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The community of Cochin Jews are actually a community of Malabar Jews who lived in Cochin in southern India. It is one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world. For almost 3000 years this community has cultivated a tremendous and important heritage of prayers, customs and cuisine. Malabar Jews kept the tradition and religion strictly, at the same time living in peace and having cultural dialogues with communities of other religions.

Unfortunately, this community is on the verge of disappearing, as the entire community immigrated to Israel and most of its descendants have assimilated among the entire Israeli population, and in a decade or two this tremendous heritage will be lost.

One of the goals of this food blog is to open the curtain to this great heritage. A curtain that was closed by our parents when they arrived in Israel, out of a desire and efforts to merge and become an equal and inseparable part of the Israeli nation that was being built.

Today, as descendants, we understand how much they sacrificed, how hard it was for them to leave everything behind, and how the cultural crisis they experienced here crushed them. It wasn't exactly the land of milk and honey they had dreamed of. They arrived in a country full of rubble and stones that needed to be built, a country that was fighting for its life.

The blog is intended to thank them, and to prove that the realization of their Zionist dream was not in vain. All of us, the descendants of the Malabar community, are proud of our roots, just as we are proud to be Israelis.
 

History and heritage

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