Jews in Kolkata
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Kankurgachi
Sayan Lodh, January 11, 2023: The Times of India
Across India, Jewish tombs are venerated according to Hindu and Muslim rituals, including those of a Jew-turned-Sufi saint whose severed head recited love poems and a Yemenite Kabbalist with supernatural powers. So how did the graves of Jews become such resonant non-Jewish pilgrimage sites?
In the Kankurgachi neighborhood of the Indian city of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), the Das family worships a large gravestone which sits in the courtyard of their home. In traditional Hindu fashion, they adorn it with marigold flowers and incense sticks. Every Thursday, a special puja worship ritual takes place at the tomb, in which prayers are said and fresh garlands of flower are placed atop it.
But this isn't a Hindu tomb. It is the last remnant of what was Kolkata's "Jews Burying Ground No. 59." The gravestone and an unnoticeable plaque, now obscured by an electric installation box, are solitary witnesses to its real identity and the city's now-obscured Jewish past.
This tomb is part of a fascinating phenomenon: It is one of three instances of Jewish graves worshipped by non-Jews in India, an intriguing ritual transmutation I came across while working on my dissertation on the Jews of Kolkata.
Mrs. Das, one of the grave's guardians, proudly declares that the tomb is their "family deity," who fulfils their wishes and protects them from evil. The Das family believes that the most prominent of the graves belongs to a male, on the basis of a fantastic paranormal experience that Mrs. Das' mother-in-law had in the 1960s.
According to her account, on a winter’s night, she'd stepped outside and saw an old Jewish priest, dressed in white robes with a long beard and wearing the wooden kharam slippers worn by Hindu ascetics, ascending from the grave. The elderly apparition assured her, "I won’t harm you.”
However, the prominent tomb in the family courtyard actually belongs to a woman called Geula (or Jalla), daughter of Nissim Isaac (Yitzhak) Abraham. She passed away on Monday, 29 Tishri 5631 of the Jewish calendar, corresponding to the Gregorian date of October 24, 1870, and was buried in accordance with Jewish custom the next day.
The Hebrew tombstone uses the word “merahemeth” (the Hebraized form of the Arabic “marhum,” meaning "deceased one," used by the Baghdadi Jews who made up a significant proportion of Calcutta's Jewish community) with letters requesting her soul "be bound in the bonds of eternal life.”
Deepanjan Ghosh, a local blogger who writes about various unknown facets of Kolkata and Bengal, states that this tiny private graveyard opened in the 1870s and closed around 20 years later.
The tomb later passed into the hands of one of Geula’s descendants, Gala Gubbay, whose family now live in San Francisco. The Gubbay family might have given the plot to Das family when they left India; after India became independent in 1947 and Israel followed a year later, many Jews from Calcutta emigrated abroad, primarily to English speaking countries and Israel.
The Das family, the current owners of the plot, sent a symbolic sprinkling of earth from the courtyard for the Gubbays to create a memorial to the family members left behind in Indian soil.
Sujaan Mukherjee, a Ph.D. scholar on history and memory in public spaces in Kolkata at the city's Jadavpur University, offers an expert explanation for the existence of this cemetery. He writes in his paper, “The Jewish Community of Calcutta: A Note on the Archive” that a Bengali man, probably Hindu, had married a Jewish woman, and when his wife died, the elders of the Jewish community refused to bury her in the established Jewish Narkeldanga Cemetery.
Dalia Ray offers another explanation in her book "The Jewish Heritage of Calcutta": In her account, Geula was unmarried and living with her "Bengali paramour." Hence, after her death, she was forbidden to be buried in the official Jewish cemetery. Consequently, the man bought a nearby plot of land and buried his lover there.
Later, a few more burials took place there, totaling seven graves – those of five adults and two children. The curved tops of the tombs indicate their Sephardic origins. This private Jewish cemetery was so understated and literally marginal to the formal Jewish community of Calcutta then and now that even the guards and caretakers of the Narkeldanga cemetery aren't aware of it, nor are most of the local Jews of Kolkata.
The matriarch of the Das family says that her father-in-law was appointed caretaker of the cemetery in the late 1940s. Her husband cared for the graves after her father-in-law passed away. Currently, her younger son minds the tombs. She recalls that "fair-skinned, English-speaking Jews" used to visit the graveyard during the winter, but for the last ten to twelve years, no Jews have visited the graves.
The tombs are regularly cleaned and repainted. But except for the epitaph on the largest grave, the others are illegible, having been repainted once too often or because they have been hidden by subsequent construction nearby. The neighboring Hindu families, like the Das clan, revere Geula's tomb. A low wall has been erected around the grave, separating the sacred from the profane, to protect it from inappropriate, mundane "pollution."
