Early Life
Salem was born in 1882 to a Jewish family in Cochin (now Kochi), then a small princely state in British India and now part of the Indian state of Kerala. His family were meshuchrarim, a Hebrew word used, sometimes neutrally and sometimes with derogatory intent, to denote a manumitted slave or her descendants. The ancestors of the few score meshuchrarim had originally been brought as slaves by Sephardic Jews (the White Jews) in their 16th-century immigration from Europe to Cochin following the expulsion from Spain. The Sephardim were also known as Paradesi or "foreigners." They discriminated against the meshuchrarim in their community. These were relegated to a subordinate position in the Paradesi Synagogue in Cochin. Given the cultural differences between them, the White Jews and Malabari Jews also maintained ethnic distinctions for centuries, which became associated historically with differences in skin color.
Brought up by his mother, Salem attended the Maharaja's College in Ernakulam. He moved to Chennai to earn his Bachelor of Arts degree, becoming the first college graduate among the meshuchrarim. Whilst in Chennai he also earned his law degree, the first Jew from Cochin to do so, before returning to practise as a lawyer in the Cochin Chief Court in Ernakulam.
Read more about this topic: Abraham Barak Salem
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