DUBAI: The historic pact between the United Arab Emirates and Israel has raised hopes that Pakistani-born Jews living in Israel will visit their birthplace soon.
At the time of Pakistan's creation, there were around 2,500 Jews living in Karachi alone with a synagogue called "Magen Shalom" in the Ranchore Lines area of the city.
Many Karachi-born Jews speak the Urdu language clearly because they received their education in Karachi during the 1950s and 1960s and later moved to Israel and other parts of the world.
A member of a Jewish family, Emanuel Matat told The News from Israel: “Aray! Bhai Hum Ko Biryani Khilow ”(Please make Biryani for me ... I would love to visit Pakistan).
Residents of the United Arab Emirates can now make a phone call directly in Israel after the Gulf state authorities lifted the restriction on calls between two countries.
Emanuel Matat also wants to visit Karachi, although it is still a dream, but he has made a plan to visit Dubai soon.
Image of Emanuel Matat's passport.
Matat, 59, emigrated with a heavy heart three decades ago from Pakistan. He and his 10 siblings are the only Jews he knows who were born in Pakistan. Matat's family was the last Jewish family to leave Pakistan in the late 1980s, but the sweet memories of Karachi always carry them to the city.
"When my father got married in 1957 in Karachi, there were 600 Jewish families living in Karachi," Matat told the publication.
He was educated at the BVS school in Saddar and has wonderful memories of a peaceful multicultural megacity.
"My father, Rehamim, was a great businessman and did not want to leave, he liked Pakistan very much," recalls Matat. The family was in the carpet industry and Jewish buyers from around the world ordered them.
"I wouldn't have left Pakistan if there hadn't been a family compulsion," Matat says. According to Matat, there are no Jews left in Karachi and, as far as Matat knows, there are no Jewish communities in other parts of Pakistan either.
Pakistan Bene Israel Community (Magen Shalom Synagogue) in Karachi.
Not even Karachi's main synagogue, Magen Shalom, has survived. Built in 1893, it was destroyed in 1988 to make way for a commercial plaza. The Jewish cemetery is still there, but with no one to take care of it.
Matat misses his country of birth and says that if he had the chance, he would live in Pakistan again. Matat proudly displayed his old Pakistani passport on which his "Jewish" religion is also written.
He recalled that Jews used to gather in the Karachi synagogue, especially on Saturdays, the Jewish holy day.
"Muslim carriage passengers sometimes didn't even take money from us," he said of the peaceful and tolerant city of that time.
In addition to Matat, some other Jews also spoke, but on condition of anonymity. They said that they spent their childhood in Karachi but that now the situation had changed. They also dream of visiting Karachi one day. Some said that the graves of their ancestors and loved ones were there and they wanted to visit them.
There are graves of the Jewish community in two cemeteries in Karachi.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for your comment.