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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)
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.
Once a vibrant community of approximately 3,000 at its peak in the 1950s, only a handful of elderly Jews now remain in a city of some 677,000. According to Weil, there really is no community in Kochi anymore
“You won’t find more than five or 10 Jews,” she said.
Unlike other dwindling Jewish communities around the world, the Jews of Kochi did not leave their country due to persecution or hardship. Rather, it was the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 that attracted many from the mostly Orthodox community to emigrate and start a new life in the Jewish homeland.
