Paradesi means foreigner, a name that only makes sense once you know an older, separate Jewish community was already living in Kerala long before this synagogue's founders arrived.
Later arrivals, older neighbours
The Paradesi Synagogue, built in 1568, was established by Sephardic Jews who had fled the Iberian expulsions and Inquisition-era persecution and settled in Kochi, joining a much older Malabari Jewish community whose own presence on India's southwest coast, tied to ancient maritime trade, is generally understood to predate their arrival by many centuries. The name Paradesi, meaning foreign or outsider, distinguished the newcomers' congregation from the older Malabari synagogues nearby.
Gifts that still furnish the building
The synagogue's interior includes hand-painted Chinese porcelain floor tiles, no two identical, along with ornate Belgian glass chandeliers and a clock tower, gifts and additions from patrons and, in one case, the wealthy Sassoon merchant family, that accumulated over the centuries the congregation remained active and prosperous.
Too few left for a full service
Emigration, mainly to Israel, has reduced Kochi's Paradesi community to a very small number of remaining members, no longer sufficient on an ongoing basis to reliably form a minyan, the quorum of ten adult Jews traditionally required for full communal prayer, so contemporary services depend on visiting Jewish tourists and occasional outside participants to proceed as intended.