What is the origin of the Cochin Jews of India?

Question

What is the origin of the Cochin Jews of India?

Answer 1

The oldest of the three longest-established Jewish communities, traders from Judea and Israel arrived in the city of Cochin, in what is now Kerala, 2,500 years ago. Assimilated with the local population, the community built synagogues and colonies there. The synagogue in Cochin, is a protected heritage site and is a popular tourist destination although it actually does not belong to the Cochin Jews, but rather to Pardesi Jews. There are currently 53 practicing Cochin Jews in Kerala.

There are said to be 3 categories of Jews in Cochin; "white", "brown" and "black". They all claim to be exiles from Palestine from the year 70 C.E. It is believed that the "black" Jews came after the Islamist conquest of Persia in the 7th century and that the "white" Jews came from their expulsion from Spain in 1492 C.E

Answer 2

Some sources say that the earliest Jews were those who settled in the Malabar coast during the times of King Solomon of Israel, and after the Kingdom of Israel split into two [4]. They are sometimes referred to as the "black Jews". The Paradesi Jews, also called "White Jews", settled later, coming to India from European and Middle Eastern nations such as Holland and Spain, and bringing with them the Ladino language. Spanish and Portuguese Jews (Sephardim) settled in Goa in the 15th century, but this settlement eventually disappeared. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Cochin had an influx of Jewish settlers from the Middle East, North Africa and Spain.

Jews came to Kerala and settled as early as 700 BC for trade. An old, but not particularly reliable, tradition says that Jews of Cochin came in mass to Cranganore (an ancient port, near Cochin) after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. A chieftain by the name of Joseph Rabban, according to local tradition, was granted a principality over the Jews of Cochin by the Chera Emperor of Kerala, Bhaskara Ravivarman II [3]. His descendents had, in effect, their own principality (called Anjuvannam in Indian sources) for many centuries until a chieftainship dispute broke out between two brothers (one of them named Joseph Azar) in the 15th century. The dispute led neighboring princes to dispossess them. In 1524, the Muslims, backed by the ruler of Calicut (today called Kozhikode), attacked the Jews of Cranganore on the pretext that they were tampering with the pepper trade. Most Jews fled to Cochin and went under the protection of the Hindu Raja there. He granted them a site for their own town that later acquired the name "Jew Town" (by which it is still known).