| The Last Jews of Kerala: The Two Thousand Year History of India's Forgotten Jewish Community |  | Author: Edna Fernandes
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 413,676
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 1602392676
Dewey Decimal Number: 954.83004924
EAN: 9781602392670
ASIN: 1602392676
Publication Date: June 1, 2008
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Product Description
When a people die out, can their story survive?
Two thousand years ago, trade routes and the fall of Jerusalem took Jewish settlers seeking sanctuary across Europe and Asia. One little-known group settled in Kerala, in tropical southwestern India. Eventually numbering in the thousands, with eight synagogues, they prospered. Some came to possess vast estates and plantations, and many enjoyed economic privilege and political influence. Their comfortable lives, however, were haunted by a feud between the Black Jews of Ernakulam and the White Jews of Mattancherry. Separated by a narrow stretch of swamp and the color of their skin, they locked in a rancorous feud for centuries, divided by racism and claims and counterclaims over who arrived first in their adopted land.
Today, this once-illustrious people is in its dying days. Centuries of interbreeding and a latter-day Exodus from Kerala after Israel's creation in 1948 have shrunk the population. The Black and White Jews combined now number less than fifty, and only one synagogue remains. On the threshold of extinction, the two remaining Jewish communities of Kerala have come to realize that their destiny, and their undoing, is the same. The Last Jews of Kerala narrates the rise and fall of the Black Jews and the White Jews over the centuries and within the context of the grand history of the Jewish people. It is the story of the twilight days of a people whose community will, within the next generation, cease to exist. Yet it is also a rich tale of weddings and funerals, of loyalty to family and fierce individualism, of desperation and hope.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 6
 Pleasurable History Lesson December 14, 2008
June Bug (Planet Earth)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
While some authors make you feel inferior by not knowing the background of the topic and others can make the most interesting story, dry and boring. Ms. Fernandes overcomes both challenges with flying colors. Her approach to the topic gave this story legs. The story starts when she arrives in Kerala to interview the residents, whose families go back several centuries to several millenia. Later we meet former Kerala Jews, who left to start new lives in Israel.
Her glimpses into the personalities of those who have experienced India first hand is the ultimate treasure. We learn that Kerala Jews will soon be a note in the history books, due to the internal struggles between the original settlers (black Jews), who can trace their heritage and relocation back to King Solomon and those whose relatives immigrated to flee the Spanish Inquisition, the (white Jews); that due to the white Jews money and prejudice as well as their ability to control the means by which the history of Kerala Jews has been reaccounted (they maintained separatism and refusal to allow interracial marriages), which ultimately has ended a legacy and a lifestyle.
It is a sad note on history that even a shared culture (Judaism), could not overcome human nature.
My only criticism of the book, we never know why the author pursued this topic and only came to have knowledge that her own heritage was Indian near the very end of the book, (her last name is Spanish and she mentions early on that she is a native of Great Britain). I read the Advance Reading Copy so perhaps this was addressed in the published books.
 an interesting story November 30, 2008
Michael Lewyn (Jacksonville, FL)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
The author visited a small, declining Jewish community in Southern India- a community that once had thousands of Jews and now has less than a hundred. Why did the community decline? The author focuses heavily on dissension between the "White Jews" (who came to India after the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492) and the "Black Jews" (who had lived in India longer and who physically resemble other Indians rather than Europeans). Until the mid-20th century, the White Jews refused to intermarry (or even to have much to do with) the Black Jews, causing Jews to leave India in search of mates. But many other non-Israeli communities have declined as well, so it seems unlikely that such dissension was as important as the author thinks.
Probably the major factor causing the decline of South Indian Jewry was the pull of the state of Israel; as the author concedes, "the primary reason to go was to return to the land of their forefathers." In addition, India's early socialist governments were hostile to large-scale enterpreneurship, nationalizing major businesses (often owned by Jews) and restricting foreign trade (another area which Jews were concentrated in). Although these policies were not intentionally anti-Jewish, they nevertheless made the Jewish community poorer and thus more willing to leave.
The most interesting essays are those at the end, describing how Indian Jews have adjusted to Israel. Some fit in quite well; others are unhappy (and in some cases have even returned home) due to the fast pace of life, terrorism and warfare in Israel.
Survival is hard for tiny minority May 11, 2010
Carol Kasper Winet (Pasadena, California United States)
This book is an account of that portion of the Jewish diaspora that wound up on the southwest coast of India, in Kerala. King Solomon sent traders there before the Christian era, and later, after the destruction of the temples, additional Jews wound up on its shores. These early settlers, probably heavily male, intermarried with the dark-skinned local women. Their descendants, retaining dark coloration, are known as "black Jews". One early settler made a great impression on the local Raja and was granted special privileges, almost on a par with being royal. Another wave of immigrants followed the Inquisition, and remained segregated, protecting their racial purity as white-skinned people, or "white Jews", disdaining their darker brethren and refused to intermarry or use the same synagogues. The advantage of being in Kerala was the high level of religious tolerance, for Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Christians lived and still live in amity. When the State of Israel was founded, some Indian Jews, from Kerala as well as from Bombay and Calcutta and elsewhere, went to Israel; most stayed, gradually getting used to the very different conditions. A few who went from Kerala to Israel were uncomfortable in Israel, mostly because of the perpetual fear of the Arab enemies but also because of the hustle and bustle, and some of these returned to Kerala where one's neighbors were, at least, not physically hostile. The exodus to Israel plus the refusal of the white Jews to intermarry has led to a greatly shrunken Jewish population in Kerala and in India in general. The handful of "white Jews" will not survive for their are no children nor prospects of any. The larger number of "black Jews" in Kerala might survive in that place but depend on finding Jews from elsewhere, e.g. Bombay, if such urban sophisticates are willing to re-settle in the "backwater" of Kerala. The rather conservative Jews of India do not like to consider marrying outside the faith. The author did not discuss the Israeli religious ruling that a Jew is the offspring of a Jewish mother. The author suspects that the black Jewish community was founded by immigrant males and local, non-Jewish females. I kept wishing for some Y-chromosome and mitochrondrial DNA analyses of these populations! The book is an excellent depiction of the fate of a small population group who refuses to out-breed.
The Last Jews of Kerala February 7, 2009
Sandra Harte (Menlo Park, CA USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Very interesting historical background of a much visited but little understood community. The author spent time with the remaining Jews and understood the dynamics of this ancient community.The author keeps the reader engrossed.
 Interesting but dissapointing. November 3, 2008
Mr. R. Susman (Moshav Sde Nitzan,Israel)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
In her book "the last Jews of Kerala" Edna Fernandes describes the life of the remaining Jews living in Kerala. She unfortunately places far too much emphasis on the question of colour but when she came to Israel to talk to the jewish population that immigrated to Israel from Kerala she neglects to interview any member of the white group - who,by the way settled more in the centre of the country and did not "make the desert bloom" as she puts it. I, personally, do not know any of these "white" jews but do know many of the "black" jews that immigrated from Kerala as they live near me in the Negev and they are "the salt of the earth". I have never heard them complain of any type of colour bar either here or in their past life in Kerala (although they will tell you that it existed if you question them)and they are very industrious people.
Edna Fernandes should also be more careful if she wants to intersperse her narrative with hebrew words by making sure that she really does understand them and the difference between singular and plural in Hebrew.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 6
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