Vinayak v nair, 27 September 2018, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Synagogue · Mattancherry

Paradesi Synagogue

Hundreds of hand-painted blue-and-white Chinese tiles, no two alike.

The Paradesi Synagogue stands on Synagogue Lane in Mattancherry’s Jew Town, beside the Mattancherry Palace. The synagogue and the palace temple share a common wall. It is open from 10am to 6pm on Monday to Thursday and on Sunday. On Friday it opens from 10am to 2pm. It is shut on Saturdays.

Inside, the floor is paved with hundreds of 18th-century hand-painted Chinese porcelain tiles, and each tile differs from the next. Ezekiel Rahabi brought them from Canton. The teak Ark holds four Torah scrolls.

The synagogue was built in 1568. The Portuguese destroyed it in 1662, and the Dutch rebuilt it two years later. The World Monuments Fund restored the clock tower and other parts of the complex between 1998 and 1999. The copper plates kept here, dated to the 10th century, record privileges granted to Joseph Rabban, the earliest known Cochin Jew.

Visitors enter barefoot, so wear shoes that slip off easily at the door.

Did you know

Paradesi means foreigner in Malayalam.
The synagogue floor is laid with hundreds of 18th-century Chinese porcelain tiles, hand-painted in blue and white. No two are the same.
Around 1000 CE a Hindu ruler granted a Jewish leader, Joseph Rabban, his own privileges — inscribed on copper plates. The plates are still kept inside the synagogue.
The synagogue and the Hindu temple of Mattancherry Palace share a wall.
The synagogue’s Belgian glass chandeliers were imported in the 19th century.
During the Portuguese plunder of Mattancherry’s Jew’s Town in 1662, the Jewish community hid its ancient Hebrew Pentateuch, or Torah scroll, to save it from destruction. After Dutch rule was established, they recovered it completely uninjured in 1668.
Visitors are expected to enter the Paradesi Synagogue barefoot.
The synagogue and the Mattancherry Palace temple share a common wall.
The copper plates kept at the synagogue, dated to the 10th century, record privileges granted to Joseph Rabban, the earliest known Cochin Jew.
The Portuguese destroyed the synagogue in 1662, and the Dutch rebuilt it two years later.
Ezekiel Rahabi brought the Chinese tiles from Canton in the 18th century.
The synagogue floor is paved with hundreds of 18th-century hand-painted Chinese porcelain tiles, and each tile is unique.
The Paradesi Synagogue was built in 1568.

The Paradesi Synagogue: 450 Years of Spice, Prayer, and Hand-Painted Tiles in Mattancherry

The oldest active synagogue in the Commonwealth, in Mattancherry, Kochi: Chinese tiles, copper plates from 1000 CE and a clock with four scripts.

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Drawn from OpenStreetMap, by its contributors.