out of the narrow doorway that led to the synagogue. As we entered the sanctuary, we experienced a dizzying reversal. We'd spent months visiting Hindu shrines and Buddhist gompas, trying to discern the meaning of ritual objects and how the space was meant to be used. For the first time, we watched Indian tourists look bemusedly at the Ark and whisper to each other about various aspects of architecture, afraid to disturb the room's holy air. The sanctuary was charmingly eccentric, with blue Chinese tiles on the floor and gorgeous glass lamps hanging from the ceiling. But it felt like a dying place. Wanting to make it alive, we went up to the Ark to say a shecheyanu, a prayer of thanks for having arrived in this place. We could feel the eyes of other tourists on our backs, just as we had watched innumerable sari-clad women make their offerings: "Look! She's praying! She's doing something!" Still, it felt right, to hear the sound of a Jewish prayer in that room, for it to be used in the way it was intended.
We headed back out into the wet heat and wandered down the street, fending off the shopkeepers' inquiries: "My shop!? Just have a look? Bon Jour! Ca va? Postcard?" Zach noticed a sign on one small shop, the only one with a Jewish name: Sarah's Handmade Embroidery. There was no one outside trolling for business, so we decided to go in. We were greeted by a small-boned man with a shy smile who introduced himself as Taha. As I examined a photograph on the wall, he explained that this store is part of Sarah Cohen's house. He proudly showed us pictures of her wedding in Bombay, a portrait of her brother Shalom, who had passed several years ago, images of the synagogue decorated for festivals. "There are only nine left," he explained, "no children." He pulled out a small book and told us that it explained the history and traditions of the community. He pointed to the publishing page: India (1929), three editions in Israel "by someone's relative," and then the last edition: India (2011). "I published this book," he said with pride, "and I added the pictures." He turned the small book over in his hands, showing off color photographs of the inside of the synagogue.
Is that Sarah, sleeping in the next room? Yes, he affirmed. I had noticed the old women napping on a cot when we walked in. She looked ancient, unmoving. Only after Taha had carefully sussed us out did he go and wake Sarah. From the minute she started talking, we were in the land of the familiar: the Jewish grandma guilt-trip. "Where were you for the festival, for Simchat Torah?" she wailed. "Oh, it was so beautiful. You should have come. We couldn't say the prayers because we didn't have a minyan." Taha looked on, commiserating. Her face was hugely expressive, alternately lighting up with surprise or dropping into a deep, sad frown.
She alternated between chatting with us in British accented English and giving commands in Malayalam.Though she repeatedly circled back to berating us for not having come to Simchat Torah, Sarah was very sociable and was clearly enjoying the company of young Jews. She asked us about our travels and told us how hard it is to get kosher meat now that her brother, the community's last shochet, is gone. Another Jewish family arrived: the mother, a white American, the father, an Indian from Bangalore, and their teenage son, with his father's skin and curly Jewish hair, raised in Charleston, South Carolina and now living in Bangalore. The shop took on the air of a party as we played Jewish geography and chatted about Jewish communities in India.
Taha worked steadily around us, getting tea, shooing away curious onlookers, and quoting prices for the kippat and challah covers. Sometimes he would dart in and deny or verify something Sarah had said or gently correct her history: "Ah, that was six years ago, six." Eventually, he told us that he'd been working for Sarah since he was small. "I'm not educated," he said, gesturing to his waist to indicate that he'd been about so tall when we started working for Sarah's family. "They took me in." He'd been with them ever since.
Eventually, Sarah tired and Taha took her into the back to rest, holding her with gentle devotion. As we said our goodbyes, he handed us each one of the small books he'd printed and a business card: "Please visit our blog!" He told us of his frustrations with the Tourism Board, how he wished they did more to preserve the Jewish history of the neighborhood. It was Taha who rung up our challah covers and saw us out the door, pointing us to attractions down the street and reminding us to come by for the next festival. He is the unlikely keeper of Cochin's Jewish history: a Muslim man tied by years and circumstances to a dying Jewish family. The story of the Jews of Cochin has become his own.
We don't mind the rain. It's a good excuse to take a break from feeling we have to do things, which turns out to be as much an occupational hazard of traveling as it is of normal life for two hyperactive people. Our trip has reached its turn: we're talking in weeks, rather than months now, and beginning to talk about emails we should send, to jobs, or people with apartments to rent. Still, we've got two weeks in Sri Lanka and then we head home via a week in Greece and few days in Rome. In you are nearby, get in touch!
Photos are on their way: Kerala's tea estates and backwaters and our first few days in Sri Lanka. In the meantime, here's a brief story of our encounter with one of the last living Jews of Kerala.
