Bridging the great divide

KOLKATA: Jews and Muslims might be at each other's throats in West Asia, but here in Kolkata there are shining examples of brotherhood between these two communities. The two synagogues that hold weekly services in Kolkata at present, Bethel and Magen David, are both manned by Muslim caretakers. The synagogue of Magen David on Brabourne Road has two caretakers, Anwar Khan and Imraan Khan.Anwar, who is in his late twenties, has been working at the synagogue for the last five years. He says that he has permission to clean even inside the synagogue. "I have no scruples in working for the Jews," he says. "I have never faced any discrimination from my employers and they are very nice people. They treat me very well." Imraan Khan is in his late eighties and has been looking after the Magen David synagogue for the last 65 years. Interestingly he points out, "The Jews will never employ Hindus or Christians as caretakers but they employ Muslims." He says the Bethel synagogue is also manned by Muslim caretakers. This is corroborated by Dalia Roy, the first non-Jew to have written a book on the Jewish community in Kolkata. While conducting research for her book, The Jewish Heritage of Calcutta, she says she has never come across any intolerance among the Jewish people that is prevalent within other communities. She says "In fact it is quite strange to see that ever since the beginning of their habitat in Kolkata, they had Muslims as menial staff or employers." As pointed out in an earlier report in this newspaper, the honorary consulate of Israel in Kolkata appointed as its trade and cultural officer, Omar Sharif Kaiser, a practising Muslim. As he says, the community despite the initial shock took to him quite sportingly. "I even met the ambassador when we went to Santiniketan on an official trip. I got to learn a lot about Israel and its people and we discussed over dinner the problems between the Israelis and the Palestinians," he says. "Not many people in Kolkata are aware that a community of Jews, who actually migrated from Israel exists in this city. They are often confused with the Armenians or the Parsis," says Roy. Since the first Jew, who arrived in Kolkata in 1798 for business purposes, their population grew. Their settlement in Kolkata brought along in its wake a peculiar message of co-existence and co-acceptance which has proved that despite communal tensions that wreak havoc in India from time to time, secularism is still an embedded and inherent concept. That is probably why a rather unthinkable concept like the co-existence of the Jews and the Muslims peacefully, impossible perhaps in any other part of the world, is still possible over here. Almost every religion accepts and preaches tolerance as the basic principle. The Jews in Kolkata seem to be abiding by it. In a time of war they are spreading the message of peace, in times of hatred they are embodiments of tolerance and harmony. Theirs is a silent protest, a silent reiteration that no religion can ever be bigger than humanity. Moreover, they have achieved what their counterparts in the Middle East could not in so many years — find the solution for a lasting peace between the Jews and the Muslims in West Asia.