Loading...

HE SEPHARDI DIASPORA IN COCHIN, INDIA

The influx of Sephardim into the ancient Jewish community of Cochin, in south India, resulted in a pattern of social organization unique in the Jewish world: the infamous white Jew/black Jew/brown Jew system. The Jews of Cochin organized themselves in patterns derived from their Hindu social context...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Nathan Katz and Ellen S. Goldberg
Format: Printed Book
Published: Jewish Political Studies Review 1993
Subjects:
Online Access:http://10.26.1.76/ks/005071.pdf
LEADER 02057nam a22001457a 4500
100 |a Nathan Katz and Ellen S. Goldberg  |9 23498 
245 |a HE SEPHARDI DIASPORA IN COCHIN, INDIA 
260 |b Jewish Political Studies Review   |c 1993 
300 |b 5:3-4 (Fall 1993) 
520 |a The influx of Sephardim into the ancient Jewish community of Cochin, in south India, resulted in a pattern of social organization unique in the Jewish world: the infamous white Jew/black Jew/brown Jew system. The Jews of Cochin organized themselves in patterns derived from their Hindu social context, a system known in the West as the caste system. The "white" or Paradesi ("foreign") Jews were Sephardi immigrants together with a few Jews from Iraq, Europe and Yemen, who joined with an indigenous elite. The "black" Jews, better known as Malabari Jews, were an ancient community which may have originated at the time of the destruction of the Second Temple. Each of these groups were slave-holders, and manumitted slaves fmeshuchrarim) from the Paradesi community were commu called "brown" Jews, while manumitted slaves from the Malabari were the known orumakers. (local term, nity by Malayalam language) Paradesi Jews would not count any of the other groups for their minyan, would not allow them synagogal honors, would not marry them, and would not eat meat slaughtered by their ritual slaughterers. Ever since the 1520 responsa by the eminent Sephardi halakhist Rabbi ibn Zimra, foreign Jews had been unanimous in condemning this discrimi natory behavior, and Paradesi Jews in Cochin had been uniform in ignoring these admonitions. Yet while Indian culture may have been the source of the problem, it was also the inspiration for its solution. A.B. Salem, known as the "Jewish Gandhi" 98 led sit-ins, hunger strikes, and other forms of "civil disobedience" an end only (satyagr 
650 |a JEWS;  |a MALABARI JEWS;  |9 23499 
856 |u http://10.26.1.76/ks/005071.pdf 
942 |c KS 
999 |c 75531  |d 75531 
952 |0 0  |1 0  |4 0  |7 0  |9 67513  |a MGUL  |b MGUL  |d 2015-11-20  |l 0  |r 2015-11-20  |w 2015-11-20  |y KS