Kochini

The Kochini, or Malabar Jews, are the oldest Jewish community of India, established on the Kerala coast, where tradition places their first settlers in the generation after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, at the port of Cranganore. Hebrew signatures on the Kollam copper plates of 849 attest to Jewish traders in the region, and later royal plates made the Jewish leader Joseph Rabban a prince over his community.

In 1341 a flood silted up Cranganore harbour, and the Jews shifted with the pepper trade to Cochin and built their first synagogue there. The Portuguese who arrived in 1500 discriminated against them, and after 1492 Sephardic exiles later called Paradesi Jews joined them and built their own synagogue.

When the Dutch took Cochin in 1663 the community gained a more tolerant ruler. They followed the Sephardic rite and looked above all to the code of Maimonides.