From Cochin to the Negev: Netavim Moshav 

Israel's south, the Negev, constitutes almost one half of the country's land mass. Mostly inhospitable desert land, it was always the focus of Ben Gurion's dream; he hoped to have it settled and made to flourish with life. With water, he believed, the Negev could be turned into paradise. Today, 12% of Israel's population lives in the Negev.

In olden days, this desert land had hosted Canaanites, Philistines, Edomites, Byzantines. Nabataeans (who had established the Spice Road) and Ottomans. Nowadays, the inhabitants are pioneering Jews who came from many parts of the world as well as from Israel's cities to make the Negev their home and make it bloom. Such, too, were the intentions of the young people who came in the middle 1950's to this barren corner of the universe -- Jews from Cochin on the Malabar Coast of southwest India.

Cochin was ruled by the Dutch in the 17th century. They offered the Jews complete cultural autonomy and religious freedom. The Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam dispatched a delegation to Cochin, headed by Moses Pereira de Paiva, to visit the Jewish community and to collect data on its history and way of life. The close contact between the Jews of Amsterdam and Cochin lasted throughout the 125 years of Dutch rule over Malabar. The Amsterdam Jews provided their Asian brethren with books and learning. Dutch rule also brought with it great prosperity for the Jews. Documented archival evidence speaks of the emergence of a class of Jewish merchants, bankers, leaders in diplomacy, negotiators, and interpreters. The Cochin community maintained close contact with Jewish communities outside India, as well as with the Jewish settlements within India and had a language of its own, Judeo-Malayalam. But the world at large heard little about this distant Asian community until the establishment of the State of Israel when groups of Indian Jews began arriving.

Yitzhak Elia was nine-and-a-half years old when his parents brought him to Israel. He still has a recollection of the narrow alleys of Cochin's Jew Town, as the quarter inhabited by Jews was called. His father had been a businessman, dealing in dry goods, textiles, and leather. Life was serene and pleasant in the benign climate where Jew, Hindu and Moslem lived together peaceably. "We left because we were Zionists. We dreamed of coming to Eretz Israel where, we firmly believed, all problems would be solved," he said.

Instead, when most of the "Cochinim" arrived in fledgling Israel in 1954, they were met by problems. The young state was sorely overburdened with caring for masses of new immigrants who needed homes and work. The new arrivals from Cochin were placed in Nevatim (sprouts), literally in the middle of the desert -- the middle of nowhere. Nevatim was one of the eleven settlements established in the Negev between September 11 and 21, 1946. It withstood many Egyptian attacks during the War of Independence. These hurriedly settled outposts proved to be important; they later ensured that the Negev was included in the UN partition plan.

After 1946, Nevatim saw a succession of settlers -- immigrants from Iraq followed by Romanians and Hungarians. All eventually abandoned the place. In 1954, the first 27 Jewish families from Cochin in the Kerala district of India arrived. This was the first contingent of the 620 people who today call the Nevatim moshav home. These new arrivals now had a roof over their heads, but finding work presented a more difficult challenge. The men all started as day laborers for the Jewish National Fund; one day there was work, the next day there might not be. At one point, they had to remove rocks and the snakes that lived beneath them. "Those years, until 1960, were the most difficult ones," says Elia.

The next stage, in 1962, was a turn to agriculture. Community members had to fight the bureaucracy to get the necessary allowances to enable them to grow vegetables, fruit and flowers. They grew roses in (heated) hothouses in the desert. "They were all for export, even delivering the roses to the airport themselves." For a number of years, the desert experiment was a success. “We were earning well,” Elia said, “but by 1985, things were petering out. Water and rising costs were the biggest problems." Many residents began working in offices, in administrative positions and in the free professions.

While his wife Sara works part-time at the local nursery/kindergarten which caters to some 60 toddlers, Yitzhak supervises outdoor areas -- parks, public gardens and swimming pools -- for Bnei Shimon, a district consisting of twelve kibbutzim and moshavim. That is his work. His hobby is preserving Cochin tradition. Together with another Nevatim inhabitant, Shalom Nehemia, he founded the remarkable museum which is daily attracting buses full of tourists from Israel and abroad. "After work, during evening hours, Shalom and I would go from house to house, knocking on doors, persuading the people to offer their costumes, household utensils and equipment, as well as other items from our former life in India. We assured them that their possessions would receive even better care than at home. Mira Eliya greets tourists and guides them through both Cochin history and the museum exhibits.

The Cochin Jewish Heritage Center -- a museum and synagogue -- opened to the public on Hanukah of 1995. Shortly thereafter, a brutal break-in demolished much of the building and reduced the number of important displays. After much effort, doors again opened in the summer of 1997. Some 600 exhibited items testify today to the rich Jewish traditions of this small community. Proudly displayed here are colorful and richly embroidered clothes worn by the brides and grooms of the community and gold and silver ritual objects used for holidays. Daily life is illustrated by kitchen utensils, spices used in their cuisine and various work instruments. The museum’s focus is on the most important holiday in the Cochin tradition, Simchat Torah.

Outstanding are an ancient aron kodesh and bimah from the 16th century and brought over from Cochin by members of the community. The adjoining beautiful synagogue built in 1974, is frequented daily for shaharit and maariv.

Settling in Nevatim, Shalom Nehamia arrived as a young man and did his stint in the army. He then became an enthusiastic flower grower. He was one of the people who convinced the Minister of Agriculture to give the moshav a chance and support the cultivation of flowers. Now a reluctant pensioner, Shalom volunteers to keep up the Heritage Center.

The current head of the Nevatim local council is Avraham Or, 62, who holds a diploma in agronomy from the Hebrew University in Rehovot. He speaks with nostalgia about the years when growing flowers was the occupation of most of the moshav members. Today, only two families still cultivate flowers and six families own poultry farms. Most of the family heads and their grown children work at various occupations outside the moshav, in nearby Netivot or in Beersheva, the Negev capital (some 7 kms away).

Miriam, Avraham's wife, has set up an office in their home from which she engages in architecture and construction. She earned her degree in building engineering at the Haifa Technion prior to her marriage. Some of the houses she helped build are at Ein Tamar, a moshav at the southern end of the Dead Sea, established in1982 and home today to 82 families.

The parents of five children and twelve grandchildren, all of whom live in different parts of Israel, Miriam and Avraham are confident that the dispersed family will all come back to live in Nevatim, "as soon as we build houses for them." Building for the returning sons and daughters has already begun, and some have already come back.

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