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When The Homeland Was In India
(Continued from page 26)
on the history of the Jews of
Ajuvanam by the copper plates,
complete darkness enshrouds them.
Perhaps a Jewish exploring expedi
tion will some day investigate the
site of Ajuvanam and bring to light
evidence of Jewish life in this for
gotten Jewish state.
Ajuvanam’s days became num
bered in the time of the Great
Moguls, when the wave of Moham
medan conquest penetrated as far
as Southern India. The state of
Callicut, where a Mohammedan
prince, the Zamorin, ruled since
the 14th century, was a neighbor
of Cochin. According to tradition,
a fratricidal quarrel broke out
among Joseph Rabban’s successors,
and one of them enlisted the help
of the Zamorin. The downfall of
Ajuvanam and the migration of the
Jews to Cochin, which had in the
meantime become an important
port, dates from then. Cochin’s
oldest synagogue was built in 1344.
But another two centuries were
to pass before Ajuvanam was com
pletely destroyed and the last prince
of the line of Joseph Rabban —
according to tradition the seventy-
second successor of the first Jewish
ruler—had to flee.
In 1500 a European fleet ap
peared on the coast of India for the
first time when the Portuguese
under Cabral arrived. Vasco da
Gama, who circumnavigated the
globe, found a trading post at
Cochin in 1501 when lie reached
India. He brought back with him
to Europe a Jewish pilot—later
known as Gaspard da Gama, the ex
plorer’s ward. In 1506 the Indian
Jews were able to buy Hebrew
books printed in Europe for the
first time, for Francis Pinheiro, a
court official, brought an entire
case to India and loot from the
Portuguese synagogues which had
been destroyed during the In
quisition. And in 1513 the gov
ernor of Albuquerque informed the
Portuguese government that an
important influx of Portuguese and
Spanish Jews was noticeable in
India. “May I exterminate them
all when I run across them?” the
philanthropic grandee inquired of
his government.
When the Portuguese invaders
joined forces with the Zamorin,
Ajuvanam’s position became un
tenable. The Inquisition was
brought to the Malabar Coast in
1560. Five years later a combined
army of the Portuguese and the
Zamorin attacked Granganere and
the entire area, slaying all the in
habitants and razing every build
ing. Thus the Jewish state of
Joseph Rabban ceased to exist.
Whatever happened there and
how it happened, we do not know.
But it is certain that the final
conquest and destruction of the
Jewish state was so catastrophic
an event that the Jews of India
compared it to the destruction of
the Temple in Jerusalem. To this
day tlu* place is shunned by Jews.
If a Jew finds himself anywhere
near the site of Ajuvanam at meal
time, he will not eat.
The destruction of Ajuvanam
and the flight of its populace to
Cochin, marked the beginning of
the history of one of the most in
teresting segments of Diaspora
Jewry, the black and white Jews of
Cochin. Both Jewries still preserve
the memory of the Jewish state of
Ajunavam, and in the Aron Kodesh
of their beautiful synagogue they
guard as their greatest treasure the
copper plates that tell of the crea
tion of the first Jewish state since
the dispersion.
{Copyright 1917 for The Southern Israelite)
RANLO
MANUFACTURING
COMPANY
FACTORY IN GASTONIA, N. C.
Manufacturers of
TAPESTRIES
and PLUSHES
KARDED YARNS
GREY•DYED•NOVELTY
E-Z
Rehearsal For Revolt
UNDERWEAR
(Continued from page 25)
to do away with intellectual dif
ferentiation, to make available posi
tions for professors, notaries, phy
sicians and editors, to create room
for writers and actors, to take over
banks and business enterprises and
clienteles a slogan had to be found
that would catch the popular fancy,
satisfy the guiding powers and mask
the social character of the attack.
Three ancient bogeys, well tried
through centuries of struggles for
power, were available, and the
choice fell on all three: “Down
with the Jew’s, down wdth the
Jesuits, down with the Free Masons,
underminers of the State!” To
direct the attack against all three
was imprudent, for it facilitated the
opposition’s view’ of the motives
behind the events. But it w r as un
avoidable. Millions of jobs had to
be given out, millions of promises
had to be kept—the group of those
to be dispossessed had to be made
as large as possible.
As no further extension of it is
possible, however, the discontent
of those who have been partially
or wholly neglected so far is be
coming a source of danger. This
we can see from the welfare carried
on against other organizations and
groups that are distinguishable from
actual Nazis only by the fact that
their allegiance to the old leaders
and commanders—the conserva
tive wealthy Prussian landowners
and the military aristocracy—is
embellished with no explanations or
brown coloring. But the inevitable
next step toward giving work and
human dignity to all is frank social
revolution. To avoid it the present
system is willing to shed the blood
of its ow r n adherents far more
copiously than was done on June
30, 1934.
But the morale of German Jewry
(.Please turn to page 31)
‘ for any child of any age"
MILLS AT
BENNINGTON
VERMONT
CARTERSVILLE
GEORGIA
h;
A. S. HAIGHT & CO.
57 Worth Street
NEW YORK. CITY
* THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
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