While Hindus worship at Geula's tomb, Muslims worship at the grave of another Jew who lived and died a few centuries before her. Sarmad Kashani, born to an Armenian Jewish merchant family in 1590, was known for his poetry, eccentric life and syncretic religious beliefs, which led to his execution for heresy.
The Persian-speaking Sarmad arrived in the subcontinent in the early 17th century via the port of Thatta in Gujarat. There, he fell in love with Abhai Chand, a young Hindu boy, who became his companion for the rest of his life. During this time, Sarmad shed all his materialistic inhibitions, and roamed around naked throughout the Deccan Plateau and in Delhi. He dived into Sufi thought, converted to Islam and became a Sufi saint.
In Delhi, he settled at the shrine of the Sufi saint Abul Qasim Harebhare. Sarmad also broke from the rituals and traditions of the region's religions, and this spiritual inventiveness brought him to a curious Mughal prince, Dara Shikoh, the eldest son of Emperor Shah Jahan.
But Shah Jahan was succeeded by his younger and radical son Aurangzeb, who had his father imprisoned and defeated his older brothers in the ensuing war of succession. Aurangzeb was unimpressed by Sarmad's extreme asceticism, his heterodox lifestyle and his alliance with his adversary, Dara Shikoh – and thus had him beheaded in 1660.
The last straw was, apparently, when Sarmad was asked to recite the kalma, the Muslim declaration of faith ("There is no God but Allah") but stopped after reciting "There is no God," and refused to complete the sentence.
According to legend, Sarmad carried his severed head to the footsteps of Delhi's Jama Masjid (mosque), his lifeless mouth continuing to recite his love poems. His shrine, located near the masjid, is revered mainly by Muslims, who regard him as a "shaheed," or martyr. Unlike the tombs of other Sufi saints, Sarmad's tomb is painted bright red, signifying love and sacrifice.
The third Jewish tomb revered in India belongs to another Jewish poet – but of quite different ancestry, reputation and habits.
Nehemiah Ben Abraham Motha (1580-1615) was a Yemenite Jewish Kabbalist, a Hebrew poet and an expert in Jewish mysticism, who moved to Cochin, Kerala towards the end of the 16th century. He married a woman from the local Malabari Jewish community, colloquially known as the "Black" Jews, who claim an ancient lineage on India's Malabar coast, as opposed to a Paradesi, or “White” Jews who arrived from the 15th century onwards after their expulsion from Spain and Portugal.
His title, "Motha" is derived from the Malayalam "mootha" (elder) or "muttan" (old man, or grandfather). Besides presenting a basic biography of Nehemiah, his epitaph mentions the following titles: "Famous Kabbalist," "Light of Learning," "Perfect Sage," "Hassid," "God Fearing," "Dear Rabbi" and "Our Master."
The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906 mentioned Nehemiah as the “false messiah” of Cochin Jewry. This was the earliest English reference to the tomb. Hayyim Jacob HaCohen Feinstein’s Mashbit Milhamot (1874) contains the earliest Hebrew reference to the site. South African Chief Rabbi, Louis Rabinowitz who visited the site in 1952, dismissed the claims regarding Nehemiah Motha made by the Jewish Encyclopedia. In his travelogue Far East Mission, Rabinowitz noted “his grave is a Mecca not only for Jews but for Hindus and Christians...”
Nehemiah Motha’s tomb was located at the Malabari Jewish cemetery at Kadavumbhagam, which was left without guardians when the Malabari Jewish community left en masse for Israel in the 1950s. In the wake of land reform legislation, the site was occupied and then demolished in its entirety in 1957 but Nehemiah’s tomb alone was left untouched.
In common with Geula’s tomb, there are supernatural stories surrounding the final resting place of the "Kabbalist of Cochin." Soon after his death, legends began circulating: That Nehemiah would fly in the air to reach home in time for Sabbath prayers, that praying at his tomb could bring healing of body and soul and the fulfillment of the petitioner's wishes. Another legend narrates that his tomb remains cold even in the extreme summer temperatures. According to a popular local tale, when locals tried to demolish his tomb, the earth trembled and a fire broke out.
As his miraculous posthumous fame spread, Nehemiah was elevated to the position of a local patron saint amongst Jews, Christians, Hindus and Muslims in Cochin, and his tomb revered likewise to this day as a cultic and pan-denominational meeting point. His death anniversary on the 25th of Kislev according to Jewish calendar is still celebrated by the descendants of Malabari Jews in Israel.
India is a land of immense diversity, and despite their miniscule numbers, Jews have contributed to its culture and nation-building even in ways that the community members themselves could hardly have imagined in their own lifetimes.
