This lamp belonged to Shabdai (Sattu) Koder (1907–1994), leader for five decades of the Jewish community of Kochi, India, and warden of the Paradesi Synagogue, the only active synagogue there today. The Koder family was probably from Iraq and arrived in Kochi via Burma (now Myanmar) in the early nineteenth century. Known as a chattakam vilakku, this type of hanging lamp with seven oil cups has been used by Jews in Cochin, at the southwest tip of India, since at least the late nineteenth century. The Star of David expresses an emergent Zionist sentiment. Lamps in this star form are also characteristic of the Bene Israel community around Mumbai, farther north on the west coast of India.