This Jewish burial is guarded by a Muslim family

BENGALURU: While many have seen a Muslim burial ground just across the Mysore flyover, several do not know that there is  also a one-and-a-half acre of land just beside it that belongs to the last and only Jewish family in the city- the Moses family.

Twenty six years ago, Sheikh Rafiq and his wife had visited the Moses family in search of a job. Rafiq’s cousin was the family’s driver. He was offered to be the caretaker of the very few Jewish cemeteries left in the country, Rafiq happily and willingly took up the job. Since then, the family of five, with two daughters and a son, shifted into a home that was built in the corner of the cemetery.

Recalling his first sight of the land, Rafiq remembers it being covered with weeds and thorns, he says, “We had no issues in moving in and my son was only four-years-old then. So this is where he grew up and this is now our home.” Rafiq had a stroke two years ago, struggles to walk and yet manages to ensure that the property is well-maintained.

Although there is no huge signboard hinting the ancestry of the land, the family says they get visitors at least three or four times a month, including historians such as Mansoor Ali, who had been studying the Jewish history in the city.

Overseeing the Jewish cemetery is the Muslim cemetery which has a mere wall dividing the land. Although a century has passed, there seems to be a sense of peace within the communities. Sidney Moses, who is also the third generation of the family in charge of the cemetery, says that India is a ‘very tolerant nation’,  and that the Jews were never persecuted in the country.

The Jewish burial tradition known as the ‘Minyan’, needs ten men to conduct a full prayer. Moses explains that the city has around 30 Israeli families and these families have a Rabbi to help them with the ceremonies. Rafiq says that his family never felt troubled by the Muslim community or by the background of the cemetery.

The land was given to the Moses family by Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar in 1904 because they were one of the six Jewish families that existed in the city that time. The history of the family started with Ruben Moses, who was a popular shoemaker at Commercial Street, and a Jew from Baghdad.