The Departure of the Jews of Cochin to Israel

Abstract The chapter is a comparative study of how the Jews of Cochin who are now settled in Israel remember their life in Cochin (Kochi, Kerala) and their departure from there, with reference to Ruby Daniel’s autobiographical account Ruby of Cochin: An Indian Jewish Woman Remembers (1995), and how their departure to Israel is remembered by others, with reference to Sethu’s Malayalam novel Aliyah: The Last Jew in the Village (2013), translated into English in 2017. Although their memories are largely more in conformity than contradictory, the driving forces behind the memories do differ. While Jewish memories of their life in Cochin are driven by nostalgia, Hindu memories of the Jewish sojourn in Cochin are driven largely by the desire to underscore the officially promoted narrative of the absence of anti-Semitism in India.