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

Ajay0 · Nov 29, 2024

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

Indian Jewish poet Zika 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.

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

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

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