These tombs, too, are a part of India's Jewish heritage, and the reverence in which they held by India's major religious communities, curious as it may seem to outsiders, is witness to a syncretistic, inclusive and expansive idea of human nature, faith and "Indianness" which should be protected and celebrated.
The last Jews in Kolkata
As of 2025
Nikita Mohta, July 15, 2025: The Indian Express
By the 1940s, there were over 4,000 Jews in the city. Several Jewish institutions had also been established, including three synagogues, the Jewish Girls’ School, and the Jewish Ezra hospital. But colonialism and circumstances reduced Calcutta’s Jewry to a mere handful.
“We were a community of five thousand in the 1940s; now we’re just 20 odd members, aged 60 or above,” says Jael Silliman, scholar and author of Jewish Portraits, Indian Frames: Women’s Narratives from a Diaspora of Hope (2001). One of the last remaining Jews in Calcutta, Silliman reminisces about the time when the Jewish community met in synagogues for service, in Jewish clubs for sports and leisure, and came together to celebrate New Year, Rosh Hashanah, and the holiest day of all — Yom Kippur. But colonialism and circumstances reduced Calcutta’s Jewry to a mere handful.
Today, only remnants remain: a few synagogues, schools, and a cemetery. The Jewish Girls’ School (JGS) on Park Street still runs, but without a single Jewish student. Synagogues remain scattered across the city, but regular services have ceased. “They cannot gather a minyan, the required number of ten males necessary to hold a service,” says Silliman. Nahoum & Sons in New Market is still the city’s beloved Jewish legacy, but its menu has evolved to cater to modern tastes. This is the story of Calcutta’s Jewish community and their descent into oblivion.
Calcutta’s first Jews
The first Jews to arrive in Calcutta belonged to the Baghdadi community, one of the three Jewish communities in India. The other two — the Bene Israel of Maharashtra and Gujarat, and the Cochin Jews — had settled in India long before the Baghdadis. According to Navras Jaat Aafreedi, assistant professor of Modern Indian History and Jewish History at the Presidency University, “The oldest written reference to the presence of the Bene Israel in the Konkan strip belongs to the year 1734.” The community, Aafreedi says, was described as one that was monotheistic, that refused to indulge in idol worship, that observed Sabbath on Saturday, and a community that refrained from consuming pork and circumcised their male offspring on the eighth day of birth.
Sayan Lodh, whose PhD focuses on the Judaizing Movements in India at Presidency University, says that Baghdadi Jews arrived in Calcutta in several waves, beginning in 1798 with Shalom Ovadya HaCohen from Aleppo, Syria. HaCohen was joined by family and other merchants from Iraq, Syria, and Persia who traded in jewellery, indigo, spices, opium, and silk. “They gradually established a thriving commercial network stretching from West to East Asia, extending across all major ports such as Basra, Bombay, Calcutta, Singapore, and Hong Kong,” notes Lodh. This, according to him, came to form ‘Jewish Asia’.
These merchants rented and purchased houses from Armenians, with whom Calcutta’s Baghdadis maintained a close relationship for centuries. “Until the Baghdadi elite moved to southern Calcutta between 1900 and 1950, they shared the city’s grey town with Armenians, Anglo-Indians, Greeks, Portuguese,” writes academic Nathan Katz in Who Are the Jews of India? (2000).
The next wave of migration was in the 1830s when there was flooding in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. A large number of Jewsmoved to Calcutta and set up trading houses. In a short time, they made a great fortune. Lodh says, “They, in turn, re-invested their wealth in real estate, owning some of the prominent landmarks in Calcutta [Esplanade Mansions (built in 1910), Chowringhee Mansions (1907)]…”
The final waves of Jewish immigration to Calcutta occurred in the early to mid-twentieth century, “driven in part by the Ottoman Empire’s policy which made it compulsory for all males to serve in the army as World War I approached, and later by the horrors of Holocaust during World War II,” says Lodh.
Commercial opportunities, according to Silliman, were another driving factor. “As the British presidencies of Calcutta and Bombay developed, Jewish merchants came here in search of fortune,” she says.
By the 1940s, there were over 4,000 Jews in the city. Several Jewish institutions had also been established, including three synagogues, the Jewish Girls’ School (1881), and the Jewish Ezra hospital (1887). “There’s also the Ezra House and the Gubbay House in the Alipore zoo, housing birds and reptiles. It is named after Jewish philanthropists,” says Silliman.
The Calcutta Jews strictly observed their Baghdadi practices, including speaking Arabic, eating regional cuisine, and wearing traditional clothes. However, the Mutiny of 1857 came as a significant turning point. As Katz notes, “This traumatic event propelled India’s Baghdadis to abandon their familiar Middle Eastern cultural roots and to seek European status and identity.” Part of that process was to imitate the British and shed their Indianness.
