The Pesach Haggadah has been translated into more than twenty languages, but one of the most unusual is the one translated into Marathi, the native language of the Jews of Mumbai (Bombay) and the mother tongue of the Bene Israel of India. There are twenty-three languages spoken in India, and Marathi is the fourth most popular language. It is spoken by over 73 million people in India and by the Indian Jews living in Israel. It is believed to have developed from Sanskrit, the main language of the Hindu religion.
Sidebar with pix [The alphabet used in the Marathi Haggadah is Devanagari. Written from left to right, it has thirty-three consonants and fourteen vowels, and is distinguished by a horizontal line that runs along the top of many of the letters of its alphabet.]
The first Marathi Haggadah called Haggadat Bene Israel, is believed to be the very first illustrated Hebrew book to be printed in India . Lithographed in Bombay in 1846 C.E. (5606), its woodcut illustrations were similar to the ones in the famous 17th century Amsterdam Haggadah. However, twenty eight years later, when a second edition came out by the two brothers, Moshe Jacob and Aaron David Talkar in Poona (or Pune), the illustrations featured women dressed in saris and their hair adorned with flowers and wearing nose jewelry. In this Poona Marathi Haggadah, men and women in the illustrations can be seen squatting or sitting in the Lotus position common in India. See pix
The title page of the Haggadah carries the following words in Hebrew: Zeh Chadash Asher Lo Hayah LeOlamim, this [Haggadah] is something new that never existed before. It refers to the fact that this was the first time a Marathi Haggadah had been published. It may have also referred to the fact that many of the Jews in India had never used a Haggadah before, even in Hebrew.
The Festival of the Closing of the Jar
Prior to the publication and the use of the Haggadah by Indian Jews, the latter would celebrate a holiday for eight days from the 15th to the 23rd day of Nissan. They called this holiday “Anasi Dhakacha San,” literally “the festival of the closing of the jar.” During this period, the Jews of India refrained from using a certain mixture of sour liquid which they would usually collect in an earthenware pot and churn into butter. In addition to “Closing this jar” and putting it away until after the holiday, they would clean their homes and utensils and not only refrain from eating leaven but also abstain from drinking tea and milk.
The late Professor Walter Fischel, who was knowledgeable in twelve languages and had served on the faculties of both Hebrew University and the University of California at Berkeley, had written about the Jews of India as well as of Iran, Iraq, Kurdistan and Afghanistan. Fischel believed the ceremony of the covering of the jar seemed to have overshadowed the true meaning of Pesach; however, when the Haggadah first came out in Marathi translation, it recaptured the message of the deliverance of the Indian Jews’ ancestors from Egyptian bondage and their Exodus. He writes that the initial publication of this Marathi Haggadah served as a milestone in linking the Bene Israel with their Jewish heritage.
Incidentally, because of his renown as a scholar on Persian Jewry, in 1971 Professor Walter Fischel and his wife were invited to a private reception by the Shah of Iran at his grand celebration of the 2500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great.
Walter Fischel claims the publication and use of this Marathi Haggadah united the three distinct historical Jewish communities of Indian Jewry; Bene Israel of the Konkan region around Bombay, the “Black” and “White “ Jews of Cochin who lived along the Malabar coast, and the Baghdadi (Iraqi) or Arabian Jews, who were the most recent Jewish arrivals to India. The latter group had of course already been utilizing the Haggadah in their celebration of Pesach. The earliest Haggadah in existence is incorporated in the (9th century) Siddur of Amram Gaon who was the leader of the Jewish academy in Sura, Babylonia (Iraq).
Bene Israel of the Konkan Region
The Bene Israel of the Konkan region are believed to be descendants of the survivors (seven men and seven women) of a shipwreck off the Konkan coast at Navgaon, near the twin rocks of Andheri Undheri, about 26 miles south of Bombay. Their ship was said to have left the Galillee in the northern province of Eretz Yisrael, while escaping the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes in 175 B.C.E before the story of Chanukah took place.
In their new country, these Jews forgot much of their knowledge of Hebrew, and their dress, prayers and customs became initially influenced by their Hindu environment and then several centuries later, by Islam. Nevertheless, they continued to observe circumcision, Kashruth, Sabbath, and some festivals including Tu Bishvat and recited the Shema.
These Bene Israel, as they became known, worked primarily in oil-making (a trade they presumably learned in Eretz Yisrael) and were called “Shenwar Teli” the “Caste of the Shabbos oil-pressers,” because unlike most villagers who took Mondays off, the Bene Israel were uncompromising about their day of rest.
