Note 53 — J

“The White Jews,” Mr. Adler writes, “claiming that they, and they alone, are the true descendants of the aboriginal Jews of Cranganūr, retain the copper tablets in their possession, and boast that, about the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Rājah of Cochin invested the head of the Hallegua family with the hereditary title of Mudaliar or Noble [and a wand with a silver knob as a sign of his dignity], with the power of punishing certain crimes. The males of that family still bear the title, but their feudal rights have been abrogated. Nowadays the number of White Jews has dwindled to less than 200, so that it was easy to procure a list of all their names. From the foreign origin of their surnames (Kindel, Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, Koder, Roby, Sassoon), as well as for other reasons, it seems certain that the White Jews are late comers, who did not settle in India till after the destruction of Cranganūr. They were traders, who came to Cochin; they prospered under the rule of the Dutch, and built their synagogue and quarter after the Black Jews were already established there. Though, now, they hold themselves jealously aloof from the Black Jews, they were at first quite intimate and friendly. The Indian environment has had the opposite effect to that which England has had upon our Ashkenazim and our no longer exclusive Sephardim. In India caste is varna, which means colour, and their difference in colour has produced caste distinctions among the Indian Jews. But, although the White Jews are fair, some of them are certainly not quite white, nor are the Black Jews quite black. Some of the ‘Black’ Jews are hardly distinguishable from their ‘White’ brethren. Their customs, ritual, and religious observances are the same. Their synagogues are so alike that it needs some keenness of eyesight to detect that two pictures are not of the identical building. The only great (?) difference is that the White Jews have theirs tiled with rare old blue tiles, over which newspaper correspondents wax eloquent. They say the tiles are old Dutch, but really they are genuine Chinese [blue and white Canton China],53 whereby hangs a tale. The synagogue was built nearly 200 years ago in a corner of the Rājah’s palace-yard. At that time, the Dutch were in possession of what is now British Cochin, and they were the only people trading with China. The Rājah, through his allies the Dutch, had imported a large quantity of the best China tiles to pave his Darbar hall, but the Jews, says Mr. Thurston, thought they would just do for the synagogue they were building, so they told the Rājah that he could not possibly use them, inasmuch as bullock’s blood had been employed in their manufacture. His Highness, much perturbed at the indignity to so sacred an animal, bade them take the tiles away, and never let him see them again. Hence their presence in the synagogue. The other synagogue has tiles also, but they are of gleaming white.” The synagogues, it may be added, are square whitewashed buildings, surmounted by a bell-tower. It is said that the Kadyabagan synagogue of the Black Jews is admitted by the White Jews to be the oldest at present existing, having been built in the 12th century.