The Place of Alwaye in Modern Cochin Jewish History

This article was downloaded by: [informa internal users] On: 29 September 2009 Access details: Access Details: [subscription number 755239602] Publisher Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Journal of Modern Jewish Studies Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713437952 THE PLACE OF ALWAYE IN MODERN COCHIN JEWISH HISTORY Shalva Weil Online Publication Date: 01 November 2009 To cite this Article Weil, Shalva(2009)'THE PLACE OF ALWAYE IN MODERN COCHIN JEWISH HISTORY',Journal of Modern Jewish Studies,8:3,319 — 335 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/14725880903263044 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14725880903263044 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. Shalva Weil THE PLACE OF ALWAYE IN MODERN COCHIN JEWISH HISTORY* Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 11:16 29 September 2009 msshalva@mscc.huji.ac.il ShalvaWeil CMJS_A_426478.sgm Modern 10.1080/14725880903263044 1472-5886 Original Taylor 8302009 000002009 and & Jewish Article Francis (print)/1472-5894 Francis Studies (online) New directions have been found in the study of Jewish topographies. This article attempts to relocalise Jewish space and move it beyond European and American cityscapes to encompass a wider Jewish geographical horizon. The article explores the summer resort of Alwaye (or Aluva), the holiday home to the Cochin (or Kochi) Jews of south India, as an example of a hitherto unexplored Jewish location. In this holiday space, social divisions influenced by hierarchical perceptions of society in India between Paradesi (“White”), Malabar (“Black”) and “Meshuchrarim”, manumitted slaves, were replicated. It was in Alwaye in the year 1909 that the death of the two-year old Rivka, nicknamed Dolly, occurred. An elegy in Hebrew written by Dolly’s father, community leader Isaac Elias (I.E.) Hallegua, is mentioned for the first time in Cochin Jewish history. It is hoped that the awareness of the space in which the death occurred and the interconnectedness between Jewish holiday space and Jewish quotidian space will contribute to the ever-growing field of the study of Jewish landscapes. Indian Jewish topographies Recently, attention has been turned to exploring Jewish space as a legitimate academic pursuit. The focus is synchronic as opposed to the diachronic, and until now it has reflected the more historical emphasis in Judaism. Where Jewish geography has been studied in the past, the subject matter has tended to be pilgrimages or religious sites such as synagogues or cemeteries, on the one hand, or Zionism and Holocaust remembrances, on the other.1 In recent sociological and anthropological studies, researchers have highlighted “imagined communities” and the dialectic between “homeland” and “diaspora”2 or territorial discourse, which has emphasised “land” in relation to colonialism, post-colonialism and Zionism. 3 However, with the publication of the pioneering volume Jewish Topographies, 4 new directions have opened up in the study of Jewish locations. These include the construction of the Sukkah (Tabernacles),5 the position of the eruv,6 the location of an Iraqi music club in Israel, 7 and more. Needless to say, the volume Jewish Topographies makes no mention of “Indian Jewish space.” This article, then, attempts to relocalise Jewish space and move it beyond familiar Jewish landscapes to encompass a wider Jewish geographical horizon. India’s Jews consist of three distinct communities: the Bene Israel, who settled on the Konkan coast, the “Baghdadis”, who came to Calcutta and Bombay from the 19th century on, and the Cochin8 Jews. The Bene Israel, today numbering over 60,000 in Israel and fewer than 4,000 in India, are the largest Indian Jewish ethnic group. Several thousand Baghdadi Jews are dispersed in the English-speaking world and in Israel, and only about *This article is dedicated to the memory of Samuel Hallegua. Journal of Modern Jewish Studies Vol 8, No. 3 November 2009, pp. 319–335 ISSN 1472-5886 print/ISSN 1472-5894 online © 2009 Taylor & Francis http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/14725880903263044 Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 11:16 29 September 2009 320 JOURNAL OF MODERN JEWISH STUDIES 200 remain in Bombay and Calcutta. In addition, there are other Judaising groups in India claiming Israelite ancestry, the most prominent amongst these being the Shinlung or the “Bnei Menasseh” from Mizoram and Manipur in north-east India. 9 To date, Indian Jewish space has been restricted to migratory patterns 10 and cityscapes,11 largely among the Bene Israel and Baghdadi Jews. In this paper the focus will be placed upon the Jewish landscape of the smallest group of Indian Jews, the Cochin Jews, who only numbered 2,400 at their height before their “mass” emigration to Israel in 1954. Today, there are about 7,000 Jews of Cochin origin in Israel and fewer than 30 remain on the Malabar coast. Cochin Jewish topography has dwelt upon synagogue architecture 12 in transnational locations.13 However, this paper will broaden the scope of this field in general, and Cochin Jewish topography in particular, by focusing upon a doubly unusual Jewish landscape: the Jewish holiday resort in a south Indian setting. To the best of my knowledge, the Jewish holiday location has not been studied as a Jewish topography. Furthermore, from an ethnocentric Western point of view, Cochin Jewry has been little documented in mainstream academic journals. Moreover, within the corpus of scientific literature on Cochin Jews, no article has ever been written on Alwaye, the holiday home of the Jews of Cochin. The holiday resort as Jewish landscape Jewish holiday destinations are clearly not the exclusive territory of Indian Jews. For years, New York Jews have made the Catskill Mountains, dubbed the “Jewish Alps”, in New York State north-west of New York City and south-west of Albany, their second home; the famous Jewish vacation resorts, such as Grossinger’s, Kutsher’s and Brown’s, became known as the “Borscht Belt”. In the United Kingdom, Bournemouth, replete with kosher hotels and Jewish services, became a favourite seaside resort among British Jews. In Calcutta, India, the Indian Jewish “Baghdadi” community regularly took a holiday in three different places: the rural town of Madhapur, the hill station at Darjeeling and the fishing village of Gobalpur. The “Baghdadis” usually went there during December and January, coinciding with Christmas holidays so that the children would not miss school. Some members of the community also visited the holiday resorts in September–October, where they held High Holiday services. 