The Bene Israel observed a special custom called “Malida,” a thanksgiving ceremony reminiscent of the Korban Minchah, held in the home where guests would partake of plates full of roasted rice, fruits, spices and flowers. During this ceremony they would sing songs praising Hashem as well as about Eliyahu HaNavi, the precursor of the Mashiach. These ceremonies would take place on various occasions such as in preparation for a wedding; when taking, and after completing, a vow; after a circumcision, and whenever there would be a crisis and a need for Divine help or to express gratitude to Hashem.
Each year, the Bene Israel would make a special pilgrimage to Khandala, a village near Alibau, abut fifty miles south of Bombay. They would light candles and sing songs about Judaism in Marathi. According to legends of the Bene Israel, there were two occasions when Eliyahu HaNavi visited India and returned to heaven. The first account occurred immediately after the arrival of Bene Israel to the Konkan coast. On this occasion Eliyahu is believed to have revived the unconscious seven men and women who washed up on the beach from the sea. The second story occurred at a much earlier period. At the time of the story of Eliyahu Hanavi’s ascent to heaven on a fiery chariot ( Kings II 2:11), the Bene Israel believe, he made a pit stop in the village of Khandala . The Bene Israel claim that the chariot’s wheels and horse footprints that are visible today and imprinted on a large rock indicate where Eliyahu took off to heaven.
Black and White Jews of Cochin
The Jews of Malabar who live on the coast of South-Western India, according to some legends, are descended from Jewish sailors or merchants who settled there during the period of King Solomon in the tenth century BCE, eight centuries earlier than the Bene Israel.
Other traditions relate that the Jews of Malabar, came during the Babylonian exile or as refugees who fled Judea in the first century CE after the destruction of the Second Temple.
Whatever the case, there is no doubt, that the community on the Malabar coast is at least close to two thousand years old.
For several centuries the Jews lived in the port city Crangamore (called by Jews Shingly) north of Cochin. This port city is now part of the Indian state Kerala named for the Kera or coconut palm tree that plays a prominent role in its landscape and economy.
The earliest documentary evidence of Jews living in Kerala is a charter (circa 1000 C.E.) engraved on copper plates issued by the Chera Emperor of Malabar to a Joseph Rabban, (Issappu Irrappan), the leader of the Jews believed to be of Yemenite descent. The charter granted the Jews a principality in that area as well as certain princely privileges including exemptions from paying taxes and the authority to collect tolls forever or “as long as the earth and moon remain.” This charter has been preserved in the Paradesi Synagogue in Cochin.
Paradesi, meaning “foreigners” in Maylayalam (another Indian language), is the name given to the Jews who fled Spain and Portugal with their expulsion from these countries who settled in Cochin. Later other Jews arrived that came from Constantinople, Aleppo and Yemen. These Paradesi Jews were also called the “White Jews” to distinguish them from the “Black Jews” who had lived in India for centuries. The latter made their exodus from neighboring Shingly and came to Cochin as early as 1341 because of a flood in Crangamore. After the continuing decline of the principality with the destruction of Crangamore by the Portuguese, the rest of the Black Jews relocated to neighboring Cochin.
In 1568 the Hindu Rajah of Cochin granted the Jews a large strip of land near his palace which street is called today Jew Town in Cochin. The Rajah treated the Jews benevolently and they in turn, being good soldiers, formed a brigade of their own in the Rajah’s forces. It was said that Rajah never attacked his enemies on a Saturday, because he would not go to war without his best soldiers and he knew that the Jews would not fight on their Sabbath.
In addition to the Black and White Jews who usually did not intermarry with each other or daven in the same Minyan there were also the Meshuchrarim (freedmen). These were the descendants of the offspring of unions between Cochin Jews and their slave concubines. There were both “White” and “Black” Meshuchrarim, attached to the white and black communities, respectively; they occupied a status inferior to that of other members of their groups.
The world-renowned Paradesi Syngagogue, located on the street called Jew Town was first built in 1568 and partially reconstructed and enlarged over the years . It houses the original copper plates given to Joseph Rabban. The Paradesi Synagogue celebrated its four hundredth anniversary in 1968 with festivities and seminars by a number of scholars who discussed the life, language and the Jews of southern India. There was also an exhibit displaying manuscripts, books, clothing and items of Malabar Jewry. Mrs. Indira Gandhi attended the event and praised the Jewish community. “It has contributed men of distinction to business and industry, to the civil services and the armed forces, and to the world of scholarship,” the Prime Minister said.
At the end of her speech Mrs. Gandhi wished the Jews “Mazal Tov” on the occasion, explaining that she learned these words from the film, “Fiddler on the Roof.”
