In contrast, most of the Paradesi Jews (Sephardi in origin) preferred to migrate to Australia and other Commonwealth countries, similar to the choices made by Anglo-Indians.

The Kadavumbhagam Ernakulam Synagogue was restored in 2018, it houses a sefer torah with occasional services, managed by one of few remaining Cochin Jews of the ancient Malabar Jewish tradition.

[16] Only after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE are records found that attest to numerous Jewish settlers arriving at Cranganore, an ancient port near Cochin.

[19] Ophira Gamliel notes however that the first physical evidence of the presence of Jews in South India dates only to the granting of the Kollam copper plates.

[20] The copper plates are a trade deed dated to the year 849 C.E bestowed upon the Nestorian merchant magnate Maruvan Sapir Iso and the Saint Thomas Christian community by Ayyan Atikal, the ruler of the Kingdom of Venad.

The copper plates include signatures in Kufic, Pahlavi, and Hebrew and serve as evidence of West Asian mercantilism in Kerala.

In Rabbi Yehezkel's response (Merzbacher's Library in Munich, MS. 4238), he wrote: "after the destruction of the Second Temple (may it soon be rebuilt and reestablished in our days!

"[24][25] Saint Thomas, an Aramaic-speaking Jew[26] from the Galilee region of Israel and one of the disciples of Jesus, is believed to have come to Southern India[27] in the 1st century, in search of the Jewish community there.

[28][30][31] A number of scholars have noted that the Cochin Jews maintain striking cultural similarities to the Knanaya,[32][33] Jewish-Christian migrants from Persia who settled in Kodungallur, Kerala in the 4th or 8th century.

[39] Indian rulers granted the Jewish leader Joseph Rabban the rank of prince over the Jews of Cochin, giving him the rulership and tax revenue of a pocket principality in Anjuvannam near Cranganore, and rights to seventy-two "free houses".

[40] The Hindu king gave permission in perpetuity (or, in the more poetic expression of those days, "as long as the world, sun and moon endure"[39]) for Jews to live freely, build synagogues, and own property "without conditions attached".

[41][42] A family connection to Rabban, "the king of Shingly" (another name for Cranganore), was long considered a sign of both purity and prestige within the community.

Rabban's descendants led this distinct community until a chieftainship dispute broke out between two brothers, one of them named Joseph Azar, in the 16th century.

The Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela, speaking of Kollam (Quilon) on the Malabar Coast, writes in his Itinerary:"[t]hroughout the island, including all the towns thereof, live several thousand Israelites.

[45] In 1524, the Muslims, backed by the ruler of Calicut (today called Kozhikode and not to be confused with Calcutta), attacked the wealthy Jews of Cranganore because of their primacy in the lucrative pepper trade.

Speaking Ladino language and having Sephardic customs, they found the Malabari Jewish community as established in Cochin to be quite different.

[58] In the early 20th century, Abraham Barak Salem (1882–1967), a young lawyer who became known as a "Jewish Gandhi", worked to end the discrimination against meshuchrarim Jews.

[61] According to native Bene Israel historian Haeem Samuel Kehimkar (1830-1909), several prominent members from the "White Jews" of Cochin had moved to Bombay in 1825 from Cochin, of whom are specifically named Michael and Abraham Sargon, David Baruch Rahabi, Hacham Samuel, and Judah David Ashkenazi.

He taught Hebrew reading, without translation, to three Bene Israel young men from the families of Jhiratker, Shapurker and Rajpurker.

[63] Another influential man from Cochin, who is alleged to have been of Yemenite Jewish origin, was Hacham Shelomo Salem Shurrabi who served as a Hazan (Reader) in the then newly formed synagogue of the Bene-Israel in Bombay for the trifling sum of 100 rupees per annum, although he worked also as a book-binder.

[citation needed] Many of the migrants joined the moshavim (agricultural settlements) of Nevatim, Shahar, Yuval, and Mesilat Zion.

″1949“...A glorious chapter of unbroken love and affection on the one hand, and deep devotion and loyalty on the other, between the Maharajas of Cochin and their Jewish subjects....

I assure you that all legitimate interests of the minorities shall be scrupulously safeguarded...” Genetic testing into the origins of the Cochin Jewish and other Indian Jewish communities noted that until the present day the Indian Jews maintained in the range of 3%-20% Middle Eastern ancestry, confirming the traditional narrative of migration from the Middle East to India.

[70] The 12th-century Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela wrote about the Malabari coast of Kerala: "They know the law of Moses and the prophets, and to a small extent the Talmud and Halacha.

[citation needed] Maimonides (1135–1204), the preeminent Jewish philosopher of his day, wrote, "Only lately, some well-to-do men came forward and purchased three copies of my code [the Mishneh Torah], which they distributed through messengers...

[75] The Jewish Encyclopedia (1901-1906) said, "Though they neither eat nor drink together, nor intermarry, the Black and the White Jews of Cochin have almost the same social and religious customs.

They hold the same doctrines, use the same ritual (Sephardic), observe the same feasts and fasts, dress alike, and have adopted the same language Malayalam.

The two classes are equally strict in religious observances",[76]According to Martine Chemana, the Jews of Cochin "coalesced around the religious fundamentals: devotion and strict obedience to Biblical Judaism, and to the Jewish customs and traditions ... Hebrew, taught through the Torah texts by rabbis and teachers who came especially from Yemen.

"[77] The Jews of Cochin had a long tradition of singing devotional hymns (piyyutim) and songs on festive occasions such as Purim.

Like many other Jewish languages, Judeo-Malayalam also contains a number of lexical, phonological and syntactic archaisms, in this case, from the days before Malayalam became fully distinguished from Tamil.