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The Jewish Community in India numbers only 17,000; these are found mostly in Bombay and Poonah. Perhaps the most interesting colony of them is that on the west coast in Cochin. I had the pleasure of visiting them in 1897. There are 1,500 of them divided into two sections—the White, and the Black Jews. There is a marked racial difference between the two. The Blacks were originally the slaves of the Whites as is shown by their historical documents. It is not known when the Whites came to India. Some think that they fled there during the Jewish exile. More likely they came upon the dispersion during the first century of our era. The purity of their blood and the remarkable fairness of their complexion indicate that the settlement has [pg 056] been from time to time reenforced from northwestern countries. They are an exceedingly conservative people; and in their two synagogues, they conduct their worship perhaps more like the Jews of twenty centuries ago than do any other representatives of that race today. The day-school connected with the White Synagogue closely resembles the little school which our Lord attended at Nazareth.