14 The children loved the holidays, which provided relaxation for the adults, who transported all the household paraphernalia, including the servants, to the resort so that they could eat kosher food, hold religious services and continue to lead a full Jewish life while on vacation. Mavis Hyman reports that Aaron Aaron’s family would call Madhupur “Little Jerusalem, not only because the Jews congregated there, but also because of the toast, “next year in Jerusalem!” at Passover.” 15 The Cochin Jews, like their coreligionists, were no exception in this Jewish golden rule. As was the case with other Jewish communities, the Cochin Jews of south India moved to the holiday resort of Alwaye in Kerala, where they could comfortably continue their religious life in a more favourable climate during the monsoon season. The Cochin Jews: origins and history As has been noted above, the Cochin Jews are one of the smallest Jewish ethnic groups in the world. They never suffered anti-Semitism at the hands of their Indian neighbours, Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 11:16 29 September 2009 THE PLACE OF ALWAYE IN MODERN COCHIN JEWISH HISTORY who were Hindu, Christian and Muslim. Nevertheless, the colonising Portuguese persecuted them for a brief interlude in history. The Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrived in Cochin in 1498, and in 1560 the Portuguese established an Office of the Inquisition in Goa in India. Francis Xavier, the Archbishop of Goa, tried to purge the area of Jews, events which impacted upon the Cochin Jews, who were also under Portuguese dominion. Despite the difficulties of that period, the Cochin Jews lived in harmony with members of other faiths until their emigration to the State of Israel after Israeli independence in 1948. Religious attachment to the people of Israel and messianic fervour were the only factors that encouraged the Cochin Jews to leave for Israel, where they eventually settled successfully in moshavim (agricultural villages). Today, they have also spread out to urban locations and intermarry freely with members of other Jewish ethnic groups. There are several theories about the origins of the Jews on the Malabar coast. One legend holds that they arrived with King Solomon’s merchantmen. The most popular local legend in south Indian Christian repertoires attributes the arrival of Cochin Jewry in India to the first century. Thomas the Apostle and Abbanes, an Indian merchant, arrived at Cranganore, the ancient capital of Cochin, on the wedding day of the king’s daughter. Thomas recited poetry in Hebrew and only a Jewish flautist understood him. He subsequently converted her to Christianity. The legend is oral proof of the existence of Jews already residing on the Malabar coast before the first century C.E. Documentary evidence of Jewish settlement in Kerala can be found in the famous Cochin Jewish copperplates inscribed in an ancient Tamil script (dated 1000 C.E.). In that year, during the reign of Bhaskara Ravi Varman (962–1020 C.E.), the Jews were granted 72 privileges, which included the right to use a day lamp, to erect a palanquin, to blow a trumpet and to be exempt from, and to collect, certain taxes. As stated on the copperplates, these privileges were given To Joseph Rabban the Prince of Anjuvannam and to his descendants, sons and daughters, and to his nephews, and to the sons-in-law who married his daughters in natural succession. So long as the world and moon exist, Anjuvannam shall be his hereditary possession. Hail. According to most authorities, Anjuvannam was a guild, but Anjuvannam and its counterpart Manigrammam, also mentioned on the copperplates, could have been two different yet symmetrical groups: Jews and Christians respectively. 16 In 1524 Muslims attacked the Jews of Cranganore, and most of them fled to Cochin, taking protection under the Hindu Raja, who granted them their own protected quarter in Jew Town, Mattancherry.17 In 1568 the Jews built the Paradesi synagogue, constructed during the otherwise hostile rule of the Portuguese. In 1660 the Dutch conquered Cochin and the Jews prospered. Ezekiel Rahabi (1694–1771), a Cochin Jew, acted as the principal merchant for the Dutch in Cochin and signed his memoranda in Hebrew. In 1795 Cochin came under British control, and the Jews were still treated with tolerance. After 1947 and Indian independence and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, and despite the lack of anti-Semitism, the Cochin Jews decided to leave for Israel. Only a few hundred remained. The Cochin Jews were acclaimed in 1968 when Prime Minister Indira Ghandi celebrated the quarter-centenary of the Paradesi synagogue and 321 322 JOURNAL OF MODERN JEWISH STUDIES the Indian government honoured the community by issuing a commemorative stamp for the occasion. Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 11:16 29 September 2009 Social differentiation among Cochin Jews The Cochin Jews were divided into subgroups reminiscent of castes, although, as Jews, they were clearly “out-of-caste”. The “White” (Paradesi) Jews were the descendants of European and other Jews, who had arrived on the Malabar Coast from the 16th century on. Two of the prominent Paradesi families were the Koders, who originated in Iraq and became great traders from Cochin, and the Halleguas, who trace their origin from Spain and who reached Aleppo, Syria, after the Inquisition in 1492. Many Paradesi families settled in Mattancherry, Cochin. The “Black” (Malabar) Jews lived in seven congregations, including Ernakulam, Mala, Parur, Chendamangalam and Cochin. Social and religious interaction between the White and wealthier Paradesi and the darker-skinned and poorer Malabari Jews was restricted and there was not a single case of intermarriage between them.18 In addition, both communities held manumitted slaves known in Hebrew as meshuchrarim (freed people)19 who were distinct from the Jews with impeccable descent (known in Hebrew as meyuchasim (privileged)). The meshuchrarim have been mistakenly identified as a separate caste and called “Brown Jews” by some researchers, 20 but in practice, while White Jews were distinguishable from Black Jews on the basis of colour, the dark-skinned meshuchrarim were not “Brown”. Until the middle of the 20th century, in an imitation of caste-like practices, the meshuchrarim were not allowed to dine or intermarry with their masters. In the Paradesi synagogue they were prohibited from being called up to the Torah or participating equally in a minyan (quorum). This castelike situation changed in the middle of the 20th century, in large manner due to the activism of Abraham Barak (henceforth A. B.) Salem. A. B. Salem (1882–1967) was the first meshuchrar to receive a university degree in law. He became actively involved in politics and served on the Cochin Legislative Assembly.21 He used certain Gandhi-like satyagraha non-violent tactics to improve the status of the meshuchrarim in his own synagogue. Only in the 1940s was he allowed to read the Torah in the synagogue (which, as I have mentioned, was previously prohibited), and in the late 1940s meshuchrarim were finally allowed to be buried in the Paradesi cemetery, but in a separate section. 