AMN /
Prime Minister Narendra Modi last night gifted two sets of relics from Kerala, including sets of copper plates and a scroll, to his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu.
In a tweeter message, PMO said, the first set of copper plates is a cherished relic for the Cochini Jews in India. It said another set of copper plates is believed to be the earliest documentation of the history of Jewish trade with India.
It is regarded as a charter describing the grant of hereditary royal privileges and prerogatives by the Hindu King, Cheraman Perumal also identified as Bhaskara Ravi Varma to the Jewish leader Joseph Rabban.
According to traditional Jewish accounts, Joseph Rabban was later crowned as the Prince of Shingli, a place in or equated with Cranganore.
In addition, Prime Minister also presented PM Netanyahu a Torah scroll donated by the Paradesi Jewish community in Kerala. Handwritten over a hundred years ago, the scroll had been dedicated to the Paradesi Synagogue in Kochi that had been built in 1568. The Torah is enclosed on wooden staves in a wooden case adorned with silver sheets and a metal crown covered in gold sheets in floral ornament style, bearing motifs typical of lamps and decorations of south India.
In Cranganore, is where Jews enjoyed religious and cultural autonomy for centuries, before they moved to Cochin and other places in Malabar, PMO said. Local Jews once placed in each coffin a handful of earth from Shingli or Cranganore that was remembered as a holy place and a second Jerusalem. The replica of these plates was made possible with the cooperation of the Paradesi Synagogue in Mattancherry, Kochi.