Sadia Shepard

Sadia Shepard parents were from very different worlds, her father an American-born Protestant, her mother a Pakistani-born Muslim of Indian descent. But in fact the third major monotheistic religion is also represented in Shepard's background, as her mother's mother was a Jew who converted to Islam upon her marriage. When she was dying, Shepard's grandmother urged Sadia to go to India to learn about this part of her history. Fulbright fellowship in hand, Sadia did so, and this book is the show more result (along with a documentary film - Shepard is a filmmaker).

Shepard's grandmother's family were members of the Bene Israel (or Beni-Israel), Indian Jews whose tradition says that they were shipwrecked off the coast of India, although the dates and reasons are varied, some saying it was after the destruction of the Second Temple, others that they arrived during the reign of King Solomon, and there are other stories as well.

It would be a mistake, however, to expect this book to be a history of the Bene Israel. It's not, and wasn't intended to be. It's a family history, the story of Shepard's family, here, in India, and in Pakistan (where they moved after Partition). In the course of learning that history, she learns about the present-day Bene Israel, a community that is diminishing, as the younger generation looks towards Israel as a homeland, but still striving to maintain its traditions. The book is also the story of how Shepard adjusts to living in India, her friendships and study there. She sees it now through her own eyes and that of her grandmother. Shepard also is trying to find out if she needs to choose one religious path, or if she can reconcile and merge the three traditions into which she was born. It's a struggle that she hasn't resolved, one that most children of mixed religious and ethnic backgrounds go through.

I was struck by the contrast between the warm personal relationships among Muslim, Jew and Hindi and the political conflicts caused by Partition. It's a great sadness and shame and wonder that the adherents of different religions can appreciate and admire and help one another, can be close friends and associates, and yet be willing to kill each other because they worship the same god in different ways.

For another book on the same subject, you might want to read Carmit Delman's Burnt Bread and Chutney: Growing up between cultures: a Memoir of an Indian Jewish girl.

Beni-Israel, from the Jewish Encyclopedia. show less

Poignant. I really enjoyed the exploration of her family roots that the author made. I have aspirations to do a similar thing for my family. She writes well, most evocative of India and as she discovers more about her family inevitably it becomes a journey of self-exploration. It also speaks to the grief of losing family members and re-creating oneself in another culture.

I read this book "blind"- no jacket cover, no idea what it was about, just my daughter leaving it at the house, and saying I should read it. After about 50 pages, I called her and asked if it was fiction or non-fiction. When she said "non-fiction", I pressed her to see if she was sure. It is an incredible book. Beautifully written, with dreams, characters, scenes and settings that are so "foreign" yet one is drawn into Sadia's search of her grandmother's past, as a Bene-Israel, the Jews of show more India. Sadia's own heritage, and journey to India and Pakistan as an American raised Muslim and Christian who discovers she is a Jew is a total surprise and delight, even after decades of "celebrating diversity" in our country.
P.S. I attended the screening of Sadia's film- "In Search of the Bene-Israel" and spoke with Sadia. I asked about her male friend (I forget his name now) and she is headed back to India to attend his wedding. To me, that is bittersweet. I also asked why she thought so many Jews did go to Israel and although she believes it is a combination of factors, she said that after partition, when Muslims were making their own country, and Hindu's had India, the Jews might have felt that their place was Israel. She also added that now, many Jews are traveling back and forth fairly frequently from Israel to India, and it is not so much "one or the other". The film is a lovely depiction of many of the main characters from the book. show less

An interesting, if somewhat dry, memoir of Sadia Shephard's year in India and Pakistan tracking down the Bene Israel community to which her grandmother belonged.

I found the details of the Bene Israel community informative and intriguing -- this is a community of which I wasn't aware. Ms. Shepard narrative voice, however, is oddly detached and I found much of the pacing far too slow.

I never had a sense of precisely what it was Shepard hoped to discover -- facts of her family's past? show more Certainly. But what is that great 'something more' that lifts a book like this from a tepid graduate thesis to a universal symbol? I never found it, and although the back of the book declares her journey to be
'life-changing' I was not aware of any great transformation in the narrator. If the central narrative arc of a memoir is how the events contained therein contributed to the memoirist becoming who she ultimately became, then this work is thin gruel, no matter how exotic and colorful (to Westerners) the locale may be.

The most interesting passages, for me came towards the end of the book -- a section wherein she discovered her grandmother's recipes is particularly poignant, and perhaps that's due to the specificity of the moment. It's a lovely metaphor. I would have liked to see it, or something similar, used to greater effect throughout the work.

Still, as I said in the beginning -- although the book drags in sections, the premise is interesting, as are the facts of the Bene Israel community. show less