22 In 1950 Salem’s son Balfour married Seema “Baby” Koder, a Paradesi woman—in Bombay since they were prohibited from getting married in the Paradesi synagogue. When Seema returned to Cochin, most of the Paradesi female members walked out of the ladies’ gallery. A few months later, in 1951, Louis Rabinowitz, Chief Rabbi of the Transvaal, South Africa, went on a mission to India and recorded the episode as recounted to him by the head of the Paradesi community, Samuel Shabtai (henceforth S. S.) Koder. Rabinowitz described the incidence thus: When, on the following Festival Mrs. Salem, a pure-blooded White Jewess, entered the ladies’ gallery of the Synagogue, the whole female congregation rose as one woman from their seats and flounced out of the Synagogue. But the young Mrs. Salem was a determined young lady who was not prepared to be slighted in this way, and refused to be intimidated into relinquishing her rights. She refused to THE PLACE OF ALWAYE IN MODERN COCHIN JEWISH HISTORY Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 11:16 29 September 2009 budge and declared her intention of continuing to worship in the White Jews’ Synagogue.23 The “pure-blooded White Jewess” was Seema “Baby” Koder, the Paradesi woman who was forced to marry in another Indian Jewish congregation because she chose to marry a meshuchrar, who happened to be the son of A. B. Salem. By the next generation, with dwindling numbers, due to emigration to Israel and opposition to caste-like distinctions evaporating, the marriage of Baby and Balfour’s son Leslie Salem to Glennis Simon, a woman from a prominent Paradesi family, was celebrated with joy in the Paradesi synagogue.24 Until the 21st century the history of Cochin Jews was, with few exceptions, monolithic, referring exclusively to Paradesi “White” Jewish history. In parallel, the spatialisation of Cochin Jewish research was confined to Mattancherry, Cochin, where the Paradesi synagogue was located. In 2004, Galia Hacco, a Malabar Jew recently known as a “Black” Jew, wrote about the ritual cycle of Cochin Jewish holidays from “a Malabari perspective”.25 Since then, scholars and the general public have become aware of “other” Jewish spaces in the annals of Cochin Jewish history, and specifically Malabar Jewish landscapes. The restoration of the Chendamangalam synagogue in February 2006 and its opening as a Jewish tourist site 26 has triggered interest in other settlements where Malabar Jews resided and enacted their lives. As noted in a Jerusalem Post article on July 12, 2009, Parur (or Paravur), the site of another Malabar Jewish congregation, will now be included in the study of Cochin Jewish topography, as plans to conserve the synagogue and a Jewish house are progressing. Future research still has to explore more ancient Jewish settlement in Kerala, Cranganore, and other sites. The archaeological dig in Pattanam at Parur is shedding new light on the ancient history of trade in Kerala, and specifically on the role of the Jews there. It is hoped that the Muziris Heritage Project will unearth proof of the Jewish presence in other Jewish landscapes on the Malabar coast from early times. 27 Alwaye: the place A Cochin Jewish topography that has never been documented as such is Alwaye, or Aluva, as it is known in Malayalam. Alwaye is a large city in Kerala, close to today’s Cochin International Airport. Even in ancient times the town was a holiday resort and a commercial centre. This pivotal town of over 25,000 souls was once the summer home for many Cochin Jews, particularly during the 20th century. Despite its ephemeral and seasonal significance for the Cochin Jews, it is interesting to document Alwaye’s role in modern Cochin Jewish history in order to show both the attachments of various Cochin Jewish communities and the complexities of Diaspora life. The unusual facet in this discussion is the influence of hierarchical modes of perceiving society and the replication of social Jewish topographies in a home-away-from-home location by the river in India’s southernmost state of Kerala. Until 1341, when the Periyar River, then known as the Churniyar River, was silted up, Alwaye used to be a continuous area of land spread across Kakkanad and Alangad. The river, 229 kilometres in length, is the longest river in the Ernakulam district. It had a single course, flowing through Thottummukham, round Mangalappuzha and into the 323 Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 11:16 29 September 2009 324 JOURNAL OF MODERN JEWISH STUDIES Arabian Sea. Traders sent spices and goods to foreign parts, including the Middle East, using this route. Quilon, also identified as Cranganore or Kodungallor, opened up as a major port in the Indian Ocean after an international trade route was established from the seventh century, linking Abbassid Persia and T’ang China. 28 Against this backdrop, Jews from Fatimid Egypt also began to visit Quilon from the ninth century on, trading in spices, such as pepper, ginger and cardamom, as can be seen in the Jewish letters of the Cairo Genizah, from the 11th and 12th centuries. 29 In 1341 a type of tsunami occurred and the river was silted up and forced to flow into two tributaries at Thottummukham. One continued to flow through Desam and Mangalappuzha to the Kodungallor backwaters. The other made a new track flowing downward dividing the Alwaye mainland in two: north and south. At Kunjunnikkara Island, one tributary flowed into the Varapuzha backwaters and the other into the Cochin backwaters. After the river was silted up, the Jews who were already living in Cranganore, moved to establish communities in Cochin and elsewhere. 30 After the Periyar river flood, the first synagogue of Cochin which was established is attributed to a man named Joseph Azar at Cochangadi. 31 It was not until the 20th century that the two parts of the mainland were connected by the construction of the Marthandavarma Bridge in 1939. All the colonial powers who reached Kerala made Alwaye their home. The Dutch, who occupied Cochin from 1663 to 1793 after the Portuguese, and the British, who colonised India from 1797 to 1948, built bungalows on the banks of the Periyar. Tipu Sultan (or Sultan Fateh Ali Tipu) (1750–1799), the Muslim conqueror, in his quest to take over Travancore, camped on the sandbanks of the river. Members of the wealthy Paradesi Jewish community were no exception. Initially, the settlement in Alwaye was work-linked. