The Knesset Eliyahoo, also Knesset Eliyahu, is an
Orthodox
Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to:
Religion
* Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...
Jewish
synagogue located in downtown
Mumbai
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...
, India. It is the city's second oldest
Sephardic synagogue. It was established in 1884 by
Jacob Elias Sassoon, son of
Eliyahoo David Sassoon and grandson of
David Sassoon;
the latter had immigrated from
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...
to India in 1832 due to persecution and had settled in Mumbai, then known as Bombay. It is maintained by the Jacob Sassoon Trust. The building's significance is attributed to its Jewish traditions as well as Indian and English colonial influences.
It was designed by the British architectural firm Gostling & Morris of Bombay. The basement part of the edifice is built in stone masonry and the superstructure is built in brick masonry. The exterior facade of the synagogue is painted
turquoise
Turquoise is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is a hydrated phosphate of copper and aluminium, with the chemical formula . It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gemstone and ornamental stone for thousands of year ...
. The sanctuary within the interior of the building is in western direction, towards
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
.
Location
Knesset Eliyahoo, an
Orthodox Jewish
Orthodox Judaism is the collective term for the traditionalist and theologically conservative branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Written and Oral, as revealed by God to Moses on M ...
synagogue, the second oldest
Sephardic, is located in
Colaba at 55, Dr. V.B. Gandhi Marg,
Fort
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...
, Mumbai.
The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel
The Taj Mahal Palace is a heritage, five-star, luxury hotel in the Colaba area of Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, situated next to the Gateway of India. Built in the Saracenic Revival style, it opened in 1903 as the Taj Mahal Hotel and has histori ...
, and
Oberoi Trident
The Oberoi Group is an award-winning luxury hotel group with its head office in New Delhi, India. Founded in 1934, the company owns and operates 32 luxury hotels and two river cruise ships in 7 countries, primarily under its Oberoi Hotels & R ...
are nearby.
Background
Prior to the arrival of
Baghdadi Jews
The former communities of Jewish migrants and their descendants from Baghdad and elsewhere in the Middle East are traditionally called Baghdadi Jews or Iraqi Jews. They settled primarily in the ports and along the trade routes around the Indian ...
in India, the
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
residing in Bombay — the name then used for Mumbai — had settled in the towns of India, living peacefully with other communities in India.
[ Harry D. Wall, in an interview to the ]New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
, has said that among the Jews who now remain in Mumbai are a group of Jews known as Bene Jews or Bene Israel
The Bene Israel (), also referred to as the "Shanivar Teli" () or " Native Jew" caste, are a community of Jews in India. It has been suggested that they are the descendants of one of the Ten Lost Tribes via their ancestors who had settled there ce ...
who were reportedly descendants of seven tribes of Israel
The Twelve Tribes of Israel ( he, שִׁבְטֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל, translit=Šīḇṭēy Yīsrāʾēl, lit=Tribes of Israel) are, according to Hebrew scriptures, the descendants of the biblical patriarch Jacob, also known as Israel, thro ...
who, in the 2nd century BC, were shipwrecked on India's Konkan coast
The Konkan ( kok, कोंकण) or Kokan () is a stretch of land by the western coast of India, running from Damaon in the north to Karwar in the south; with the Arabian Sea to the west and the Deccan plateau in the east. The hinterland ...
while escaping persecution in the Galilee. They found that living in India, amidst a cosmopolitan community consisting of Hindus
Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
, Buddhists, Jains
Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current time cycle being ...
, and, much later, Muslims
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
, was a very cordial environment, totally free of anti-Semitic feelings.[
The Jewish merchant community, which played a significant role in the commercial development of then Bombay (now Mumbai), consisted of Jews from Iraq, Syria, and other ]Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...
ern countries who immigrated in the late 18th century under the threat of persecution. They found the environment conducive to continuing their trade and settled in the city, becoming prosperous in business ventures such as textile mills and international trading.[ In 1784, the British government took over the ]East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...
. With this change, many business opportunities emerged in India, and Bombay in particular, encouraging immigrants to set up businesses. In 1790, one such business magnate was Shalom ben Ovadiah HaCohen, a Baghdadi Jew who had migrated from Aleppo (Halab), in Syria to Bombay; other Jewish businessmen from Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...
, Basra
Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is han ...
, and Yemen followed him.
History
In 1832, David Sassoon immigrated to Bombay and established himself as a magistrate of the cotton industry. He built the Magen David Synagogue in Byculla
Byculla (ISO: Bhāykhaḷā; pronunciation: ʱaːjkʰəɭaː is an area of South Mumbai.
Location
Byculla is neighboured by Nagpada and Mumbai Central and Mahalaxmi on the west; Agripada, Jacob Circle on the north-west: Chinchpokli to the no ...
. Mumbai in 1864; this was in addition to the older Magen Hasidim synagogue. His son, Albert Sassoon
Sir Albert Abdullah David Sassoon, 1st Baronet, (25 July 181824 October 1896) was a Baghdad-born businessman and philanthropist.
Biography
Life and career
Sassoon was born on 25 July 1818 in Baghdad, Ottoman Empire, into the Sassoon family o ...
, transformed the weaving industry in Bombay.[ To cater to the increasing need of the Baghdadi Jews, Knesset Eliyahoo synagogue was constructed on a premium piece of land in the hub of Bombay's commercial area by Jacob Sassoon, grandson of David Sassoon, commemorating his father, Eliyahoo Sassoon. It was established in 1884.]
