cats of kochi
cats of kochi
Two women and a boy stand outside the synagogue’s arched entrance, sandals left in rows on the ground before going in.Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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The Paradesi Synagogue, built in 1568 — hand-painted Chinese tiles, no two alike, in Mattancherry’s Jew Town.

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More of Paradesi Synagogue

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  • The synagogue’s raised reading platform draped in gold cloth, seen beneath a large crystal chandelier, with the gilded torah ark against the far wall.
  • A yellow lantern and a Star of David sign hang over a narrow lane of white colonial buildings with wooden shutters near the synagogue.
  • The synagogue’s white clock tower with a round clock face and weathervane, a bougainvillea and green bench below it.
  • Four blue-and-white Chinese floral porcelain tiles laid in a grid, part of the hand-painted tile floor at Paradesi Synagogue.
  • Rows of blue-and-white Chinese porcelain tiles, each hand-painted with a different floral or landscape scene, covering the synagogue floor.
  • The synagogue’s blue-tiled interior seen between two gold pillars, colourful glass oil lamps hanging from the ceiling and the gilded ark at the far end.
  • A whitewashed clock tower with a tiled pyramidal roof and weathervane, rising above a stone perimeter wall, part of the Paradesi Synagogue complex in Mattancherry.
  • Clock tower beside the Paradesi Synagogue in Mattancherry, Kochi. The clock tower was commissioned by Ezekiel Rahabi in 1760 and remained functional until 1930; its four faces used Latin, Hebrew, and Malayalam numerals.

CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons