All Faith Walk by Ayan Ghosh

One morning in September 1858, the city of Calcutta woke to the news of the sensational murder of a Mrs. Leah Judah, who was brutally murdered by her paramour Naseem Shalom Gubboy and his friend Ezekiel Rahmani Shurbanee. Gubboy and Shurbanee both lived in a boarding house for Jews on Pollock Street. So did the murdered woman – at 5 Pollock Street. The entire Pollock Street area was a popular area for Jews to settle in. The Jewish Girls’ School was at No. 8, opposite the Beth El Synagogue at No. 26.

The Beth El Synagogue, according to Dr. Jael Silliman, a direct descendant of Shalom Aharon Obadiah Cohen — the first recorded Jewish immigrant who arrived in Calcutta in 1798 – is the most complete synagogue in the city with a Mikveh, (a place for a ritual bath), a tandoor for baking matzah (unleavened flatbread used during the Jewish Passover ritual) and a wine press in the cellar. But for Jael, who guided us around three synagogues yesterday, if the 1855-56 built Beth El Synagogue is the ‘queen’ of Calcutta’s synagogues, the 1884 built Maghen David synagogue is clearly the ‘king’.

Considered as the most beautiful synagogue in Asia, Maghen David means the Shield of David. The interiors are ornate, ‘complete with black and white chequered marble flooring, gleaming chandeliers and stained-glass windows. The altar is crowned with an apse (half dome) studded with stars. It represents the heavens. The large plaque in the middle contains the Ten Commandments. At the centre is a raised platform from where the Rabi (Jewish priest) conducted the services.’ This platform (known as the Bima) was cast in iron and shipped out from Glasgow. Such was the affluence of this synagogue’s congregation that while most synagogues had only one or two copies of the Sefer Torah (the books of the Hebrew bible), this synagogue in Calcutta reportedly had a hundred, stored in Torah cases made of precious materials. ‘The different architectural elements of the Maghen David synagogue also tell the story of 19th century Kolkata which was part of a cosmopolitan world. Designed by Macintosh Burn, the Maghen David, unlike many synagogues has a steeple about 142 feet high and it had a clock imported from London. The floor in front of Sefer Torah sanctuary was designed by a Dutch firm and is made of castellon tiles.’

The city’s first synagogue — Neveh Shalome – was built in 1826. It was demolished in 1884 to give way to the magnificent Magen David (synagogue) but was rebuilt again in 1912 in the same compound. While overshadowed by its opulent neighbour, its more austere, homely interiors seem better suited for communion with the Almighty.

Other than the British, there were other races who came to trade and prosper in Calcutta via Gujerat. The first Jew to come to Calcutta came via Surat. So did the Dawoodi Bohra Muslims. And the Parsis.

Dadabhai Behramji Banaji was the first to arrive from Surat. His relative Rustomji Cowasjee Banaji came early in the nineteenth century, and founded an agiary in Ezra Street in 1839, which is now a ruin with its grounds encroached upon by the Ezra Street electrical market – although Prochi Mehta, who took us around, remembers it with its compound intact, in which, as a child, she would be given a ride ‘round and round’ on a motorcycle by an affectionate uncle. Dhunjeebhoy Behramjee (D.B.) Mehta, after whom the agiary was posthumously named, came to Calcutta in 1846 and soon began trading with China. He started the Empress of India Cotton Mills in Serampore, and after a dispute with Banaji, decided to set up a place of worship in his own house, for which the sacred fire was brought from Navsari in Gujerat. After his death, his wife and son decided to fulfil his wishes and with generous donations from the family (as well as members of the community), the second fire temple was established. It was consecrated on 28 October 1912 with great pomp. The fire that had been brought from Navsari for the Mehtas’ own house was installed there.

On our inter-faith walk yesterday, we also visited the Bohra Masjid on Brabourne Road with its distinctive architecture. Within that quarter mile, I have read accounts of the pealing of the bells from the Portuguese Church blending with the Azan from the mosque. We did not have the time to visit either the Portuguese or Armenian Churches nearby, but the walk wounds its way to the Chinese Sea Yip Temple in Tiretta Bazar; through the old Anglo-Indian precinct of Bow Barracks to the Dharmankur Buddhist Temple; and finally to an old Bengali house on Central Avenue – whose owners are trying to save the building by changing its use.

Calcutta may not be an eighteenth century ‘boom town’ any more, attracting fortune-seekers from across the world. But this quarter, the area between the old white and black towns, once occupied by Armenians, Jews, Chinese and Parsis, and where now remain only a handful of their descendants – continues serve as a reminder of its cosmopolitan past and a testimony to its ability accommodate, assimilate and absorb.— attending An All Faith Walk, Breakfast in a Heritage Home that needs to be reused and an “Adda”