Aliyah: The Last Jew in the Village—A Poetics of the History of Jews in Kerala

Abstract

The Jews in India emigrated to Israel, centuries after their settlement in India, despite the cordial ambience provided in the land of their sojourn. The formation of Israel as a state and the altering socio-political scenario in India succeeding independence that augmented a sense of uncertainty regarding their future, culminated in the immigration to an unacquainted yet own home of their own. The long immigration process was traumatic to those caught between their homes, one unseen and the other experienced and lived, one inherited and the other gifted, posing many a troublesome question of identity, affiliation etc. Sethumadhavan’s Aliyah: The Last Jew in the Village, grounded on this historic event and narrated through the story of three generations of a Jewish family responding to the Zionist call, delves in to the emotional and philosophical underpinnings of the notions about nation, nationality, self, identity, affiliation, and a lot of other uncanvassed, unreciprocated questions.