Mimicking colonial rulers
The ‘anglicisation’ of Calcutta’s Jews, as described by Lodh, began with language. English replaced Arabic in Baghdadi homes and offices. “By 1915, this transition had been effected among the elite and by 1930, English was the language used for all community records, correspondence, and education,” adds Katz. The elites of the Jewish community sent their daughters to Loreto House, a Catholic school.
While earlier residing in the greytown district of Burrabazar, Baghdadi Jews now began moving closer to the white town districts of Bow Bazar, Park Street, and Ballygunge. Jewish architecture, too, resembled British style. “The Maghen David Synagogue, for instance, externally resembles a church with a tall spire and a clock tower,” observes Lodh.
Baghdadi Jews also served as sheriffs, municipal councillors, and honorary magistrates in Calcutta. In 1879, Elia David Joseph was appointed Sheriff, an honour later conferred on his two sons. “The Baghdadi Jews, in fact, adopted a Judeo-British identity,” asserts author Suparna Ghosh Bhattacharya in The Baghdadi Jews in India (2019). The anglicised women of the Baghdadi community played sports such as badminton, hockey, and basketball, emulating the lifestyle of British women.
“Their clothing changed, and so did their religious rituals,” says Lodh. He also mentions the practice of cutting cakes during weddings and wearing European suits and wedding dresses.
An identity crisis in post-colonial India
However, mimicking the rulers proved fruitless. The revision of electoral rolls for Central and Provincial (Bengal and Bombay) Legislatures between 1929 and 1935 eliminated the Baghdadis from the European group and categorised them as ‘non-Mohammedan’ along with the Bene-Israel and Cochin Jews.
“The Baghdadis finally understood their predicament in siding with the British, and gradually started to come closer with the other two Jewish communities in India…from the 1930s,” writes Lodh in his journal article The Role of Baghdadi Jews in India’s Freedom Movement (2024).
A Jew, Bernard V Jacob, attempted to establish an ‘All India Council’ to bring the three Jewish communities together. However, a cohort comprising all the factions remained a distant dream. The Baghdadis refused to assimilate with their co-religionists. They did not participate in politics either, and barely understood the nationalist sentiment of fellow Indians.
Partition in 1947 deepened the crisis. “Questions of their ethnic and communal identity became urgent, and they could no longer define themselves in terms of their Jewishness alone,” argues academic Joan G Roland in The Baghdadi Jews in India.
Many Baghdadis recognised that being both Indian and Jewish was possible and compatible. When the Constitution of India was adopted on 26 January 1950, notes Roland, the Jews also celebrated. “They declared their allegiance to India, participated in Indian elections, and most accepted Indian citizenship…even though they felt their economic future was uncertain,” she adds.
Still, life after the British worried the community. With the departure of the colonial rulers and the emergence of the State of Israel a year later, Baghdadis made up their minds about leaving Calcutta. “It is also possible,” reckons Lodh, “that what they witnessed in Calcutta, the communal riots during the partition period, made them uneasy about living in independent India.” He mentions the account of Flower Silliman, a beloved member of the Baghdadi community who passed away last year, recalling how she witnessed the riots as a teenager and was deeply traumatised by the experience.
Socialist policies issued by the Indian government further discouraged the Jews. The regulations restricted imports and controlled the export of foreign exchange, hampering the business of many wealthy Baghdadis.
“As Calcutta’s Jews began emigrating in increasing numbers to Israel, the UK, America, Canada, and Australia, JGS, in its new premises, became all but devoid of Jewish students,” says Silliman. In 1953, the school administrative body decided to admit non-Jewish students.
Calcutta’s Jewry today
The identity of Calcutta’s Baghdadi Jews remained ambiguous, neither British nor Indian. They were always worried about assimilation and strived to distinguish themselves from the Hindu, Muslim, and Christian communities of the city. Katz says, “These Jewish immigrants were attracted to India largely because of the opportunities the British presence afforded, and they left India soon after the British did.” He adds that they were never intrinsically Indian as the Bene Israel or Cochini Jews – truly, “an identity aloof.”
Today, only a few Baghdadi Jews remain. When asked about their numbers, Aafreedi says: “How do you count Jews?” Jewish identity, he explains, is passed through the mother. “Anyone born of a Jewish mother is Jewish, irrespective of what the person’s faith is. Conversely, someone with a Jewish father but a non-Jewish mother would typically need to undergo conversion.”
The heritage buildings spread across Calcutta are among the last remaining links to the city’s Jewish past. “What I’ve learned from studying Calcutta’s Jewish community,” says Lodh, “is that several communities, other than the Bengalis, have played a role in shaping the city far out of proportion to their numbers. The Jews are one such community.”
