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Arts & Entertainment
A Meditation On Identity
Author/filmmaker describes time spent in India researching her Jewish roots.
Sandee Brawarsky
Special to the Jewish News
S
adia Shepard grew up in a white
clapboard house in Newton,
Mass., just outside of Boston,
with three parents — her Pakistani
Muslim mother and her Colorado-raised
Protestant father, who jointly ran an archi-
tectural firm, and her Nana, her mother's
mother, who came from Pakistan to help
raise Shepard and her younger brother.
Shepard knew that her much-beloved
Nana, a widow named Rahat Siddiqi, had
been the third wife of her husband and
raised her children alongside those of his
other wives. And she knew that her grand-
mother was born in India and left Bombay
(now known as Mumbai) for Karachi dur-
ing the Partition of India in 1947.
But it was only when she was 13, and
ruffling through the drawers of her grand-
mother's bureau, that Shepard came across
a pin with the name Rachel Jacobs inscribed
on it and learned that Rahat had been born
Rachel, that her grandmother had been
part of the Bene Israel community of India
before marrying her Muslim husband.
Shepard knew enough about Jewish law
to understand that she and her mother
would be considered Jews.
The Girl from Foreign: A Search for
Shipwrecked Ancestors, Forgotten Histories,
and a Sense of Hope (Penguin Press;
$25.95) is Shepard's memoir of piecing
together her family's tales. She has prime
material for a great memoir — exotic
background, colorful characters, complex
relationships and a generational tradition
of storytelling — and she unfolds her
story in graceful prose, with cinematic
pacing and abundant love.
In 2001, 15 months after Nana's
death, Shepard traveled to India on a
Fulbright Scholarship to research and
make a documentary film about the
Bene Israel community (In Search of the
Bene Israel had its premiere at the San
Francisco Film Festival in August and has
just been released on DVD).
Shepard was fulfilling a promise made
to her grandmother near the end of her life
that she would go to India and learn about
her history, embarking on, she writes, that
"most American of journeys: a search for
the roots of my own particular tree"
She made return trips and altogether
spent two years in India. She admits that
it will take a lifetime to fully interpret
what she saw. Her book title refers to
how Shepard was known by her Indian
classmates, guards at the film school she
attended, local merchants and her neigh-
bors, as though Foreign were a state or
destination.
Upon arriving in Bombay, she finds the
large white house by the ocean that her
grandfather built for her grandmother,
and that she often spoke about. This was
the home where Nana lived independently,
with the sound of the waves crashing
and gardens alongside, before she moved
to Karachi, joining the other wives and
children. The grandson of the new owner
takes Shepard around.
Her grandmother married secretly at
age 16 to a family friend 10 years her
senior, who did business with her father.
For a decade, while she was living away
from home as a nurse, she kept her mar-
riage secret from her family.
Her father died without knowing that
his daughter was married to his Muslim
friend. Her mother found out about the
marriage when her daughter became
pregnant with her first child.
After her marriage, Shepard's grand-
mother lived as a practicing Muslim, rais-
ing her children as Muslims as she had
promised her husband. Many years later,
when she is open with her granddaugh-
ter about her Jewish background, she
becomes curious to explore Judaism, even
joining Hadassah.
Toward the end of her life, Nana worried
about her decision to marry outside of her
faith and wondered if she could die a Jew.
Her husband had promised her a Jewish
funeral. When Shepard asks her if she con-
siders herself a Jew or a Muslim, she says
that one is the religion of her forefathers,
the other the religion of her children; and
then repeats the understanding of the
Shepard home, that "all paths lead to God."
Readers may see their own grand-
mothers in Nana, women of uncommon
strength, wisdom and kindness who
transplanted their lives and dedicated
themselves to children and grandchildren.
In Pakistan, Nana was very unusual for
her time in encouraging her daughter to
study abroad in America at age 16, and
again for university, understanding that
she'd have more opportunities as a woman
in America.
Shepard's grandmother told her that
their ancestors left Israel on a ship and
were shipwrecked in India, south of
Sadia Shepard was raised in a home with a Muslim mother, a Christian father and
a Jewish grandmother.
Bombay along the Konkan Coast where
they settled. Although they were cut off
from the rest of the Jewish world for cen-
turies, they observed Jewish law regarding
the Sabbath, kashrut, circumcision and the
prohibition against intermarriage.
By the late 19th century, most of the
Bene Israel moved to Bombay from small
villages. At its height, the community
numbered more than 30,000 in pre-parti-
tion India. After 1947, members of the
community began moving to Israel; today,
according to Shepard, the community in
India numbers about 3,500, while in Israel
there are more than 90,000 Bene Israel.
Shepard begins her project while based
at a film institute in Pune, home to the
largest Bene Israel community outside of
Bombay. She tries to meet members of the
community, including a relative, and finds
that her first photographs are very stiff. In a
dream, her grandmother encourages her to
move to Bombay, and there she volunteers
at ORT, the Jewish vocational school, as a
way to integrate herself into the community.
Her first project is to direct a play about
the history of the Bene Israel, which the
teenagers touring Israel will present as a
way of explaining themselves. She makes
friends among the shy girls who can bare-
ly say their lines out loud, the more confi-
dent young men and members of the staff
who invite her to their homes to celebrate
Shabbat and to community weddings.
In Bombay, and in her travels to towns
along the coast, her photos become filled
with life and depth. She learns that the
dishes her grandmother served at home,
that she used to think of as Pakistani food,
like fish curry with coconut milk, were
traditional recipes from the Bene Israel.
The memoir is full of lovely moments,
like when the village women insist that
she must wear a sari for Simchat Torah
celebrations and work to fit the tall Shepard
into one of their garments. In her travels,
she finds the village of her grandmother's
family and meets the caretakers of several
synagogues where few Jews remain. She
enjoys the process of writing, as she's able
to capture many small moments that would
have been impossible with a camera.
About her own religious identity,
Shepard, now living in New York City, says
that she's still working on it. "I have come
to believe that in order to get beyond the
idea of a clash of civilizations between
East and West we must recognize that
no religion — whether it be Judaism,
Christianity or Islam — is a monolith.
"I hope that more people come for-
ward to give voice to stories of plural and
hyphenated identities, ones that encourage
us to reconsider our assumptions about
faith, culture and the diversity of religious
practices." ❑
Sadia Shepard's film, In Search
of the Bene Israel, is now avail-
able on DVD. Go to her Web site,
sadiashepard.com, to also see her
photos and a link to her commentary
on the recent terrorism in Mumbai.
January 1 • 2009
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