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the wells of Cochin started drying up, so the entrepreneurial Koders developed a city water service by piping in fresh water from the Periyar River in Alwaye to Cochin. That is when they began buying up properties along the riverside. Every year after the festival of Passover, when the monsoons were already threatening and many offices were on holiday for a month, the Paradesi community shifted temporarily lock, stock and barrel to the quieter and cooler environs of the summer resort. Katz and Goldberg describe the move as follows: As an escape from the climate, most of Jew Town would migrate to Alwaye for the duration. Travelling by barge-like boats, they brought everything they would need to sustain them—an entire household of servants and kitchen requisites, as well as Torah scrolls and ritual requirements for prayers. The boats—each of which had a sleeping area, a makeshift kitchen, a place for recreation, and servants’ quarters—proved satisfactory for most of the vacationers. 32 Along the riverbank, the huge tall coconut palms gave shade. The children swam in the river while the parents lazed in their villas and gardens and replicated the community life they had known in Mattancherry, Cochin. The prayer halls they built inside their estates did not hinder their multicultural neighbours, who had also constructed temples, churches, and mosques along the banks of the Periyar River. Isaac Samuel (henceforth I. S.) Hallegua, a Paradesi Jew from Jew Town, Cochin, who died in 2005, wrote in a yet unpublished manuscript: THE PLACE OF ALWAYE IN MODERN COCHIN JEWISH HISTORY The Halleguas and the Koders, who owned large residences by the riverside at Alwaye, usually spent eight to ten weeks from Passover to Shavuot until the monsoons made it impossible to live there, always raising the river level high above the hills on which the houses were built. The river with its two banks is at least 1000 metres wide at its narrowest course and the hills rise 25 meters above the river banks…. The reader of these lines (will)… appreciate the tranquillity, loveliness and green colour of this holiday home of Cochin Jews. 33 Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 11:16 29 September 2009 Ruby Daniel, a member of the Paradesi meshuchrarim community, describes the summer resort thus: Alwaye is a health resort some miles from Cochin, where the Periyar River comes down from the mountains. The river is a little bit wide there, and on both sides it is just like a beach—all beautiful, cream-colored sand. The water is fresh and sweet, good for drinking, and it is said to have sulphurine curing properties. Three or four times a day you bathe in the river or it won’t be effective. You are always in the water. Even in the evening it is not cold…’ 34 The days in Alwaye are recalled by members of the community with nostalgia. Nathan Katz and Ellen Goldberg write: There they would while away the days, swimming —often under specially constructed coir sunshades—and avidly playing cards. The most popular game was canasta-like sanbar, and they would return to Mattancherry in time for the cooler rainy season, a season heralded by winds. They would know it was time to return to Mattancherry… “when you couldn’t play anymore because the cards would be blowing off the table.” The Alwaye interlude ended in 1969 with the untimely death of Essie Koder. Elias35 sold his summer home, and “the gang” stopped going there. Gradually, all the Paradesi properties were bought up by non-Jews and the idyllic days of Alwaye were over. Home away from home: the replication of social difference in space I. S. Hallegua wrote in the abovementioned manuscript: Every Jewish family of Cochin spent at least a fortnight at Alwaye, a health resort 35 kilometres north of Cochin, to enjoy a short holiday in May or June every year, as guests of a Koder or Hallegua. It was a fun holiday for each person, bathing thrice a day in the clearest fresh water of a long river in Kerala that supplied Cochin with drinking water collected and treated at a location far away from industries and residences before public use.36 When Hallegua wrote “every Jewish family of Cochin…,” he referred only to the Paradesi Cochin Jews in Alwaye. As has been documented above, the Cochin Jews were separated into caste-like divisions: they prayed in different ritual locations and lived in 325 Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 11:16 29 September 2009 326 JOURNAL OF MODERN JEWISH STUDIES different Jewish topographies. Even the Jewish cemeteries were separate. Until 1954 when the majority of Cochin Jewry emigrated to Israel, the Paradesi were concentrated in Jew Town, Fort, Cochin and their family estates. The Malabar Jews lived in two additional communities in Jew Town, Cochin, and in other communities in Ernakulam, in Chendamangalam, and elsewhere, as described above. In Alwaye, the social differentiation between Jewish groups was replicated in the holiday resort. On the waterfront stood the finest properties owned by the two wealthiest and prestigious Paradesi families, who also intermarried throughout the generations. S. S. Koder,37 the father of Queenie Hallegua (who today resides in Synagogue Lane in Jew Town, Mattancherry) owned a beautiful house called “Shady Villa”, which was adjacent to the Hallegua bungalow with a small lane separating the two houses. Next to that bungalow was Queenie and her husband Samuel Hallegua’s common grandfather’s property, complete with lounge and dining room, three large bedrooms, outside bathrooms, storerooms, a pantry, verandahs surrounding the whole house and a magnificent portico. There was also a prayer hall in the garden from which there was a view of the white sands and the river bank, in which a regular minyan (quorum) was held when the house was occupied. 