With the arrival of December and the arrival of the holiday season, Kochi's small, tight-knit community of Jews prepares to celebrate Hannukah, the Jewish festival of lights in Koder House, Kochi. Kochiites have the chance to be part of Jewish customs through this festival. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get the original essay The history of the celebration dates back over 2000 years, when Judea, the land of Israel, was part of the Syrian Greek Empire. Under the tyrannical rule of the Syrian king, Judaism was banned, persecuted Jews and soldiers of the kingdom descended on Jerusalem and desecrated the Holy Temple of the Jews. The Jews rose up in retaliation and successfully drove the Syrians from Jerusalem during the Maccabean Revolt of the 2nd century BC. Their leader Judah decreed the rebuilding of the altar and the purification of the Holy Temple by lighting the Menorah, the Jewish candelabra using the meager amount of uncontaminated olive oil that remained, enough for the candles to burn for a day. However, in a wonderful turn of events, the flames continued to burn for eight nights, at the end of which the sages proclaimed the celebration of an annual eight-day festival. Thus, the Jewish tradition of Hannukah arose to commemorate the rededication of the temple and to celebrate Jewish permanence. It is a festival contrary to the acclimatization and conquest of the Jewish religion. The venue, Koder House, is the reestablished abode of one of the prominent businessmen of Kochi, S Koder, which preserves the ancient tradition of the Jews. Yayal Halakhah is the only Jewish person. existing to carry out the daily affairs of the temple built in 1567 for a thriving Jewish community in the Mattancherry area of ​​Kochi. “We have barely six people here” in Mattancherry and “four of them are over 70 and two are in their 40s,” Yayal said. Two thousand years later and nearly 3,000 miles away, in a land where the air is permeated with the scent of cloves, the celebration finds a new light. Jews in Cochin are preparing to celebrate the holiday of Jewish permanence even as their population dwindles. “There are around 30 of us in Ernakulam and we plan to celebrate the festival together this year,” says Joseph Abraham (Sam), president of the Kerala Jewish Association. “According to the Jewish calendar, the festival begins on December 12 this year and will last for eight days. We plan to light candles and pray at the synagogue on the first day and gather to pray at my house on the sixth day,” he said. The celebration of Hannukah involves the lighting of Hannukah, a nine-branched candlestick for eight days. Each evening, a lighted candle is added to the candelabra over which prayers are recited. Jewish holidays and traditions were revered and observed by Jews as well as other communities before the large-scale migration of Jews from Kochi in the 1950s. "At that time, the entire Jewish town of Ernakulam observed the Sabbath and all celebrations with the greatest respect,” Josephai remembers. There are only about 30 Jews left in the state, most of the young people having left for Israel. The symbols and monuments of the community, testimony to an age-old culture, are threatened with desecration. Even as Kerala's Jewish tradition and culture is on the brink of extinction, the community has come together to celebrate the festival of permanence. A disappearing community While some historians claim that the Jewish people migrated to southwest India since the time of King Solomon, historical records show that the first colonizers arrived after the destruction.