May 15, 2007
Novel takes a second look at Bene Israel
In her fiction debut, Sophie Judah draws inspiration from her native India for a mixed bag of short stories depicting the slow demise of Bene Israel, a centuries-old Jewish community there.
The community’s origins, Judah writes in “Dropped from Heaven,” are shrouded in mystery. No one is sure how the Jews ended up in India. Some say they were one of the lost tribes, possibly Zebulun.
Nonetheless, these Jews remained faithful to their customs, like keeping the laws of kashrut, marrying within the community and observing the Sabbath. While these all seem familiar to Jews around the world, Judah makes it clear that the Bene Israel community’s way of life was a unique blend of Judaism accented by Indian cultural trappings. But, like many other small Jewish communities around the world during the last century, the Bene Israel witnessed their young people leave and never come back. Economics took them to other parts of India and idealism led them away to the newly formed Jewish state.
Indeed, throughout the book’s 110-year span, the traditions of the Bene Israel come under increasing strain. They seem most severely affected, not by the customs of their Hindu and Muslim neighbors (who appear to be too busy killing each other), but by the influence of life in modern Israel.
In one story, “The Courtship of Naomi Samuel,” a visiting Israeli attempts to woo a local girl but he stumbles repeatedly over his blunt, matter-of-fact personality. When Naomi asks what could be done for her disabled sister if the family moved to Israel, he blithely suggests sticking her in an institution.
The last straw comes on a Friday evening when Itzik proclaims the Kiddush wine and challah “unclean” because “a goy” prepared them.
The non-Jew who made the ritual items — a Muslim friend of the family affectionately referred to as “Auntie Selma” — overhears the comment, becomes distraught and asks if he considers her “an untouchable.”
Faced with the perceived humiliation of her auntie, Naomi ends the courtship right then and there by ordering Itzik out of the house. He attempts to explain by quoting Jewish law but Naomi cuts him off with a comment that sums their differences in approach to Judaism.
“Is that the law from Sinai,” she asks. “You are more involved with ritual than with God and common humanity.”
Naomi later marries out of the faith and loses contact with her family.
Thankfully Judah includes depictions of other Israelis who are not so boorish. In the final story — the best one in the collection — a Bene Israel Jew who immigrated to Israel long ago, Joseph, returns to India on a visit with his Israeli girlfriend.
Set in the year 2000, Judah says in the book’s forward that the tale depicts the conditions of many small Indian Jewish communities at the start of the 21st century. There are almost no other Jews around. So when Joseph gets stuck arranging a funeral for a local Jewish woman he barely knew, he expends a lot of time, energy, and money making sure she receives a proper burial.
This time, the Israeli character lends emotional support to her intended and remains flexible (or suffers silently) when confronted with the local traditions.
Ultimately, Joseph’s efforts go wasted. Poverty-stricken waifs pillage the woman’s grave in the overgrown Jewish cemetery and take everything of value, including the shroud.
Under the circumstances, Joseph must opt for a non-Jewish means of disposing the body, cremation.
And so it went for the Bene Israel community. In the end, not only did Jewish life become impossible to maintain in India: even a Jewish death is impossible.
The book is a reminder of things lost. It seems that Judah saw two options for the Bene Israel community: face dispersion in Israel or in the larger Indian community. How many other communities did this happen to? Fortunately for the Bene Israel community, Judah’s nostalgia has given them a second life.
“Dropped from Heaven” is published by Schocken Books (243 pages, $23.00).
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