History of the Jews in Kolkata
The history of the Jews in Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta, in India, began in the late eighteenth century when adventurous Baghdadi Jewish merchants originally from Aleppo and Baghdad chose to establish themselves permanently in the emerging capital of the British Raj.
In the early nineteenth century the community grew rapidly, drawing mostly on Jewish migrants from Baghdad and to a lesser extent on those from Aleppo.
Historically it was led by a flourishing merchant elite trading in cotton, jute, spices and opium issued from the leading Jewish families of Baghdad and Aleppo.
[1] In their heyday such mercantile Kolkata Jews sponsored numerous leading religious and charitable institutions in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq.
[2] Today, especially in the United Kingdom, to which the wealthier Baghdadi Jewish families were drawn, Jews tracing roots to Kolkata now enjoy prominence in British culture and media.
The community grew rapidly, in terms of both size and prestige, as Jews from Iraq fled the persecution of the rule Dawud Pasha (1817–1831) in what was then a province of the Ottoman Empire, including many of the most illustrious families of Baghdad.
[1] Throughout its heyday the Baghdadi Jewish community was dominated by its leading families including the Ezras, Elias, Judahs, Sassoons, Belilios and Musleahs.
[3] Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the grand merchant families who formed the nucleus of the Baghdadi Jewish community travelled widely building their fortunes across the Middle East and Asia.
They continuously strove to maintain a balance between embracing the European culture that characterized the mostly British elite upper class to which they aspired, and a steadfast fidelity to their ancestral faith and traditions.
They expressed their devotion to Jewish traditions through the sponsoring of elaborate synagogues, religious seminaries, ritual scrolls and books across Asia and the Middle East.
The first generation of Jewish settlers in Kolkata in the early 19th century spoke Judeo-Arabic at home and adhered to their Arabic style of costumes in public.
Slowly and unevenly this began to change as the second generation of Jews born in Kolkata adopted European dress and lifestyle and English as their language of communication.
A new wave of English language and Zionist orientated newspapers and clubs flourishing in the mid twentieth century before Indian Independence.
Scenes of devastation that unsettled the Baghdadi Jewish community included vultures feasting on piles of human remains in the streets of Kolkata.
[7] Both the extreme violence of Indian Partition between Hindus and Muslims and the Bengal Famine witnessed during World War Two frightened the Baghdadi Jewish community and led them to believe there was no future for them in the city.
In India, new economic regulations enacted by the Indian Government restricted imports and controlled foreign exchange, seriously hampering the business of the Baghdadi Jewish merchants families which led the community.
[8] The atmosphere in Calcutta at independence, rocked by Hindu-Muslim riots as millions were displaced and hundreds of thousands died across the country in partition was unsettled.
Within a few years of Indian Independence, a series of major geopolitical events occurred that had serious economic implications for the community, including the communist takeover in China, the mass flight of Iraqi Jews to the new state of Israel, the collapse of the Dutch East Indies, and successive nationalist revolutions in Iraq, Syria and Egypt.
[1] Baghdadi Jews from India settled in concentration in Ramat Eliyahu, Ashdod and the Kurdani neighborhood near Haifa and in across Israel's major cities.
The late 1960s saw the renaming colonial legacy companies and families depart as the left wing government severely impacted trade.
Against this background the rich fabric of community institutions and charitable support networks unravelled with the departure of the remains of the merchant family elite.
[1] Lack of opportunities for both business, high quality education and in particular for Jewish marriages in Kolkata speeded up the community's dissolution in the late twentieth century.
Ezekiel Judah was an esteemed talmudist who led the Baghdadi Jewish community in Kolkata in spiritual matters during his lifetime, building two synagogues.
[17] Another son conducted a Yeshiva in Jerusalem founded by Ezekiel Judah at which ten scholars constantly studied the Torah and recited prayers.
[17] For a year after Ezekiel Judah's death, his sons invited scholars from Jerusalem, Syria and Baghdad as well as the poor of Calcutta to study the Torah.
It was a Muslim Bengali friend of Shalom Obadiah Cohen, the founder of the Jewish community of Calcutta, who sold him the land to build the cemetery.
