Repetitious history of a vanishing community.The title refers to
the fewer than 50 remaining Jews living in the province of Kerala,
on India's tropical southwest shores. The Paradesi, or "white"
Jews, live in Mattancherry; across the river at Ernakulam live the
Malabari, or "black" Jews. Both groups' ancestries date as far back
as the great Jewish Diaspora of 70 CE. For centuries these Jews
prospered in religiously tolerant India, playing important parts in
business and at court, until their numbers grew to thousands. The
crux of the story, writes journalist Fernandes (Holy Warriors: A
Journey Into the Heart of Indian Fundamentalism, 2007), is the
long-running argument between the white and black Jews regarding
who arrived in Kerala first; this has made all the difference as
the community nears extinction. The author chronicles soured
relations between black and white, the establishment of an
apartheid system and the interbreeding that prevented the
maintenance of a "pure" Jewish community. Fernandes's attempt to
depict their demise as tragic is unpersuasive. As one elder
Paradesi summed up, "Now after the others left, gone to Israel,
gone overseas, or just gone - the Kashmiris, the Muslims, the
Christians have come." This is the oft-told story of many small
towns: The younger generation was no longer committed to living in
a backwater, upholding traditions of the older generation just to
keep the town alive. Furthermore, there is nothing "forgotten"
about the Kerala Jews' story. Political and spiritual world leaders
have walked down their dusty streets for decades, visiting the
enclave in a show of homage to the ancients who succeeded
handsomely, but whose time has gone. The book degenerates into a
series of interviews in which anecdotal evidence, opinion, rumor
and redacted history supersede thoughtful accounting.Spirited prose
and often entertaining personal testimonies can't save an uneven
narrative that too often lapses into bland travelogue. (Kirkus
Reviews)
Separated by a narrow stretch of swamp-like waters, and
distinguished by the colour of their skin, the Black Jews and the
White Jews have been locked in a rancorous feud for centuries. Only
now, when their combined number has diminished to fewer than fifty
and they are on the threshold of extinction, have the two remaining
Jewish communities in south India begun to realise that their
destiny, and their undoing, is the same. Living in Cochin alongside
this last generation, Edna Fernandes tells their story from the
illustrious arrival of their ancestors from the court of King
Solomon, through their long heyday of wealth, tolerance and
privilege to their present twilight existence, as synagogues
crumble into disuse and weddings become a thing of the past,
leaving only funerals.
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