Becky Blab

There were once 5,000 Jews living in this teeming port city, but today there are fewer than 35. Israel, 38 with a thin beard, is the youngest by nearly 25 years.

Israel lives inside the only place left where Jews aren’t a minority - the Jewish cemetery. He cares for the graves of his father, his great-grandparents, his uncles and his aunts, along with more than 2,000 other Jewish tombs.

He also tends to the two dozen Jewish elders still living, handles the last rites when they die, and, to stay kosher, butchers his own meat.

It’s not easy being the last of your people.

“It’s only a matter of time before people die or leave,” said Israel. “There is no future. . . . The inevitable, I can’t fight.”

I have to disagree with this statement, though:

Jews came to India as traders some 250 years ago, and today their largest community is in Mumbai, the country’s most cosmopolitan city.

They were in India far before that, in Cochin. Click here for more info.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer.