The folk songs of Kerala of the 14th and 15th centuries bear an uncanny resemblance to the Jewish folk songs of the same period. Traditions of long-standing, which appear in the folk literature of the Jews, persist in these communities.
Former Malayalam professor and HoD of Sree Sankaracharya University, Kalady Herman Gundert Chair at the Tubingen University, Germany, discovered this. His paper, which will be presented at a seminar at the Hebrew University in Israel on June 22 and 23, is entitled, “Jewish and Christian Folk Songs of Kerala.
The history professor studied many antique documents and as many as 50 notebooks of Jewish folk songs to arrive at his conclusion. In the context of increasing India-Israeli relations and increasing interest in Israel to learn these songs, Dr. Scaria’s study is noteworthy.
