Cochin Jews, also called Malabar Jews (Malabar Yehudan), are the oldest group of Jews in India

Indian Jews

The history of the Jews in India reaches back to ancient times.Indian Jews are a religious minority of India. Judaism was one of the first foreign religions to arrive in India in recorded history. The better-established ancient communities have assimilated a large number of local traditions through...

, with roots claimed to date to the time of King Solomon, though historically attested migration dates from the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Historically, they lived in the Kingdom of Cochin

Kingdom of Cochin

Kingdom of Cochin was a late medieval Hindu kingdom and later Princely State on the Malabar Coast, South India...

 in South India

South India

South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...

, now part of the state of Kerala

Kerala

or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....

. Several rounds of immigration of the Jewish diaspora

Jewish diaspora

The Jewish diaspora is the English term used to describe the Galut גלות , or 'exile', of the Jews from the region of the Kingdom of Judah and Roman Iudaea and later emigration from wider Eretz Israel....

 into Kerala led to an ethnic, but not a linguistic, diversity: the community was divided into White Jews and Black Jews, both of which spoke Judeo-Malayalam

Judeo-Malayalam

Judeo-Malayalam is the traditional language of the Cochin Jews , from Kerala, in southern India, spoken today by a few dozens of people in Israel and by probably fewer than 25 in India....

, a form of the Malayalam tongue native to the state.

The vast majority of Cochin Jews emigrated to Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 after its formation, the number remaining in Kerala itself is minuscule, and the community faces extinction there.
Traders in King Solomon's time carried out regular sea voyages to the South Indian coast, bartering for ivory, apes, and silver, and the first Cochin Jews may have been the children of Israelite sailors and local women.