Remembering Queenie Hallegua, z"l

Queenie Hallegua, the guardian of Cochin’s Paradesi Synagogue and one of the last Jews in Cochin, passed away on August 11, 2024. Because of her Baghdadi background, she felt like family to me. She welcomed me into her home many times and graciously shared the stories, photos and customs of the community.

I have a distant personal connection to Queenie: my great-aunt Helen, my grandmother’s sister, married Yosef Hallegua (anglicized to Hallen), among the dozen or so Cochini Jews who lived in Calcutta. When I visited Cochin with my parents in 1997, Queenie (her real name is Esther, the queen in the Purim story) and her husband Sammy, who was of Spanish and Portuguese heritage, welcomed us with a Shabbat feast that included pastel, a thin crepe made of rice flour and filled with egg and potato, as well as Baghdadi dishes finished off by homemade apricot brandy, ginger wine, and coffee liqueur.  Sammy’s conversation overflowed with commentary about the legal and historic aspects of Judaism. His expertise ranged from managing the family’s substantial real estate assets to conducting synagogue services and playing tournament bridge. He often burst into song, marking the history of the community by the dates of the musical compositions.
 
Sammy has since passed away, and their two children have settled in the U.S. The stewardship of the tiny community was in Queenie’s hands.
 
On many subsequent tours, I visited Queenie in her home. The main living area was furnished with heavy, carved rosewood settees; a British Colonial plantation recliner with outstretched arms, and chairs with cane seats around a long dining room table. Often, she had just woken from her afternoon nap and was watching a soap opera with her servant, one of two sisters. She always wears the Magen David necklace with a Q in the center, a wedding gift from her household staff. I asked whether the Magen Davids that ornament her windows are a safety concern.
 
“We don’t have any trouble,” she said.
 
She brought out old albums. There she is as a bride in a long brocaded white wrap skirt, matching top, and shawl—the typical Cochini wedding dress. Before the wedding ceremony, she remembered, she walked to the synagogue to kiss the Torahs in the ark, accompanied by twenty Hindu drummers.  
 
“Pesah, oh my God! We used to make our own matza,” she said, flipping to pictures showing friends and family mixing the dough, rolling it out, cooking it on heated griddles, then storing it in huge bins in a special Passover room. “This is Sarah [Cohen], in the plaid wrap skirt,” she pointed out. “She was in charge of giving out the exact amount of water for the dough. This is me,” she pointed to a blurry figure with a brass rolling pin.
 
I wanted to know if she still had the rolling pin. Queenie got up and, after a few moments, returned with it. It was slim and heavy, and when she rolled it back and forth over the table, the metal bead inside rang like a bell.  Its rhythmic peal added to the drama of Matza Day, when the men used to blow the shofar and sing sections from the Haggadah while the matza was prepared. Thicker matzas that would be stacked in a set of three on the seder table were distinguished by designs made with prongs: The matza on the top had two lines; the middle one had three, and the one at the bottom, four.
 
“How do you stay Jewish with so few people here?” I asked.
 
“I pray at home three times a day. Even for festivals, I know how to pray. I learned by going to the synagogue. A Hebrew master came to teach us at home. Our elders passed it on to the next generation. They knew all the halacha and the youngsters learned from them.
 
“This place is full of history. It was really beautiful. It was a little Jerusalem. Now it’s all gone. It’s all gone with the wind.” She sighs. “I’m all alone here. It’s a tragedy that everything is ending here. It’s sad but everything happens like this.”


Yehi Zichra Baruch. May her memory be a blessing.