The Paradesi Jewish community built this synagogue in Kochi on land given by the Raja of Kochi, Rama Varma. The article gives the completion year as 1568, although another passage says 1558. Samuel Castiel, David Belila and Joseph Levi are named as its builders. Karl Damschen restored the complex in 1998 and 1999 for the World Monuments Fund.
It is a complex of four buildings that shares a common wall with the Mattancherry Palace temple. Inside are hundreds of eighteenth-century Chinese hand-painted porcelain floor tiles, Belgian glass chandeliers and a brass-railed pulpit. An eighteenth-century clock tower stands above.
It is an active place of worship and the only functioning synagogue in Kochi with a minyan. It is open to visitors for a fee.
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