38 Behind this villa lay another Hallegua bungalow. At the end of the row of Paradesi bungalows stood the hill palace of one of the Rajas of Travancore, Aluva Palace,39 mirroring the close proximity of the Paradesi synagogue and homes in Jew Town to the Mattancherry Palace 40 owned by the Maharaja of Cochin, Veera Kerala Varma (1537–1563) and his descendants. During the 20th century the Malabar (“Black”) Jews, in turn, began to make Alwaye their summer resort, once the prerogative of only the wealthier Paradesi Jews. However, as in everyday life, they lived in the same general neighbourhood, yet at a distance. Simcha Yosef , a Malabar Jewess of the Cochin Kadavumbagam community, told me that they had a house in Alwaye, too, “across the river on the other side.” 41 In Jew Town, Cochin, she also lived near the Paradesi Jews, but at a distance, down the road. Other Malabar Jews came to Alwaye from Ernakulam from the Tekkumbagam community, who owned houses there, as well as members of the Parur and Chendamangalam communities. All enjoyed taking the waters and the freedom and relaxation that the resort offered. In the late 1940s Galia Hacco’s father, a notary born in the village of Chendamangalam, bought a three-bedroom house in Alwaye with a large garden. “I can remember the feeling of the sand like silk,” she recalls nostalgically. “The river was shallow and we used to go swimming during the day and sailing at night.” 42 Prayer halls were installed inside houses, particularly for the festivals. Another family from Chendamangalam opened a store in Alwaye and purchased a house near the holiday home of the Cochin royal family. As children, caste restrictions operated so that the Jews and the high-caste Hindus were allowed to play together but not dine together; intermarriage with members of another caste or religious group was out of the question. Some poorer people who could not afford a house, made a temporary home in Alwaye, or hired a boat-house. A few Malabari Jews even took up permanent residence there.43 One Malabari informant told me that owning a holiday home in Aluva “was for the rich alone”.44 Despite the fact that the Jewish topographies of the Paradesi and the Malabar Jews were separate, they were also connected at some level, as they were in Mattancherry. Samuel Hallegua of the Paradesi community recalled that after the concrete suspension bridge was constructed in 1939, Jewish friends from the other side of town would come over to play rummy, and there was certainly social interaction THE PLACE OF ALWAYE IN MODERN COCHIN JEWISH HISTORY between the two groups. Nevertheless, the Malabar Jews did not participate in the Paradesi minyan. The Paradesi meshuchrarim, for their part, would stay in Alwaye in the Paradesi houses. An extensive description of the resort is to be found in Ruby Daniel and Barbara Johnson’s book, where Ruby Daniel tells of her vacations in Alwaye: Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 11:16 29 September 2009 Our family used to stay in the Koders’ house, or sometimes in the Halleguas’ house nearby, if they weren’t there. On both sides of the river are hills—one very high and one not so high. From the Koders’ house going down to the water you have to climb 32 steps. Only the Koders have steps down to the river. Their house was a big one with a veranda, with mango trees and jackfruit trees all around.45 During the Second World War, when the Japanese bombed Chittagong in northeast India, the authorities in Cochin encouraged the residents to evacuate the port cities and go inland, since Chittagong was only five days’ ride from Cochin. 46 According to Ruby Daniel, many poor people followed this advice and sold their meagre property and when they returned they possessed nothing. As she put it: “I wonder if the Japanese knew there was such a place as Cochin!” 47 However, the important point with regard to this paper is that, according to Ruby Daniel, the White Jews ran away to Alwaye, where the rich people had two or three houses, and they all stayed there. The other Jews 48 went inland to villages such as Parur and Chendamangalam, where they had relatives. My mother took Grandmother and the rest of the family to Chendamangalam. There she rented a small house in Paliath, the property of the rich and famous Paliam tarwad [matrilineal joint family].49 When I came back home, Jew Town itself was empty.50 The death of Dolly Although life was blissful in Alwaye, there were natural disasters in the days when modern medicine and technology were less developed. Ruby Daniel narrates the story of the great flood that occurred in the 1920s when she was 10 or 12 years old. It was caused by artificial means after two inches of water were let out of an overflowing dam built further up the river. She describes a childhood trauma: a terrible current which arose from the river, a huge storm, boats set free and rolling, trees falling, and children and adults swept away in the river. 51 According to informants, the Paradesi children and their friends often developed dysentery when on holiday in Alwaye. David, the youngest brother of the previous head of the Paradesi community, S. S. Koder, died there at a tender age. One of the greatest dramas in Alwaye, so far not recorded in the annals of Cochin Jewish history, was the death of Dolly, a two-year old girl, born in 1907. This tragedy is significant in that it took place in Alwaye, and it highlights the replication of social and spatial differentiation in a vacation setting. Dolly, born to one of the scions of the Paradesi community, was a nickname for Rivka, the youngest of eight children born to Isaac Elias (henceforth I. E.) and Esther 327 Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 11:16 29 September 2009 328 JOURNAL OF MODERN JEWISH STUDIES Hallegua, who were first cousins. I. E. Hallegua was born on 11th Nissan 5622 in 1862 and died on 7 Tevet, January 1941 at the age of 79. He married Esther Hallegua (1870– 1951), who was eight years younger. They had eight children, although after Dolly’s death, they had no more offspring. Dolly developed a stomach complaint in Alwaye and died of her ailment. Although there were prayer halls in the holiday resort, there was no Jewish cemetery. In the days before the Marthandavarma Bridge was opened, the quickest route for Dolly’s corpse to be sent back to Cochin was by water down the Periyar River through the backwaters on a vallum, a large country craft with bamboo canopy. The journey took 12 hours. 