When Queen Elizabeth II made an official visit to India in October 1997, she visited Cochin and the Paradesi Synagogue. The British press reported that the Queen had heard so much about the Jews of Cochin that she insisted that her aides add this out-of-the-way itinerary to her trip. Prince Charles visited the Shul on his 65th birthday on Nov. 11 , 2013. He was shown the copper plates issued by the Emperor of Malibar and a Jewish prayer service was held in honor of the Royal Family.
The Baghdadi Jews of India
Joseph Semah was the first known Baghdadi Jewish immigrant to India, He arrived in the port city of Surat in 1730 and together with other early immigrants established a shul and cemetery in there.
More Jews from Syria, Yemen, Iraq and and Iran arrived in India in the late nineteenth century. They were called collectively “Baghdadi Jews” because the majority were from Baghdad, who had come for commercial reasons as well as religious persecution.
Many Baghdadi businessmen contributed much to India’s economy and owned factories, especially of textiles, all over India. They were also traders and quickly became one of the most prosperous communities in the city. As philanthropists, some donated their wealth to public structures.
A number of shuls, Mikvaos and other Jewish institutions as well as buildings for the non-Jewish population of India, were contributed by members of the wealthy Sassoon family also known as the Rothschilds of the East. They headed a vast mercantile empire with branches in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Turkey, Japan, Persia, and England. It was said about the Sassoons: “Silver, and gold, silks, gums and spices, opium, cotton wool and wheat – whatever moved over land and sea felt the hand and bore the mark of Sassoon and Company.”
The David Sassoon Docks and Sassoon Library are only two of the famous landmarks still standing today.
Magnanimous philanthropists, the family supported many Torah institutions and helped employ many Jews. There are several memorials to David Sassoon the legendary founder of the dynasty all over India.
David Sassoon who was born in Baghdad came to India in 1832. His father Saleh Sassoon had been chief treasurer to the Pashas in Baghdad as well as President of the Jewish community there. David, following in his father’s footsteps, also served as treasurer, until the Jews began to be persecuted under Dawud Pasha and many fled eventually settling in India.
A grandson of the founder of the dynasty ( through his father, Solomon) also named David Sassoon, was an outstanding Talmid Chacham and bibliographer who amassed a magnificent library of about 1300 rare seforim and manuscripts. He traveled all over the world and spent fortunes of money to collect such items as the Diwan of Shmuel HaNagid which Oxford University Press published with an introduction by Sassoon in 1924. A manuscript which Sassoon acquired in Aleppo (Aram Tzova), was copied in 1584-1585 by an Italian rabbi and contained 1743 poems, of which 1500 were previously unknown. In the mansucript is a poem about the earthquake and eclipse of the year 1047 and a eulogy on the death of the Gaon Chai ben David (939-1038) the last gaon of Pumbeditha.
David Sassoon authored a history of the Jews of Baghdad as well as a catalogue of his library called Ohel David. He passed away in 1942. His son Solomon who was privately tutored by Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler turned down two offers by the Israeli government for him to serve as Israel’s Sephardic Chief Rabbi.
The Valmadonna Trust Library of Custodian Jack V. Lunzer, housed in London, today is the world’s foremost private collection of early and rare Hebraica, especially printed books from Italy, Ottoman Greece and Palestine, Turkey, Baghdad and India. In 1999 the Trust acquired the remaining rare items of the Sassoon library, many of which items had already been sold at a number of Sotheby auctions.
Among the collection are numerous unrecorded titles and unique surviving copies – of Hebrew-character texts, as well as other Jewish texts in Marathi and Malayalam, printed in India .
The Marathi Haggadah of the Bene Israel of India, also part of the collection was reprinted in 1968 by the Orphan Hospital Ward of Israel later renamed the Diskin Orphan Home.
In the introduction, Professor Walter Fischel points out a number of variants from the customary text:
The passage of Ha Lachma Anya is introduced by the words Bebehilu Yatzanu Mimitzrayim, found in the versions of the Rambam and Yemen
The second cup of wine is poured before Ha Lachma Anya and not, as usual, before Mah Nishtanah.
The order in the Mah Nishtana is different. The first question deals with Ein Anu Matbilin and in the fourth question the word, Shotin, (we drink) is added to Ochlin (we eat).
B.D.Drenger, the editor of the Orphan Home reprint adds that he found the custom of washing the hands after the ten plagues only in this Haggadah.
He says this is the only Haggadah he came across of the more than 3000 he inspected, that has the washing of hands four times.
Sadly, this Marathi Haggadah which united the three different groups of Jews in India is not in much use any more. Most of India’s Jews have immigrated to Eretz Yisroel. With the exception of the Lubavitch outreach in India which is growing, the original Jewish communities have slowly been disappearing.