The Bene Israel of India
Zilka Joseph is Bene Israel. She is Jewish and Indian, belonging to an endogamous community historically living throughout the Kolaba District of Maharashtra State. Traditionally, the Bene Israel worked in sesame oil pressing and were called Shanwar Telis or Saturday oil pressers.
Joseph’s book of poetry – Sweet Malida, Memories of a Bene Israel Woman tells the history of her people through their food and customs. Her descriptive, evocative, and poignant verses celebrate the amalgamation of the Bene Israel Jewish and Indian identity.
The Saturday Oil Pressers
The Bene Israel (children of Israel in Hebrew) community has lived in India since 175 BCE. According to the community’s oral tradition, the Bene Israel are descended from seven couples, the sole survivors of a shipwreck off the Konkan coast near Navagaon (about 48 km south of Bombay). They believe their ancestors fled Judea during the persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes. The Bene Israel believe the theory that their ancestors lived in the Holy Land in the time of Elijah (eighth century BCE) and that the “country to the north” was actually Israel.
Joseph says those survivors were allowed to stay in the Konkan villages and become functional members of the community.
“They became oil pressers, ‘Shanwar Telis’ (Saturday oil pressers), because they wouldn’t practice their profession on Saturdays.” Jews observe a day of rest and prayer called Sabbath from Friday night to Saturday night.
Being Jewish and Indian
What is most fascinating is that through the centuries, though the Bene Israel in India were completely cut off from other Jewish communities, they still remembered some of their most important religious tenets which they continued to practice despite becoming Indian in every other way.
The Bene Israel of the Konkan coast has always been the largest of the three major Jewish communities in India. Kolkata is home to the Baghdadi Jews, who immigrated to India in the mid-18th century while the Jews of Cochin are said to have been in India for over 2000 years.
They ate the coastal cuisine of fish and coconut but avoided foods forbidden by their dietary rules, which included no mixing of dairy and meat, no pork, no shellfish, and no fish without scales, and followed Sabbath. The women wore saris like the local fisherwomen of the Konkan coast.
Without ever interacting with each other, each of these Jewish communities assimilated into their local settings, adapted to their regional language and culinary influences, and grew into distinctive and separate versions of Indian Jews. Yet, all of them continued to pray in Hebrew, maintain the Sabbath, and adhere to Jewish dietary laws.
Restoring traditions
Unlike Jewish communities in other parts of the world, India’s Bene Israel remained unknown until British Christian missionaries discovered them.
“They were discovered by the proselytizing Christian community” says Joseph. “But what was so interesting is that through these Christian missionaries, they learned more about the Old Testament and their own history.” The missionaries educated the Bene Israel and taught them Hebrew, but, instead of wanting to convert, the Bene Israel became proud of their heritage and their connection to their original homeland.
Before they made contact with other Jewish communities, the Bene Israel did not celebrate Hannukah. Historians believe that this indicates that the Bene Israel’s arrival in India predates the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem and the construction of the Second Temple, after which Jewish communities started celebrating Hannukah. The Second Temple, reconstructed between c. 516 BCE and 70 CE, is a pivotal symbol of Jewish identity.
Inter-ethnic harmony
In Calcutta, the Baghdadi Jews built large synagogues but have since mostly immigrated to Israel. Interestingly, the Muslim community maintains those synagogues even today.
“Jews were so much part of the fabric of India as well as so close to the Muslim community because our habits and our eating habits are very similar,” continues Joseph who remembers a childhood and youth when religious differences did not create conflict. “We all grew up in neighborhoods which were full of people of all religions. We never thought of other people in that way. We all had friends from all religions, and we never thought anything about it.”
Joseph was born in Mumbai and moved to Kolkata with her parents – marine engineer Solomon (Sunny) Aaron Joseph and his wife Ruby (nee Benjamin). After marriage, she later moved with her husband to the United States of America.
At the end of the 1940s, the Bene Israel population in India peaked at an estimated 25,000. After 1948 and the formation of Israel, many began emigrating there; currently, the total number of Bene Israel remaining in India is around 5,000.
Sweet Memories of a Bene Israel Woman
Joseph’s book of poetry Sweet Malida – Memories of a Bene Israel Woman is redolent with India’s flavors intertwined with Bene Israel traditions’ uniqueness. You can almost smell and taste the sharbat, halwa, laddus, and puris, familiar to Indian palates but distinctively Bene Israel.
