A few years ago, on December 12, 2014, I met Sarah Cohen, India’s oldest surviving Jew, in the port city of Cochin. I was on a research trip for a show I was presenting for the History Channel, and the name ‘Jew Town’ was enough to tickle my interest.
Curious to connect the dots, I walked through the trinket-filled streets in the Mattancherry area, just a few metres from one of the world’s oldest places of Jewish worship – the Paradesi (foreigner’s) synagogue. I wondered why, after thousands of years, this community is still called ‘foreign.’
To know more about the Jewish community in Cochin, a friend advised me to meet Sarah Cohen. ‘She is a personification of Kerala’s multicultural history,’ he said – and added:
She is a wealth of wisdom, a living treasure trove – someone who was born in India before India and Israel were India and Israel.
Taking his advice, I visited Sarah’s charming Jewish quarter, which doubled as her embroidery store. As I entered her door, a sliver of sunlight cast itself on Sarah’s silver hair through the window. She was sat comfortably on a wooden chair, in her pink nightgown and blue chappals (slippers). She looked up at me, squinted through her glasses, and smiled with warmth.
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