In Kolkata, a Jewish school centenary puts on the focus on the community’s rich legacy in the city

The legacy of the Elias Meyer Free School and Talmud Torah in Kolkata’s Bowbazaar, which is celebrating its centennial year, is intertwined with that of the small Baghdadi-Jewish community that built a life in the city from the 19th century.

The three-storeyed school has two inter-connected buildings and a large playing field. The rafters on the high ceilings, the worn stone staircase, the ornate elevator built by pioneers of British industry and the neatly arranged lines of stately, polished wood cupboards in the physics laboratory recall a bygone era. One can imagine the laughter and chatter of generations of boys scuttling down the staircase.

Shalome Obadiah Ha Cohen, the first Jewish settler of Kolkata, came to the city in 1796. He prospered and, realising the opportunities the mercantile city offered, called his family from Syria to join him. Other Jews from across West Asia, the majority coming from Iraq, made the city their home in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Community institutions such as synagogues and a burial board followed. For a while, Jewish children attended Christian mission schools but concerns about proselytising made community leaders set up schools for Jewish girls and boys in the 1890s.

Initially, a school for boys and girls was set up...

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