5360 x 3560 px | 45,4 x 30,1 cm | 17,9 x 11,9 inches | 300dpi
Aufnahmedatum:
Februar 2009
Ort:
Jew - Town, Fort Cochin, Kerala, India
Weitere Informationen:
Street sign in Jew Town. Fort Cochin -, 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).Hebrew inscription at the Paradesi Synagogue in Cochin.Unfortunately for the Jews of Cochin, the Portuguese occupied Cochin in this same period and suppressed the Jews until the Dutch displaced them in 1660. The Dutch Protestants were tolerant, and the Jews prospered. In 1795 Cochin was occupied by and came under the control of the British Empire. In the 19th century, Cochin Jews lived in the towns of Cochin, Ernakulam, Aluva and North Paravur.