52 In accordance with Jewish law, Dolly’s corpse had to be disposed of immediately. Although an infant, Jewish law prescribes identical burial to adults of children above the age of two months. Dolly was therefore buried without ado in the Paradesi cemetery in Jew Town, Cochin,53 symbolically reuniting a member of the Paradesi community, however young, with her ancestors. Dolly was buried next to a female relative Miriam, who had died several months previously in 1908. Today, the road in which the cemetery is situated is called A. B. Salem Road, named after the Cochin Jewish meshuchrar, who has been described as a “Jewish Gandhi”. In this cemetery, no Malabari Jew from any of the other seven Cochin Jewish communities was ever buried until 22nd February 1999 when Abraham Aron (born 20th April 1930) of Chendamangalam, who had joined the Paradesi synagogue after his own synagogue had become defunct, passed away.54 The meshuchrarim were finally allowed to be buried in this cemetery in the 1940s, but they died in the same inegalitarian manner as they lived: separate yet a part of Paradesi space, with their tombstones against the far wall at a distance from the graves of the Paradesi families. I. E. Hallegua was a businessman, but he was also a paytan (liturgical poet), composing dozens of songs and poems in Hebrew, including a song on the merry festival of Purim.55 In 1909 he wrote an elegy in memory of his daughter Rivka, or Dolly, which has hitherto remained unpublished. 56 The elegy is written in poetic Hebrew in a 32-page tract in which the author pours out his heart and expresses his grief at the death of Dolly. The first part of the elegy was written in the I. E. Hallegua residence in Alwaye. Here he describes the happiness he would enjoy in his holiday home until the illness that beset his young daughter. In the body of the text, which was apparently written eleven months after her death just before the Jewish ceremony of unveiling the tombstone, Hallegua expresses his deep love for his daughter. He is concerned that the tombstone epitaph composed by another member of the community rather than by him will upset Dolly. He begs her to forgive him and offers his elegy in lieu of the tombstone inscription. The epitaph on Dolly’s tombstone, which can be seen today in the Paradesi cemetery, reads as follows (my English translation; see Appendix for original Hebrew): After the Destruction (of the Temple) 57 Call the (female) mourners So that they shall come and proclaim Crying and weeping for that excellent [girl] Whom the earth has swallowed up And eulogise her, Woe! Sister. On behalf of The beloved and pleasant Rivka THE PLACE OF ALWAYE IN MODERN COCHIN JEWISH HISTORY Daughter of the respected Rabbi 58 Isaac Hallegua, May the Lord keep him alive and look after him59 Who was plucked at a tender age And she breathed her last breath on Sunday 10th Sivan (5)66960 And who was born on Friday night 7 Nisan (5)66761 May her memory be blessed forever. Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 11:16 29 September 2009 After the death of Dolly, I. E. Hallegua, who died in 1941, never returned to Alwaye. The spatial turn In this paper I have analysed the Jewish topography of the Cochin Jews, who have never hitherto been studied as such in relation to Jewish living space. I hope that this paper will now relocalise Jewish space and move it beyond European and American cityscapes to encompass in a less ethnocentric manner a wider Jewish geographical horizon. Moreover, the paper has focused upon a hitherto neglected Jewish space—the holiday resort—in which the social relations common in everyday Jewish life were replicated. It would be illuminating to compare the Indian Jewish holiday resort with those of other Jewish communities. Alwaye, a summer resort where Cochin Jews relived social divisions and social relationships in a holiday context, while escaping the hot summers and recharging their energies during the monsoon break, thus becomes a representation of spatial configurations in an ephemeral context. In this microcosm of one of the tiniest Jewish community in the world, social differentiations and caste-like divisions were reproduced spatially. The Paradesi Jews lived by the river banks in comfortable large villas with beautiful gardens; the meshuchrarim, who lived among the Paradesi in daily life, as a part of their community yet separate, stayed with the Paradesi Jews in the holiday resort or lived in their houses in their absence in exactly the same manner as they did in their permanent homes in Cochin. Some of the Malabar (“Black”) Jews from other Cochin Jewish communities set up homes on the other side of Alwaye, thereby repeating the division of space existing between the Jews of Mantancherry and other Jewish settlements in Kerala. It can thus be seen that even in a holiday resort, social divisions were perpetuated and expressed topographically. This is particularly interesting in an Indian Jewish context, influenced by Hindu hierarchical notions of society, in which divisions between groups affected social relations. Thus, Alwaye, which only had a miniscule seasonal Jewish population, is a representation of day-to-day Jewish topography. While Alwaye has not been placed in the forefront of modern Cochin Jewish history, probably because of the small size of its Jewish population and the temporality of its nature, for the older generation of Cochin Jews still living, Alwaye represents a nostalgic childhood memory and a significant part of their identity. The Paradesi Jews continued to enjoy holidays on the banks of the Periyar River until the end of the 20th century, but the place is still tainted for them by the memory of the death of Dolly. For I. E. Hallegua, who composed a beautiful elegy in memory of Dolly, historical 329 Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 11:16 29 September 2009 330 JOURNAL OF MODERN JEWISH STUDIES consciousness merged with personal tragedy to such an extent that he himself never returned to the place. This is the first time that the tragic death of Dolly, the two-yearold daughter of one of the greatest leaders of Cochin Jewry, has ever been mentioned in the diachronic study of Cochin Jewry. Mention of the tragedy is important because it is the subject of a hitherto unpublished text written in highly sophisticated poetic Hebrew. While recently academic attention has been paid to Malayalam folksongs and other songs by Cochin Jews, the Hebrew repertoire of Cochin Jews has largely been ignored.62 Furthermore, from the point of view of Jewish topography, the tragedy is significant in that it highlights the replication of social differentiation in physical space, even for an infant: Dolly was returned to Jew Town, Cochin, and buried in the Paradesi cemetery. I hope that the awareness of the space in which the death occurred and the interconnectedness between Jewish holiday space and Jewish quotidian space in an Indian framework will contribute to the emerging field of the study of Jewish landscapes in a global context. Epilogue In the 1950s when the Cochin Jews departed for Israel, a Christian priest preached in church every Sunday requesting that the Jews not leave. After the Jews had sold their houses in Alwaye, most of the waters dried up and the remaining water became polluted and dirty.63 Today, two Malabari Jewish brothers and their families live in the city of Alwaye, where they run successful businesses. However, no Jewish homes remain on the riverbanks. In a visit to Alwaye in 2006, the Muslim owner of the Hallegua house showed me the beautiful villa, and took me to “Shady Villa”, the Koder house and garden with the mango and jackfruit trees and the steps leading down to the river. On a visit to Cochin in December 2008, I paid my respects at Dolly’s grave, overgrown with weeds, in the Paradesi cemetery in A. B. Salem Street, Jew Town, Cochin. Notes 1. Lipphardt, Brauch and Nocke, “ Jewish Topographies”, 1–26. 