Poetry just comes very naturally to me, says Joseph. “I always find that poetry is interesting because in some ways, it’s most free-flowing, and other ways, it’s very structured – it’s both at the same time. And here’s where craft comes in.”
Joseph reminds us that in the past all literature including the scriptures once followed the oral tradition. It’s why poetry should be read aloud says Joseph, to get close to the voice of the author.
Sweet Malida
Sweet Malida refers to a sweetened concoction of rice, sugar, fruits, and nuts traditionally offered by the Bene Israel after giving thanks to Prophet Elijah “Eliyahoo Hanabi” during Shabbath.
Sweet malida,
a mix of water-softened
flattened rice, sugar,
dried fruits and nuts,
was a dish made
for Shabbath, or for breaking our fasts.
Cooling, light
on the palate, and
to the body and the spirit,
it was welcome in the heat
of day or night. …..
Not One Fish
The simple, powerful prose In “Not One Fish” is a tribute to the power of the continuity of her community and of her people.
He knew then: they kept kosher,
a word they did not recall,
just kept a simple faith
in the God of Abraham.
To me, says Joseph, “That’s one of the most beautiful things about India because we’re so accepting of all the different communities, all the different food practices.”
Joseph thinks this happens because Indians live in neighborhoods where people of different communities share their foods – Malida could be a Hindu food at a temple.
Leaf Boat
Joseph intertwines many parallel stories in the deeply personal “Leaf Boat”, one of her most complex poems.
“It is really symbolic of journey – the thoughts of leaving India, the thoughts of leaving my parents behind, the thoughts of my grandparents, the thoughts of how my grandmother became a widow at such a young age. Then, my father was a sailor, he was on the seas, and, you know, so all that imagery, that kind of search for home, safe landing, all those images came together in the poem,” reflects Joseph.
Joseph worked on this poem over the years. “It was a wonderful way to sort of have this almost expanse of time and place and connection to generations. And then my landing in the US… landing becomes important, arrival becomes important. So what signs will I have that will tell me I can go on.”
My Cup Runneth Over
Draksha-cha Sharbath. Sherbet of raisins. Our cups overflow with this special drink for Shabbath, or to break the fast at Yom Kippur.
In this celebration of tradition, Joseph describes the pouring sharbath till it spills over into the saucers below, to symbolize the blessing of abundance, a tradition found in other Indian communities. At Pongal, for example, an overflowing pot for Tamilians signifies thanksgiving for abundance during the harvest.
Symbolism is so powerful says Joseph.
Angels of Konkon
From tumbled sands and shattered bark
blurred shadows dragged us
(where were we)
they dried our battered bodies
bound our wounds
clothed us in woven cotton
fed us warm food (that we could not
name then) with their hands
In this poem, Joseph reimagines what it was like to be rescued from drowning, nurtured back to health, and surviving in a new land.
“Here was a community where people have been shipwrecked. And this small community, not knowing anything else, just kept their little practice going. So when you think about how amazing it is and how within these villages, they were allowed to live and exist.”
Cultural identity
For over 2000 years the Bene Israel have maintained their distinctive culture and religion while assimilating in India and living in harmony with their neighbors. It’s an important lesson at a time of turmoil with anti-immigrant sentiment and debates around the world clashing about the value of preserving unique identities, whether religious, cultural, or linguistic.
“I think it’s important to know your traditions and origins. And what you do with that is purely up to you,” reflects Joseph.
“I think all of us in America, because sometimes it’s hard not to be marginalized because there are microaggressions, there’s ignorance. But we have to know who we are – who we are as Indians, or who we are as the culture we have within us – but even who we are as people personally as a character, and that will be how we make our choices.”
If our parents or grandparents hadn’t told us some of those stories, continues Joseph, we may not connect to them. “Curiosity is so important also to know other cultures and other histories.”
In her collection of poems and short prose pieces, Joseph creates a tapestry of her community and herself – a portrait of people who have moved, assimilated, celebrated, and thrived.
You experience her connections to her family. You are in her kitchen eating the food lovingly prepared by her grandmother and mother. This connection to our roots through our food is universal and unifying and defines our common humanity.
Sweet Malida is available in many bookstores as well as on Amazon. An international edition of her book will be published by Pippa Rann Books, Uk, and Penguin Random House, India, in October.
This resource is supported in whole or in part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library in partnership with the California Department of Social Services and the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs as part of the Stop the Hate program. To report a hate incident or hate crime and get support, go to CA vs Hate.