***
Our first afternoon in Cochin was scorching. By the time we reached Mattanchery, we were in an advanced state of cranky. We were searching for Jew Town and the Paradesi Synagogue, the only synagogue that remains in use by what used to be a sizable population of Keralan Jews. The history of this particular Jewish community is a long and fascinating one, beginning with Jews who came as traders in the time of King Solomon. Further migrations marked nadirs in Jewish history: the destruction of the Second Temple, the Inquisition. Ironically, it was the Jew's historical triumph, the founding of the State of Israel, that sounded the death knell for the Jews of Kerala. The vast majority chose to emigrate, looking for better fortunes and a wider marriage pool.
That mass migration changed the face of the old Jewish quarter. Now, it is choc-a-bloc with antique shops (some started when the departing Jewish families sold off their furniture) and Kashmiri souvenir stands peddling the same trinkets sold in every tourist ghetto from Srinagar to Trivandrum. We were dismayed. We'd walked a long, hot way and there seemed to be very little left to even look at, much less connect to.
At the end of the street, the synagogue was bustling with domestic tourists. Two massive school groups from Tamil Nadu had arrived at the same time as we had and were dutifully filing in and out of the narrow doorway that led to the synagogue. As we entered the sanctuary, we experienced a dizzying reversal. We'd spent months visiting Hindu shrines and Buddhist gompas, trying to discern the meaning of ritual objects and how the space was meant to be used. For the first time, we watched Indian tourists look bemusedly at the Ark and whisper to each other about various aspects of architecture, afraid to disturb the room's holy air. The sanctuary was charmingly eccentric, with blue Chinese tiles on the floor and gorgeous glass lamps hanging from the ceiling. But it felt like a dying place. Wanting to make it alive, we went up to the Ark to say a shecheyanu, a prayer of thanks for having arrived in this place. We could feel the eyes of other tourists on our backs, just as we had watched innumerable sari-clad women make their offerings: "Look! She's praying! She's doing something!" Still, it felt right, to hear the sound of a Jewish prayer in that room, for it to be used in the way it was intended.
We headed back out into the wet heat and wandered down the street, fending off the shopkeepers' inquiries: "My shop!? Just have a look? Bon Jour! Ca va? Postcard?" Zach noticed a sign on one small shop, the only one with a Jewish name: Sarah's Handmade Embroidery. There was no one outside trolling for business, so we decided to go in. We were greeted by a small-boned man with a shy smile who introduced himself as Taha. As I examined a photograph on the wall, he explained that this store is part of Sarah Cohen's house. He proudly showed us pictures of her wedding in Bombay, a portrait of her brother Shalom, who had passed several years ago, images of the synagogue decorated for festivals. "There are only nine left," he explained, "no children." He pulled out a small book and told us that it explained the history and traditions of the community. He pointed to the publishing page: India (1929), three editions in Israel "by someone's relative," and then the last edition: India (2011). "I published this book," he said with pride, "and I added the pictures." He turned the small book over in his hands, showing off color photographs of the inside of the synagogue.
Is that Sarah, sleeping in the next room? Yes, he affirmed. I had noticed the old women napping on a cot when we walked in. She looked ancient, unmoving. Only after Taha had carefully sussed us out did he go and wake Sarah. From the minute she started talking, we were in the land of the familiar: the Jewish grandma guilt-trip. "Where were you for the festival, for Simchat Torah?" she wailed. "Oh, it was so beautiful. You should have come. We couldn't say the prayers because we didn't have a minyan." Taha looked on, commiserating. Her face was hugely expressive, alternately lighting up with surprise or dropping into a deep, sad frown.
Taha worked steadily around us, getting tea, shooing away curious onlookers, and quoting prices for the kippat and challah covers. Sometimes he would dart in and deny or verify something Sarah had said or gently correct her history: "Ah, that was six years ago, six." Eventually, he told us that he'd been working for Sarah since he was small. "I'm not educated," he said, gesturing to his waist to indicate that he'd been about so tall when we started working for Sarah's family. "They took me in." He'd been with them ever since.
Eventually, Sarah tired and Taha took her into the back to rest, holding her with gentle devotion. As we said our goodbyes, he handed us each one of the small books he'd printed and a business card: "Please visit our blog!" He told us of his frustrations with the Tourism Board, how he wished they did more to preserve the Jewish history of the neighborhood. It was Taha who rung up our challah covers and saw us out the door, pointing us to attractions down the street and reminding us to come by for the next festival. He is the unlikely keeper of Cochin's Jewish history: a Muslim man tied by years and circumstances to a dying Jewish family. The story of the Jews of Cochin has become his own.
1 comment:
Worlds within worlds... Thanks for sharing this lovely story! So vicariously excited for you during these epic travels of yours. Keep writing. Big hugs ~ Alex (in Seattle)
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