2. E.g. Kaplan, “Contested, Constructed home(lands)”, 85–100; Weil, “Motherland and Fatherland”, 91–99. 3. E.g. Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine; Shafir, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. 4. Brauch, Lipphardt, and Nocke (Eds.), Jewish Topographies, 2008. 5. Lipis , “A Hybrid Place of Belonging”, 27–42. 6. Herz, “Eruv’Urbanism: Towards an Alternative ‘Jewish Architecture’”, 43–62. 7. Dardashti, “ The Buena Vista Baghdad Club”, 309–326. 8. Today, Cochin is known as Kochi; similarly, Bombay is known as Mumbai and Calcutta has become Kolkata. I have retained the original names since this corresponds to the literature. For general information on all three Jewish communities, see Weil, “Jews in India”. 9. For more information on this group see Weil,“Lost Israelites”. 10. Musleah, On the Banks of the Ganga; Weil, “Motherland and Fatherland”. 11. E.g. Lentin, “The Jewish Presence in Bombay”, 22–36. Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 11:16 29 September 2009 THE PLACE OF ALWAYE IN MODERN COCHIN JEWISH HISTORY FIGURE 1 Source: I. S. Hallegua (unpublished manuscript) 331 Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 11:16 29 September 2009 332 JOURNAL OF MODERN JEWISH STUDIES FIGURE 2 A Paradesi villa on the banks of the Periyar River. 12. Waronker, “In Search of India’s Synagogues”, 36–49; I. Weil, “The Paradesi Cochin Synagogue Architecture”, 50–59. 13. Fishoff, “Moving the Cochin Synagogue”, 19–28. 14. Ezra, Turning Back the Pages, 45–53. 15. Hyman, Jews of the Raj. 16. Weil, “Symmetry”, 175–196. 17. This is how the area where the Paradesi Jews lived is known locally until the present time. It is also called “Jew Town” by Malayalam speakers. Most community members reside in Synagogue Lane (sic). Since there was no anti-Semitism in India, the terms are reminiscent of a Jewish ghetto, but with none of the negative implications. 18. Cf. Katz and Goldberg, The Last Jews of Cochin; Fernandes, The Last Jews of Kerala. 19. The Malabar manumitted slaves were also known as urumaker in Malayalam. 20. Cf. Mandelbaum, “Social Stratification”, 183. 21. Chiriyankandath, “Nationalism, Religion and Community”, 21–22. 22. Katz and Goldberg, The Last Jews of Cochin, 126–160; Mandelbaum, “Social Stratification among the Jews of Cochin in India and Israel”, 188–190. 23. Rabinowitz, Far East Mission, 118. 24. Katz and Goldberg, The Last Jews of Cochin, 147–160. 25. Hacco, “The Ritual Cycle”, 68–77. 26. For further information, see http://www.chensyn.com 27. For further information, see http://www.muzirisheritage.org 28. Malekandathil, “The Jews of Kerala”, 7–31. 29. Goitein and Friedman, India Traders; Weinstein, “Jewish Traders in the Indian Ocean”, 79–91. Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 11:16 29 September 2009 THE PLACE OF ALWAYE IN MODERN COCHIN JEWISH HISTORY 30. Segal, The Jews of Cochin. 31. The synagogue was apparently razed to the ground by the armies of Tipu Sultan in 1789 during the Anglo-Mysore wars (Katz and Goldberg, 62). The original cornerstone of the Cochangadi synagogue is to be found today in the inner courtyard of the Paradesi synagogue. 32. Katz and Goldberg, The Last Jews of Cochin 119. 33. I. S. Hallegua, On Dolly, Beloved Daughter of Isaac Elias Hallegua of Cochin, 1. 34. Daniel and Johnson, Ruby of Cochin, 40. 35. Elias Koder was the husband of Essie. 36. I. S. Hallegua, On Dolly, Beloved Daughter of Isaac Elias Hallegua of Cochin, 1. 37. Also known as Sattu Koder. He was the leader responsible for organizing the quartercentenary celebrations of the Paradesi synagogue in 1968 in the presence of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. 38. Interview with Samuel Hallegua, Cochin, 13.12.2008. 39. Today, known as the KTDC Guest House, this palace was once a favourite site for shooting films. 40. The Mattancherry Palace, built by the Portuguese, is also known as the “Dutch Palace” since the Dutch renovated it in 1663. It was presented to Veera Kerala Varma by the Portuguese in 1555. Today, it is a portrait gallery of the Cochin Rajas. 41. Interview with Simcha Yosef, Ernakulam, 24.2.2006. 42. Interview with Galia Hacco, Jerusalem, 3.2.2008. 43. For example, Samuel Abraham of the Ernakulam Tekkumbagam community used to live in Alwaye as a child. His son got married in December 2008 to a Bene Israel bride from Mumbai at the Paradesi synagogue, dubbed by the media “the last Jewish wedding in Cochin”. 44. Interview 8.1.2009. 45. Daniel and Johnson, Ruby of Cochin, 40. 46. Ibid., 80. 47. Ibid. 48. The reference is to the Malabari “Black” Jews. (S. W.) 49. The tarwad is a matrilineal joint family, prevalent in Kerala, particularly among highcaste Hindus. 50. Daniel and Johnson, Ruby of Cochin, 80. 51. Daniel and Johnson, Ruby of Cochin, 41–45. 52. It is possible, however, that Dolly was taken by ferry boat to Cochin. Samuel Hallegua’s maternal grandfather (Miriam Hallegua’s father, known as Shabtai Elias Naftali) was Chairman of the Ferry and Transport Company, which opened in the same year that Dolly died. His boat was called M.L.SEN. The initials were M= Miriam, his mother’s name, L=Lily, her daughter, and SEN = Shabtai Elias Naftali, his grandfather’s name. Interview with Samuel Hallegua Cochin, 13.12.2008. 53. The wall around this cemetery was completed on 16 September 1898. 54. Abraham Aron was known as P. T. Aron in his professional life as an advocate. 55. Weil, “Today is Purim”, 575–588. 56. Research on the “Elegy to Dolly” discovered in the house of I. S. Hallegua in Jew Town, Cochin is being carried out with the support of the Ben Zvi Institute, Jerusalem. 57. “May the Lord keep him alive and look after him” is an abbreviation in Hebrew. 58. “The respected Rabbi” is an abbreviation in Hebrew. 59. Similarly, “May the Lord keep him alive and look after him” is an abbreviation in Hebrew. 333 334 JOURNAL OF MODERN JEWISH STUDIES 60. 61. 62. 63. The Jewish year 5769 is 1909. The Jewish year 5767 is 1907. Weil, “Today is Purim”, 575–588. Daniel and Johnson, Ruby of Cochin, 141. Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 11:16 29 September 2009 References Brauch, Julia, Anna Lipphardt, and Alexandra Nocke (Eds.) Jewish Topographies. Aldershot, England and Burlington, USA: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2008. Chiriyankandath, James. “Nationalism, Religion and Community: A. B. Salem, the Politics of Identity, and the Disappearance of Cochin Jewry.” Journal of Global History 3 (2008): 21–42. Daniel, Ruby, and Barbara Johnson. Ruby of Cochin: An Indian Jewish Woman Remembers. Philadelphia and Jerusalem: Jewish Publication Society, 1995. Dardashti, Galeet. “The Buena Vista Baghdad Club: Negotiating Local, National and Global Representations of Jewish Iraqi Musicians in Israel.” Jewish Topographies. Eds. Brauch, Julia, Anna Lipphardt, and Alexandra Nocke. Aldershot, England and Burlington, USA: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2008. Ezra, Esmond D. Turning Back the Pages. London: Brookside Press, 1986. Fernandes, Edna. The Last Jews of Kerala. London: Portobello, 2008. Fishoff, Iris. “Moving the Cochin Synagogue from India to the Israel Museum: A Curator’s Perspective.” The Israel Museum Journal 13 (1995): 19–28. Goitein, S.D., and Mordechai A. Friedman. India Traders of the Middle Ages; Documents from the Cairo Geniza India Book. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Hacco, Galia. “The Ritual Cycle of Cochin Jewish Holidays: A Malabari Perspective.” India’s Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art and Life-Cycle Ed. Shalva Weil. 2nd ed. Mumbai: Marg Publications, 2004. Hallegua, I. S. On Dolly, Beloved Daughter of Isaac Elias Hallegua of Cochin. Cochin: Jew Town, Unpublished ms., n.d.. Herz, Manuel. “‘Eruv’Urbanism: Towards an Alternative ‘Jewish Architecture’.” Germany,” Jewish Topographies. Eds. Brauch, Julia, Anna Lipphardt, and Alexandra Nocke. Aldershot, England and Burlington, USA: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2008. Hyman, Mavis. Jews of the Raj. London: Hyman Publishers, 1995. Katz, Nathan and Ellen Goldberg. The Last Jews of Cochin: Jewish Identity in Hindu India. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1993. Kaplan, Brett Ashley. “Contested, Constructed home(lands); Diaspora, Postcolonialist Studies and Zionism.” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 6.1 (2008): 85–100. Lentin, Sifra. “The Jewish Presence in Bombay.” India’s Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art and LifeCycle. Ed. Shalva Weil. 2nd ed. Mumbai: Marg Publications, 2004. Lipis, Miriam, “A Hybrid Place of Belonging: Constructing and Siting the Sukkah.” Jewish Topographies. Eds., Julia Brauch, Anna Lipphardt, and Alexandra Nocke. Aldershot, England and Burlington, USA: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2008. Lipphardt, Anna, Brauch, Julia, and Alexandra Nocke, “Exploring Jewish Space: an Approach.” Jewish Topographies. Eds. Julia Brauch, Anna Lipphardt, and Alexandra Nocke. Aldershot, England and Burlington, USA: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2008. Malekandathil, Pius. “The Jews of Kerala and the Wheels of Indian Ocean Commerce, 800–1800 C.E.” Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies 9 (2007): 7–31. Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 11:16 29 September 2009 THE PLACE OF ALWAYE IN MODERN COCHIN JEWISH HISTORY Mandelbaum, David G. “Social Stratification among the Jews of Cochin in India and Israel.” Jewish Journal of Sociology 17 (1975): 165–210. Musleah, Ezekiel. On the Banks of the Ganga: the Sojourn of the Jews in Calcutta. North Quincy, MA: Christopher Publishing House, 1975. Pappe, Ilan. A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Rabinowitz, Louis. Far East Mission. Johannesburg: Eagle Press, 1952. Segal, J. B. “The Jews of Cochin and their Neighbours.” Essays Presented to Chief Rabbi Israel Brodie on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday. Ed. H. J. Zimmels. London: Soncino, Jews’ College Publication, 1967. Shafir, Gershon. Land, Labor and the Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict 1882–1914, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Waronker, Jay. “In Search of India’s Synagogues: their Architecture and History”. India’s Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art and Life-Cycle. Ed. Shalva Weil. 2nd ed. Mumbai: Marg Publications, 2004. Weil, Ilana. “The Paradesi Cochin Synagogue Architecture”. India’s Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art, and Life-Cycle. Ed. Shalva Weil. 2nd ed. Mumbai: Marg Publications, 2004. Weil, Shalva. “Symmetry between Christians and Jews in India: The Cnanite Christians and the Cochin Jews of Kerala.” Contributions to Indian Sociology 16 (2) (1982): 175–196. ———. “Lost Israelites from North-East India: Re-Traditionalisation and Conversion among the Shinlung from the Indo-Burmese Borderlands.” The Anthropologist 6 (3) (2004): 219–233 ———. “Motherland and Fatherland as Dichotomous Diasporas: the Case of the Bene Israel.” Les Diasporas 2000 ans d’Histoire. Eds. Lisa Anteby, William Berthomiere and Gabriel Sheffer. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2005. ———. “Today is Purim: A Cochin Jewish Song in Hebrew.” Tapasam, 1.3 (2006): 575–588. ———. “Jews in India”. M.Avrum Erlich (Ed.). Encyclopaedia of the Jewish Diaspora, Santa Barbara, USA: ABC CLIO, 3 (2008): 1204–1212 . Weinstein, Brian. “Jewish Traders in the Indian Ocean—Tenth to Thirteenth Centuries: A Review of Published Documents from the Cairo Genizah.” Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies 9 (200): 79–91. Shalva Weil is Senior Researcher at the Research Institute for Innovation in Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is editor of India’s Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art, and Life-Cycle (Marg 2002: 2nd edition 2004) co-editor (with Prof. D. Shulman) of Karmic Passages: Israeli Scholarship on India (Oxford University Press, New Delhi), and co-editor (with Profs. N. Katz, Chakravati and Sinha) of Indo-Judaic Studies in the Twenty-First Century: A Perspective from the Margin. She is a foremost international scholar on India’s Jews and Indo-Judaic studies and has published over 80 articles in scientific journals and major encyclopaedias. She is founding Chairperson of the Israel-India Cultural Association and President of SOSTEJE (Society for the Study of Ethiopian Jewry). In 2005, she was elected Coordinator of the European Sociological Association’s Qualitative Methods Research Network, and in 2007 was elected to the ESA’s Executive Committee. Address: Research Institute for Innovation in Education , Hebrew University , Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem 91905 Israel. Email: msshalva@mscc.huji.ac.il 335