Song of Songs is read in the Sephardi ritual before the Minhah service on the afternoon of the seventh day of Passover (eighth day outside Israel). In certain communities, the Song of Songs is also read after concluding the Passover Haggadah on seder night. The association of the Song of Songs with Passover is thought to be due to the traditional rabbinic exegesis which interprets the Song as an allegory of the love between G-d and Israel; Passover is the springtime of this love (Song 2:11–13) and the "honeymoon" of G-d and Israel (Jer. 2:2). In many congregations the Song of Songs is also read on Friday evenings before the Kabbalat Shabbat service, at which the "bride," the Sabbath, is welcomed.

The first Jewish merchant to settle in Calcutta was Shalom b. Obadiah ha-Cohen (d. 1836), originally from Aleppo, who, after a successful stay in Surat, arrived in Calcutta in 1798 and developed a profitable trade there in jewels and precious stones. In 1816 he became the court jeweler of the Muslim ruler Ghazi al-Din Haydar and his son at Lucknow. Shalom ha-Cohen was soon joined in Calcutta by members of his family and business associates from Surat and Bombay, among whom Jacob Zemah Nissim figured prominently. With the arrival of Moses b. Simon Duwayk ha-Cohen and his family from Aleppo, Calcutta began to develop into one of the most prosperous and flourishing cultural and economic centers of Jewish life in India. Jews from Cochin and Yemen flocked there and took an active part in its development.