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Bene Israel women perform kirtans at AJDC program in Mumbai, 2016 (Surabhi Sharma)
This year, COVID-19 competes with Haman as the villain of the Jewish holiday of Purim for India’s Bene Israel “
kirtankars.” The kirtankars, a group of elderly women from the Mumbai Jewish community who sing
kirtan, or traditional devotional songs, had planned to perform a kirtan about Queen Esther in the synagogue for the holiday. But with places of worship mostly closed due to the pandemic, the women’s performance has been canceled.
Kirtans are traditional storytelling songs inspired by Hindu devotional music. The ones sung by the Bene Israel are in the local Marathi language and include Hebrew words. They extol great figures of the Hebrew Bible, such as Joseph, Moses, David and Elijah. The one the women had hoped to perform this week is called “Esther Ranichi Katha” or the tale of Queen Esther who saved the Jews.
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.
December 15, 2020 1:53 pm A sign denotes Kochi s Jew street, as it is known locally, which once was a hub of Indian Jewish life. (Christabel Lobo)
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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,” 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.