Bala Menon

The 'Jewish Gandhi' Of Cochin Bala Menon

A. B. Salem, born into the Paradesi Congregation of Jews in the erstwhile Kingdom of Cochin (now part of the southern Indian state of Kerala), was a lawyer, labour union organizer, ardent Indian nationalist and political leader, Zionist and the man responsible for the mass aliyah or emigration of the Cochin Jews to Israel in the 1950s. However, he chose to stay back in his beloved state of Kerala.




Apart from being a towering leader of the Cochin Jewish community, Salem was a founder-member of the first Legislative Council in the Kingdom of Cochin from 1925 to 1931 and again from 1939 to 1945. A strong follower of the Gandhian principle of non-violent civil disobedience, he was a member of the Lahore Session of the Indian National Congress which passed the resolution calling for complete independence from the British.




Salem is also remembered for his efforts to achieve ritual equality for a group of Jews who were kept apart from full participation in synagogue affairs for decades - based on their perceived low-born status and which was contrary to Jewish law. His personal diaries about life in Cochin and the aliyah are now with the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life in Berkeley, California.