From Baghdad to Kolkata:
Sacred Texts & Documents
Ritual Objects, Vessels of Memory
All Baghdadi-Indian event photos courtesy of Maegan Gindi
Psalm 24: Se-u She’arim
Printed and hand-lettered paper
Kolkata (Calcutta), date uncertain
This page contains Psalm 24, beginning with the words:
שְׂאוּ שְׁעָרִים
O gates, lift up [your heads]
This text is recited during the procession returning the Torah scroll to the ark on holidays and festive occasions.
Rabbi Ezekiel Nissim Musleah (Rahel’s father) kept this sheet as an insert in his personal Shabbat prayer book.
Siddur Ma’aseh Nissim
Hebrew with Judeo-Arabic translation
Mumbai (Bombay), 1899
This Shabbat prayer book was used by Rabbi Ezekiel Nissim Musleah (Rahel’s father) after his return to Calcutta in 1952 following rabbinic ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.
Printed in Bombay in Hebrew alongside Judeo-Arabic translation, the siddur reflects the multilingual religious life of Baghdadi Jews in India. Its title, מַעֲשֵׂה נִסִּים (Ma’aseh Nissim, “Miraculous Deeds”) echoed the rabbi’s own middle name, Nissim.
Prayerbooks such as this one were sold door-to-door and were often printed in Bombay, Livorno, or Jerusalem.
Passover Haggadah
Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic, and English
Jerusalem, 1905
At the turn of the twentieth century, David Hai Eini commissioned and funded this highly unusual trilingual Passover Haggadah following the rites and customs of the Babylonian (Iraqi) Jewish community. To ensure it could be understood across the global network of Baghdadi Jews moving between the Middle East, India, and the West, the text was presented in three languages: Hebrew (the traditional liturgical text), Judeo-Arabic (the vernacular of the older generation), and English (the language of business and increasingly of younger Jews in British-ruled India).
Although Calcutta already maintained active Hebrew printing presses, the manuscript was sent to Jerusalem for publication, lending the book additional spiritual prestige.
The Haggadah includes a full-page photograph of Eini himself; detailed parenthetical instructions specifying which words of the Birkat Hamazon (Grace After Meals) women traditionally omitted according to Baghdadi custom (phrases associated with brit milah); and woodcut vignettes of holy sites such as Safed and Tiberias.
The frontispiece bears the handwritten name “Seemah” — either underlined, crossed out, or both — suggesting the volume may later have belonged to Seemah Musleah Cohen (Rahel’s great-aunt).
Purim Megillah
Ink on parchment mounted on a wooden roller, with metal case
Baghdad and Kolkata (Calcutta), before 1895
This megillah was written in Baghdad and brought to Calcutta by the Musleah family during the nineteenth century. Each column begins with the word haMelekh (“the King”), a scribal convention associated with beautifully executed megillot in the Sephardic world.
The scroll belonged to Hakham Eliahu Yosef Musleah (Rahel’s great-great-grandfather), born in Baghdad in 1823 and among the first members of the family to migrate to Calcutta. After his death in 1895, the megillah passed through successive generations of the family, including Meir Ezra Musleah (Rahel’s great-grandfather) and later Eliahu Hayim Musleah (Rahel’s great-uncle), who preserved it by lining its metal case with wax paper and camphor to protect the parchment from insects and Calcutta’s humid climate.
Following Eliahu’s death, Rabbi Ezekiel Nissim Musleah salvaged the scroll and passed it to his daughter, Rahel Musleah, who continues to read from it each Purim using the traditional Calcutta megillah trope.
Rahel especially cherishes the opening verse describing the vast reach of King Ahasuerus’s empire:
מֵהֹדּוּ וְעַד כּוּשׁ
“from India to Ethiopia.”
Mystical Manuscript for
Protection of the Home
Handwritten kabbalistic manuscript on paper
Origin and date unknown
This protective manuscript combines a mystical alphabetic grid, biblical verses, sacred names, angelic invocations, and kabbalistic formulas intended to safeguard the household from illness, misfortune, and spiritual danger.
