I Love Books, and Apparently, I Love Cochini Jewry Too

Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Berkovits, in Towards Historic Judaism, says that Jewish schools could teach all of world history at the same time that Jewish history is taught. Just teach the one, and then teach the corresponding happenings of the other at the same times and places. Indeed, if you study Cochini Jewry, you get a good synopsis of the entire successive history of colonialism and mercantilism in India by the Portuguese, Dutch, and British! Ezekiel Rahabi, a Paradesi ("white") Jew in Cochin, was the "Principal Merchant" for the Dutch East India Company!

I just bought the following books:

(1) Nathan Katz, Who Are the Jews of India?

(2) Nathan Katz and Ellen S. Goldberg, Kashrut Caste And Kabbalah: The Religious Life Of The Jews Of Cochin

(3) Ruby Daniel and Barbara Johnson, Ruby of Cochin: An Indian Jewish Woman Remembers

(4) Nathan Katz, Studies of Indian Jewish Identity

(5) Nathan Katz and Ellen S. Goldberg, Last Jews of Cochin --- with a foreword by Daniel J. Elazar!!!!!

(6) Shalva Weil, India's Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art and Life-Cycle

(7) P. M. Jussay, The Jews of Kerala

(8) J. B. Segal, A History of the Jews of Cochin

So that's it for Cochini Jewry; regarding Sephardi Jewry, I bought...

(9) Esther Benbassa, Sephardi Jewry: A History of the Judeo-Spanish Community, 14th-20th Centuries

(10) Daniel Elazar, The Balkan Jewish Communities: Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey

That's all. I just love books.

Perhaps later, I'll write more on the Jews of Cochin - they are an absolutely fascinating community. And the tolerance shown them by the Hindus is simply breathtaking, almost miraculous. But more on that later. (I've already written a twenty-page paper on why I love Sephardi Jewry: On the Turn to the Right in Modern Orthodoxy, And Some Possibilities for Its Solution.)