The best books on the Jewish immigrant experience and Bene Israel culture

Ayelet Tsabari’s stunning memoir is all about departure, wandering, displacement, identity, and belonging. As a Mizrahi, or non-European Jew, and a minority in Israeli society and culture, she establishes herself as a powerful voice for emigrants and minorities and speaks truth to power.

In the West, Ashkenazi Jewish culture dominates, and most people are ignorant of, and/or quite indifferent to, the myriad Jewish communities of the world and their complex and rich cultures. Her experiences in the Israeli army, her travels, her difficult relationships, her escape from trauma and pain as she enters into different worlds, and how she makes peace with herself. She focuses on those like herself on the margins of Israeli society and exposes the misogyny and discrimination she and other immigrants like herself experience on a daily basis.

Many of the aspects she writes about resonate deeply with me as an Indian immigrant in the US, as an outsider, and as someone who has built my writing life from scratch. The stories of the Bene Israel from India who migrated to Israel are similar, as they were discriminated against horribly. Later, they led protests and strikes, and things seemed to improve. Communities like the Ethiopian Jews are still struggling to gain equality and better treatment.

Tsabari’s personal trauma and her travels to escape and ultimately find herself, her unflinching gaze, and examination of what’s not talked about is brilliant and brave.

Sadia Shepard is the child of a white Protestant father from Colorado and a Muslim mother from Pakistan, who grew up outside Boston. In her visionary and moving memoir, she embarks on a search for her Bene Israel roots when her maternal grandmother, who she thought was a Muslim from Pakistan like everyone else in their family, tells her that her real name is Rachel Jacobs.

She hears about the Bene Israel community and reads about their origins. It's a fascinating account of a cross-cultural childhood, a journey to India to explore her grandmother’s family tree, discovering the secrets of her grandparents’ marriage, encountering the complicated history of India and Pakistan and the Partition, and at the same time, making sense of her complex influences and legacy. The author undertakes journeys on several levels that delve into her family history, her ancestors, her grandmother’s story, and her own identity.

What I love about this well-crafted book (besides the fact that she has Bene Israel ancestors, too) is her vulnerability and her connection to her grandmother, and also her ability to bring it all to life so vividly, which I strive to do in my own work as a tribute to my parents and ancestors.

As a student in Kolkata, India, we read Indian writing in English, and only then I understood that we had our own identity, style, and voice. No one has proven that to me more than the poet who is called the “Father of Indian Poetry,” Nissim Ezekiel. He was quite revolutionary for those times, and a modern poet. He is particularly important to me as he is not only a trailblazer in Indian literary history, but he is from the Bene Israel community to which I belong.

Ezekiel’s book, published by Oxford University Press, is invaluable, as are all his poetry books. Ezekiel broke away from Romanticism and offered critical insights into everyday life in India and its contradictions, which made it possible for poets like me to explore my own voice and stories.

Though I constantly heard stories about him from writers and poets (and continue to do so today), and especially his generosity to young and emerging poets, I regret that I never had an opportunity to meet him, even though I was quite young when my family and I visited Bombay often. In honor of his work and to pay homage to this extraordinary literary giant who laid the foundation for all writers of Indian origin, I have mentioned him in the dedication section of my new book.

This nonfiction book has groundbreaking research and details about the ancient community of the Bene Israel of Western India. It has laid the foundation for researchers from all over the world who studied (or currently study) the Jews of India, and in particular the Bene Israel, their history, customs, and culture. 

It is a book rich with facts and discussions and superbly educative. It is a book I return to often, not just to read and enjoy, but to refer to for my own history and my writing, especially for my recent book, where I trace my own ancestry and explore my childhood in Mumbai and Kolkata.

B.J. Israel’s books are a globally respected and recognized resource. His works appear in the Judaic Encyclopedia. He is the author of several milestone books, containing his research on the three best-known Jewish communities of India, the Bene Israel of the Konkan, the Cochin Jews of Kerala, and the more recent arrivals, the Baghdadi Jews of Mumbai and Kolkata. 

This is a very important book for us all. It is very close to my heart (and stomach) as it is the only current collection of recipes, and perhaps the most comprehensive collection, from the five different communities of Jews of India: The Bene Israel, the Cochin Jews of Kerala, the Baghdadi Jews, and the more recently discovered Bene Ephraim from Mizoram and the Bnei Menashe from Andhra Pradesh.

David, a renowned and beloved novelist as well as a sculptor and artist from Ahmedabad, India, received a grant from Hadassah for her project. She traveled to various cities and towns and to remote parts of India to personally interact with, research, and record these invaluable recipes and customs and write notes on her findings. David has created a legacy not only for the dwindling communities of Indian Jews but also for writers like myself, for whom Esther David has been an icon since childhood.