Among its elements are the names of the four rivers flowing from the Garden of Eden — understood in Jewish mystical tradition as protective boundaries surrounding sacred space — as well as the names of archangels.
Several passages invoke divine protection during plague and catastrophe. One verse from Exodus (12:23) invokes God’s protection of Israelite homes during the first Passover night in Egypt:
וּפָסַח ה׳ עַל הַפֶּתַח
:וְלֹא יִתֵּן הַמַּשְׁחִית לָבֹא אֶל בָּתֵּיכֶם לִנְגֹּף
And God shall pass over the doorway and not permit
the destroying force to enter your homes to strike.
Another passage refers to Aaron halting a plague among the Israelites following the rebellion of Ḳoraḥ(Numbers 17:13).
The manuscript also includes a verse from Psalms (32:10):
וְהַבּוֹטֵחַ בַּה׳ חֶסֶד יְסוֹבְבֶנּוּ
One who trusts in God is surrounded by kindness.
Such manuscripts reflect the blending of everyday religious life with practical mysticism across Jewish communities of the Middle East and South Asia. Objects of this kind were often displayed or stored within the home as sources of spiritual protection.
Shiviti
Printed and illuminated text, later laminated
Possibly Kolkata (Calcutta), Date uncertain
A shiviti is a devotional text or plaque placed on synagogue walls or in prayer books intended to focus spiritual concentration during prayer. Its name derives from Psalm 16:8:
שִׁוִּיתִי ה׳ לְנֶגְדִּי תָמִיד
I have set God before me always.
Shiviti compositions often combine biblical verses with decorative and mystical imagery, reminding worshippers of the constant presence of the divine. These texts adorned synagogues across the Middle East and India, including those of the Baghdadi Jewish community in Calcutta.
Rosh Hashanah Seder Yehi Raṣon
Printed and handwritten paper, later laminated
Kolkata (Calcutta), ca. 1900
This guide delineates the foods and blessings for the Seder Yehi Raṣon, a Sephardic ritual that welcomes the new Jewish year with blessings and wishes connected to symbolic foods.
Although seder means “order,” one family member (possibly Rahel’s great-uncle Elias) later annotated the sheet in a different sequence. The document also contains handwritten additions identifying the foods in English and transliterated Judeo-Arabic and Hindi.
Hanukkah Paper
Printed paper with gilt lettering, later laminated
Kolkata (Calcutta), early 20th century
During Hanukkah in Calcutta, children received brightly colored printed sheets featuring holiday blessings, as well as Hanerot Hallalu and Psalm 30, traditionally chanted after lighting the Hanukkah lamps.
This example belonged to Ezekiel Nissim Musleah (Rahel’s father). His full Hebrew lineage — his first and middle name, then his father’s first and middle name, then his grandfather’s first and middle name, and finally the family name — appears at the top of the page, preserving family genealogy within a ritual object.
The paper was hung beside the hanukkiyah, which also hung on the wall.
Ketubah of Isaac Sassoon Musleah and Flora Moses
Illuminated manuscript on paper
Kolkata (Calcutta), 1919
This illuminated ketubah, or Jewish marriage contract, documents the marriage of Isaac Sassoon Musleah and Flora Moses (Rahel’s grandparents) in Calcutta on the 3rd of Adar, March 4, 1919.
The Hebrew and Aramaic are written in Rashi script, traditional in Middle Eastern Jewish communities. Water damage has partially obscured portions of the text, including exact dates and names of witnesses.
Illumination motifs include stylized fauna such as peacocks and leopards, common in South Asian manuscript traditions. Accompanying fish motifs symbolize fertility — an especially poignant detail, as Rahel’s grandmother carried ten children, though only three survived before her death in childbirth at age
thirty-nine.
Ketubah of Seemah (Simḥa) Musleah Cohen and Saleh (Charles) Cohen
Illuminated manuscript on paper
Kolkata (Calcutta), 1930
This ketubah commemorates the marriage of Seemah Musleah Cohen and Saleh Cohen (Rahel’s great-aunt and great-uncle) on June 10, 1930. Like many Middle Eastern Jewish marriage contracts, it also contains fish motifs symbolizing fertility and abundance.
