Gender, Memory, and Postcolonialism; Reading Indian Jewish Diaspora in the Memoirs of Ruby Daniel, Sadia Shepard, and Jael Silliman

Abstract

The Indian Jewish diaspora has made significant contributions to the formation of modern Israeli society with their interventions in the liberation of Jewish refugees, servitude in the World Wars, and the revival of spoken Hebrew; however, the distinctiveness of their diasporic history and post-aliyah experiences are underrepresented, leading to a scholarly dearth in their social representations in India and Israel. This gap is addressed in this study by interpreting the diasporic uniqueness (cultural, religious, geographic, and linguistic) of the three prominent Indian Jewish communities: Bene Israel (Bombay), Baghdadi Jews (Calcutta), and Malabari Jews (Cochin) within the larger frameworks of memory, postcoloniality, and gender. The documentation of their intergenerational diasporic experiences is closely read in the memoirs of three female writers, Ruby Daniel (Ruby of Cochin), Sadia Shepard (The Girl from Foreign), and Jael Silliman (The Man with Many Hats) to examine how the personal lived histories resist the efforts of grand narratives to communalise the past, present, and future of a country. The micro-practices of these communities as a transnational minority are construed to establish their collective significance that transcend geographic, linguistic, and cultural barriers.