‘What’s Kosher?’ An Indian-Jewish poet’s take on memory, belonging, and her people

[Ajay0]

India is considered to be the only country on earth which has never persecuted its Jewish population.

Zilka Joseph’s new of book of poetry, ‘Sweet Malida: Memories of a Bene Israel Woman,’ dips into the culture and mythology around the subcontinent’s largest Jewish community.

‘What’s Kosher?’ An Indian-Jewish poet’s take on memory, belonging, and her people’s delicious history.

https://forward.com/culture/617986/indian-jewish-food-poetry-bene-israel/

 

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In Joseph’s new book of poetry, Sweet Malida: Memories of a Bene Israel Woman, she plucks vivid moments out of her people’s mysterious history, as well as her own experiences in a community that has shrunk to just 5,000 in India today (most have emigrated, with the vast majority — around 80,000 — living in Israel).

The book’s title refers to the “Malida,” an offering of rice flakes, nuts, coconut, fruits, and flowers to the prophet Elijah, a central figure in Bene Israel tradition. As Joseph celebrates — and interrogates — her community’s memories, food is central, a medium for welcoming newcomers, remembering her family’s matriarchs, and launching questions into historical gaps.

In “Pantoum for Chik-cha Halwa,” a coconut-and-wheat-based dessert helps her plumb historical gaps as she writes, “so very different from sweets of home/ sugar coconut milk colored pink thickening/ those lost in the deluge shipwrecked/ would their spirits whisper old recipes?”

 

 

Edited November 30 by Ajay0