Synagogues in India
Some, particularly those belonging to the Baghdadi Jews based in Mumbai, Kolkata, and Pune, are grand and built in various Western styles using fine materials and elaborate detail.
Constructed by the Baghdadi Jewish community who first came from Iraq, Iran, and a handful of other Near Eastern countries and settled in India permanently beginning in the 18th century is a Neo-Baroque synagogue in the Fort section of Mumbai, a Renaissance revival one in central Kolkata and, in English tradition, a neo-Gothic structure in fine condition sitting within an open site in the Camp area of Pune.
[5] Found within all Indian synagogues is a central bimah (platform where the religious service is led), a Sephardic Jewish tradition.
Other features of Indian synagogues are free-standing wooden benches, a profusion of hanging glass and metal oil lanterns, large shuttered windows with clerestories, a chair for the circumcision ceremony and one for the prophet Elijah, and separate seating areas for men and women.
Until the 16th century and the arrival of the Portuguese in India, roofs of local buildings were often bamboo framed and covered with thatched palm leaves—this technique continues to be prevalent in Kerala's villages even today.
In time, this construction technique was replaced with wood framed roofs (often teak) covered with flat terracotta tiles together supported by thick laterite stone walls (a local material) veneered in "chunam", a polished lime plaster.
[citation needed] Baghdadi synagogues, some built with the support of the Sassoon family,[8] all have particularly large Holy Arks where the Sefer Torahs are stored.
Once the doors are opened in Indian Baghdadi synagogues, however, a sizeable walk-in room is revealed that is ample enough to store as many as one hundred Torahs.
[9] Synagogues used by the Bene Israel Jews who settled in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, and Pune in the very late 18th to early 19th centuries tend to be smaller.
A few, particularly those built by the Bene Israel Jews in the coastal Konkan Region of Maharashtra during the 19th century, are interesting blendings of colonial influences, vernacular building traditions, and Jewish liturgical requirements.
Following a 17th-century plan devised by a local and tolerant leader in the town of Chennamangalam, four religious structures were built: a church, mosque, Hindu temple, and another Cochin synagogue.
An international team made up of Professor Jay Waronker of the US, Dr. Shalva Weil of Israel, and Ms. Marian Sofaer of the USA were responsible for the planning of a permanent exhibition in the spaces of the synagogues.
