मिस सैम्युअल: एक यहूदी गाथा
Among the communities that have, over the centuries, graced the open shores of India, one is rarely acknowledged. The Bene Israels, one of the ten lost tribes of Israel, arrived at the Konkan Coast, shipwrecked, around 2,000 years ago, and for generations, made the subcontinent their home. This novel—narrated by Miss Seema Samuel, an almost 70-year-old Bene Israel living in an old age home—tells their story—of their trials and tribulations, love and loss, and their longing for ‘Aliyah’, the return to the Promised Land of Israel.
Shifting from the Konkani shores to the bustling streets of Ahmedabad, and finally to the tranquillity of an old-age home on the outskirts of Pune, each generation of Seema’s family grapples with the tension between their Jewish faith and Indian identity, struggling with their fear of persecution and a yearning for acceptance.
Like Isaji Eloji, who, having married a Hindu, Narayani, is believed to have ‘blackened’ the Jewish name. Two generations later, burdened by his grandfather’s transgression, David Reuben stops at nothing to keep his Jewish identity pure, even poisoning his daughter Lily for loving a non-Jewish man. Years later, his son, Samuel David, finds that his Jewish identity makes him an outsider in his own country; and his grandson, Bobby, faces persecution of the worst kind—when he is murdered by a mob in Ahmedabad. Through these shifting tales and intense introspection, Seema remains a constant—her memories echoing the past and the present.
Spanning six generations, Miss Samuel, tells the story of a family, a community and a country. Translated into English for the first time, Sheela Rohekar’s quiet yet poignant novel is sensitive as it is tender, fiction with heart and purpose.
(From Publisher's Website)
Authors : Sheela RohekarOriginal Publisher : Bharatiya GyanpeethPublisher: Speaking Tiger
Translators:
India is perhaps the one country where the Jews have maintained their identity without ever being exposed to antisemitism at the hands of their host. Although representing a microscopic segment of the Indian population, the Bene Israel is one of the largest and oldest of the three major Jewish communities of India, the other two being the Cochin Jews of the Malabar Coast and the Baghdadi Jews of Bombay and Calcutta. The Bene Israels arrived at the Konkan coast, shipwrecked, and have lived in India for more than 2,000 years and claim descent from the ten lost tribes of Israel. After they had settled down permanently in the Konkan villages of Western Maharashtra, the Bene Israels were called ‘Shaniwar Telis’ or Saturday oil pressers – a relatively low-caste designation – by the local population because they refrained from working on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. Later, they also farmed their land, peddled produce, and took up petty jobs, with the majority working as clerks in government offices and private firms. With time, they adopted Hindu names similar to their Biblical names and took up Marathi surnames such as Rohekar, Penkar, Palkar, and Ashtamkar by adding the suffix ‘-kar’ to the villages and town they came from. They adopted Marathi, the local language, as their mother tongue, and to outsiders, became physically indistinguishable from the local population. But within the village society, the Bene Israels were clearly differentiated from others because they adhered to Judaism. Initially overtones of a caste system coloured the Bene Israelis but they changed with time. Intermarriages between other Jewish communities became common.
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