All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [128]
One day I met a rich and influential Parsi (most of them were). We chatted about this and that, and he found something about me intriguing. He was acquainted with several Jews but knew nothing of our customs, laws, and traditions. I told him of the Persian influence on Jewish culture in antiquity, especially during the Babylonian exile. I pointed out the curious similarities in our respective mysticisms. Several hours later, as he left to return to his associates, he gave me a calling card on which he had written a few words. “India is a vast country,” he said. “You will undoubtedly move around a lot. With this card you can take any domestic flight to any destination.” I didn’t know how to thank him. In fact, it took only a few weeks for me to appreciate the true value of his gift. Whenever I was hungry, I would get on a plane. By then I had discovered the identity of my benefactor: He owned the airline.
I regret that I did not go as far as Tibet. In the 1990s, when I met the Dalai Lama, I told him of that frustration. “Do you need me to tell you never to give up hope?” he asked with a smile. In 1992, when I was asked to introduce him at a gathering in his honor in Washington, he questioned me about the secret of Jewish survival, wondering how it could be applied to his own people, also exiled, its religion also threatened: “Despite the persecution and hatred that surrounded you, you managed to keep your culture and memory alive. Show us how.” In his meetings with Jewish intellectuals he would often repeat: “We Tibetans have much to learn from our Jewish brothers and sisters.”
India is a country that makes one dream. Naively, I thought then that the nightmarish civil and religious wars might be things of the past. At the time it seemed so. Who would have predicted that forty years later, in 1993 and 1994, the country would again be ravaged by bloody rioting? Eleven bombs exploded on a single day, killing some three hundred and wounding about a thousand. In those days I was too optimistic. I thought hatred would at least recede. India was casting its spell on me: Hyderabad, Amritsar (site of the Golden Temple of the Sikhs), Jaipur; Varanasi and its sacred river carrying offerings of ashes to the sea; Calcutta and its dense and stifling crowds; Bombay and its B’nei Israel, the Jews of India whose ancestors served in King Solomon’s merchant marine; Cochin and its Jewish past, Cochin and its legends.
From the fourth to the fourteenth century an independent Jewish principality flourished in Cranganore in southern India. The leader of this Jewish state, a map of which is still on display in the synagogue of Cochin, was one Joseph Rabban. The prince of Cranganore, who was his friend and protector, ordered him to pass down his duties and privileges from father to son.
Where did these Jews of Cranganore come from? Palestine, of course. But opinions differ as to when they arrived. Were they among the Ten Tribes King Salmanasar III led into captivity, or were they among the people deported by King Nebuchadrezzar? Some say they were sent on a commercial or diplomatic mission by King Solomon.
What is “certain,” at least according to legend, is that in Cranganore they lived in peace. It is said that Rabbi Yehuda Halevy and Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra were so curious to see a Jewish monarch in the flesh that they came to visit. Even the great Saadiah Gaon speaks of India, expressing his conviction that anyone who went there got rich. According to one theory, Christopher Columbus set out for India solely to discover this Jewish state, which he thought might agree to accept future refugees and exiles from Spain and Portugal.
In Cochin there were memories of glory and distress, including the occupations by the Moors and by the Portuguese. Yet India has enjoyed a reputation as a tolerant, clement land. I have often heard Jews in Bombay and elsewhere assert that there