Shabbos Shoes and Jewish Rues
| October 28, 2015
How many Jewish communities managed to flourish for well over 1 000 years and then after centuries of prosperity picked up en masse and moved to Eretz Yisrael — and not because of intolerance discrimination or external political pressure but out of a sense of religious fervor? One such kehillah is the Jewish community of Cochin India. In the years following Indian independence from Britain in 1947 and the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948 most of the Cochini Jews immigrated to Israel; but as we were planning our upcoming trip to India we wanted to search out what remains of their original community on the tropical Malabar Coast. And so we made contact with several Cochini Jews living in Israel who told us we were in luck with our timing: It seems the Cochini Jews in Israel get together once a decade to celebrate their communal aliyah and their 60th anniversary celebration scheduled to take place in Moshav Taoz about 15 minutes from where we live was to happen a few weeks hence. We of course attended and it was a joyous — and quite an amazing — celebration of the successful integration of their community. From old to young spanning all segments of the Israeli population they gathered from all corners of the country with music skits and lots of camaraderie. And that’s where we got our first glimpse of the community’s interesting if not unusual customs. For example there were unique Cochini kippot or “topis” as they call them — of many different colors on display.The kehillah once had a tradition of wearing a different colored topi for each holiday: festive white on Rosh Hashanah plain white on Yom Kippur shades of green on Succos shades of red on Simchas Torah blue on Pesach and yellow/orange for Shavuos. The reunion was fun and gave us an incentive to continue our research. And so our next stop was Moshav Nevatim located in the Negev just east of Be’er Sheva. (Nevatim is probably best known for the large air force base located nearby.) The moshav’s shul is a replica of one in Cochin including the original style bimah. The moshav also houses the Cochin Jewish Heritage Center which we were shown around by Miri the center’s very knowledgeable director. She briefed us on many of the unique customs of the community. Their most significant holiday is Simchas Torah for which they build a special platform known as a manara. Their weddings are three-week-long affairs and a boy under the age of bar mitzvah reads the kesubah. And among their most unusual customs are their special Shabbos shoes. These shoes called paduka or methiyadi in the local Malayalam language consist of nothing more than a sole plus a peg that goes between the big toe and the second toe and that is all that keeps it in place. These shoes are India’s oldest and most quintessential footwear which the Jews then adopted for a holy purpose. They would wear the paduka on Shabbos in order to prevent taking large steps and running a questionable practice in Shabbos observance. We were looking forward to our trip to Cochin and had hopes of buying some of these unique Shabbos shoes for ourselves. (While in India we didn’t succeed in finding them but one of the contacts we made while there found a pair after we returned and sent them to us.) The Cochini Jews trace their roots at the least back to the 12th century — and some believe the original community goes all the way back to the time of Shlomo Hamelech. For at least the last several generations the Cochini Jewish community has been in two cities (Cochin and Ernakulam) and three suburbs (Parur Chendamangalam and Mala). Our plan was to travel there and see the places for ourselves. But our contacts in Israel told us that the few remaining Jews in Cochin all busy individuals are not keen on hosting every tourist that comes to visit. With a lot of arm-twisting we finally succeeded in establishing contact with an older local Jewish man who agreed to help us out. The best-laid plans do not always come to fruition though and upon arriving in Cochin our contact said he was “too busy” and we were left to fend for ourselves.
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