By Sreekala Sivasankaran
The news came in the morning that Queenie Hallegua, the vibrant Jewish community leader in the Mattancheri Jew Town passed away on Sunday (August 11, 2024). She was 89. Eight years ago, when I interviewed her for my documentary on the Jewish co-existence in Kerala, on behalf of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi, she was homely, affectionate and active in the synagogue management which she cherished like her own home. We sat together inside the empty Paradesi synagogue hall, where her staff members were preparing the Sabbath lamp for the next day. Queenie talked about the loudspeakers and the noise around, her travels to the U.S to meet her children settled there and the road ahead for her in the Jew Town. She spent time doing charity work among the needy and the disabled. Member of the once thriving Koder family, she spoke about the role of the Koders not just in spices and trades, but in the field of Engineering and electrification in the state and running the ferry in Kochi. The Koders maintained a very healthy relationship with the royal family in Kochi as well as the new institutions in the post-independence period. Queenie, like her husband Samuel Hallegua, never wished to uproot their legacy from Kochi even after their community dwindled to just seven members in 2016 due to emigration.
Queenie Hallegua by Ellen Goldberg
A decade before that, I met her in Israel during my stay for research there. Queenie was on a visit from Kochi then and any visitor from Kochi was very special. When Samy Hallegua, her flamboyant husband was alive, Queenie didn’t have to worry much about the community affairs; he was a historian of the community himself, a voracious reader and a big-time conversationist who could go on and on about Jewish history and world affairs.
In 2016, when I met her for the last time, she still walked around like a queen in Mattancheri, talked like a family member. Sitting in her Jew Town apartment, next to the Paradesi Synagogue, she talked about her favourite Malayalam TV serials and served specially homemade cakes and cookies. She led me through the memories of the colourful past through their family collection of photographs.
She was worried about the future of the community in Kochi. She’s survived by her nephew Keith Hallegua in Mattancheri, the last remaining Jew in the Jew Town today. Queenie will be buried in Jew Town symmetry alongside her husband’s grave at 3 pm on Monday, 12th August.
Sreekala Sivasankaran served as Associate Professor at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), New Delhi, and a researcher on the Indian Jewry. Sreekala directed “Remains of a Dream: The Jewish Saga of Kerala (2016).”