More Jews came from Bukhara, Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, and, following the Farhud
''Farhud'' ( ar, الفرهود) was the pogrom or "violent dispossession" carried out against the Jewish population of Baghdad, Iraq, on June 1–2, 1941, immediately following the British victory in the Anglo-Iraqi War. The riots occurred in a ...
pogrom in Iraq in 1941, many more immigrants shifted to Bombay. They all used to assemble in the Knesset Eliyahoo synagogue in large numbers during festival days and on Rosh Hashana
Rosh HaShanah ( he, רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה, , literally "head of the year") is the Jewish New Year. The biblical name for this holiday is Yom Teruah (, , lit. "day of shouting/blasting") It is the first of the Jewish High Holy Days (, , " ...
and Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur (; he, יוֹם כִּפּוּר, , , ) is the holiest day in Judaism and Samaritanism. It occurs annually on the 10th of Tishrei, the first month of the Hebrew calendar. Primarily centered on atonement and repentance, the day' ...
. On many such occasions, in view of the large crowd of devotees, overflow prayer services were held in the neighbouring Cawasjee Jehangir Public Hall.[
In 1985, President ]Giani Zail Singh
Giani Zail Singh (, born Jarnail Singh; 5 May 1916 – 25 December 1994) was an Indian politician from Punjab who served as the seventh president of India from 1982 to 1987. He was the first Sikh and the first person from a backward caste to bec ...
visited the site to honour the centennial of the synagogue's construction. India Post
India Post is a government-operated postal system in India, part of the Department of Post under the Ministry of Communications. Generally known as the Post Office, it is the most widely distributed postal system in the world. Warren Hastings ...
issued a commemorative stamp in honour of the centennial.
The first-ever terrorist attack on Jews in Mumbai occurred on 26 November 2008. Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg
Gavriel Noach Holtzberg ( he, גבריאל נח הולצברג; June 9, 1979 – November 26, 2008 (1st of Kislev, 5769) was an Israeli American Orthodox rabbi and the Chabad emissary to Mumbai, India, where he and his wife Rivka ran the Mumbai C ...
, who had conducted Sabbath services on the previous day and also held religious discourses at the Knesset Eliyahoo, was killed, along with his wife and a few other Jews at the Nariman House
The Nariman House, designated as a Chabad house ( he, בית חב"ד '), is a five-storey landmark in the Colaba area of South Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. The building was home to a Chabad house, a Jewish outreach centre run by Gavriel and Rivk ...
, a community center operated by Chabad
Chabad, also known as Lubavitch, Habad and Chabad-Lubavitch (), is an Orthodox Jewish Hasidic dynasty. Chabad is one of the world's best-known Hasidic movements, particularly for its outreach activities. It is one of the largest Hasidic grou ...
. This sowed fear among the Jewish community members residing in Mumbai, and also forged a closer bond between the city's Baghdadi and Bene Israel Jews.[
]
Architecture and fittings
Designed by the British architectural firm Gostling & Morris of Bombay, the building's base is of stone masonry while the superstructure is of brick masonry.[ The external frontage of the synagogue is painted ]turquoise
Turquoise is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is a hydrated phosphate of copper and aluminium, with the chemical formula . It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gemstone and ornamental stone for thousands of year ...
, and the synagogue is popularly known as the Blue Synagogue of Mumbai.[ The synagogue was not originally blue. The synagogue was returned to its original colour of white, with bright indigo boarders during a restoration process in 2018 - 19 carried out by conservation architect ]Abha Narain Lambah
Abha Narain Lambah (born 1970) is an Indian conservation architect whose eponymous architectural practice has restored several of India's UNESCO World Heritage Sites like the Ajanta Caves, Golconda Fort and Mahabodhi Temple, and Mumbai's Vic ...
.
The inner space contains ornamented pillars, and the sanctuary faces west towards Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
. The '' bimah'' (reader's platform) is bordered on both sides by ornately carved marble, over which is placed a tall, stained-glass arch that reaches the ceiling. Women worshippers sit in an upstairs gallery. The synagogue contains a number of Torah scrolls
A ( he, סֵפֶר תּוֹרָה; "Book of Torah"; plural: ) or Torah scroll is a handwritten copy of the Torah, meaning the five books of Moses (the first books of the Hebrew Bible). The Torah scroll is mainly used in the ritual of Tor ...
, along with silver-cased sefarim
''Sifrei Kodesh'' ( he, ספרי קודש, , Holy books), commonly referred to as ''sefarim'' ( he, ספרים, , books), or in its singular form, ''sefer'', are books of Jewish religious literature and are viewed by religious Jews as sacred. T ...
(religious books) belonging to the Sassoon family. On the ground floor, there are meeting and school rooms, and a mikveh (immersion pool).[ The staircase, windows, timber balconies, ceiling, walls, and roof are in need of restoration.]
Gallery
Knesset Eliyahoo, Mumbai.jpg, Exterior of Knesset Eliyahoo Synagogue after restoration in 2019
Knesset Eliyahoo 2019.jpg, Exterior of Knesset Eliyahoo
See also
* Synagogues in India
References
Further reading
*
*
*
{{Authority control
Orthodox Judaism in India
Orthodox synagogues
Synagogues in Mumbai
Sephardi Jewish culture in India
Sephardi synagogues
Synagogues completed in 1884
1884 establishments in India