A prayer for peace

The attack on Nariman House has shattered the proud, unbroken record of tolerance and acceptance towards Jews on Indian soil, writes Sadia Shepard

7 min readDec 7, 2008 12:00 AM IST First published on: Dec 7, 2008 at 11:58 AM IST

The attack on Nariman House has shattered the proud, unbroken record of tolerance and acceptance towards Jews on Indian soil, writes Sadia Shepard
When my Indian Jewish grandmother married my Indian Muslim grandfather in the 1930s, their marriage was unusual, but not unheard of. Much of their courtship, like many others in Bombay, took place in the grand and intimate spaces of the Taj Hotel—its ballrooms, restaurants and long, ornate hallways. At dusk, they would often sit and watch the sun set beside the Gateway of India, observing the boats dock in the harbour. My grandparents’ religious upbringing may have been different, but their love story was of a moment in Indian history where the threat and promise of dissection had not yet torn the country apart. My grandfather’s business partners included Hindus, Jains, and my grandmother’s Jewish father; my grandmother’s brothers fought in a Sikh regimen of the Indian Army. The subcontinent had not yet been divided.

In 2001, I made a reverse migration, leaving my home in New York to spend two years in my grandparents’ home city, my goal to try and understand the tiny Jewish community my grandmother had been a part of several years ago. The history of my grandmother’s community had ancient roots. The Bene Israel, or Children of Israel, believes that its ancestors were shipwrecked on the Konkan coast as early as 175 B.C.E. In the 1800s, the Bene Israel moved in large numbers to Mumbai, where they rose in the ranks of the Indian Army, served the city as nurses and teachers, and worked in the city’s textile mills. Here they came into contact with another group of Jews settled in India, Jews from Iraq who were known locally as “Baghdadis” and played a prominent role in the growth of Bombay, notably the Sassoon family—after whom Sassoon Docks, Sassoon Hospital, Flora Fountain and Jacob Circle are named. Mumbai had a Jewish mayor, Dr. Elijah Moses, in the 1930s, nurtured the work of celebrated Bene Israel poet Nissim Ezekiel, and boasted its own supermodel, Rachel Reuben in the 1980s.

For over 200 years, Mumbai’s Jewish populations flourished as a small but integral part of the city’s fabric. My new friends and colleagues told me repeatedly and with great pride of how India was one of the only places in the world where Jews had virtually escaped Anti-Semitism.

The influx of members of the Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish movement was a more recent addition to Mumbai’s Jewish life, established five years ago in south Mumbai in part to serve as a home away from home for the record numbers of Israeli travelers touring the country after the completion of their Army service. These new arrivals joined a great legacy of Jews peacefully settled in India.

Mumbai is a city that welcomes hundreds of new people every day, all seeking something. Dreams are Mumbai’s foundation, its currency and its fuel. I was one of those seekers and the city made room for me as it does for all who choose to make their home here. I was seeking something less tangible than a job; my goal was to uncover what role the past might play in my future. With my Muslim given name, my father’s Christian surname and my American manners, some may have considered me odd, but they never let on. Most Mumbaikars, including members of the Jewish community, were curious and interested in my purpose in India and in my desire to reconnect. The doors of their homes, synagogues and community centres remained open.

I noticed with interest that most synagogues, a result of changing demographics, were now located in Muslim neighbourhoods, places such as Byculla and Agripada. As I walked through crowded lanes to reach the places of worship where I attended and photographed services, weddings and holiday celebrations, I noticed men and women around me in tunics, prayer caps and head coverings, the familiar Muslim garb I had grown used to during my visits to Pakistan. I wondered what it felt like to be Jewish in neighbourhoods like these, as Jews and Muslims waged war in the Middle East. “The problems of the Jews and Muslims elsewhere are not our problems here,” one synagogue caretaker, an elderly woman named Flora, told me.

She told me of how, during the Six-Day War, Muslim shopkeepers held hands across the synagogue gate to protect it from possible looters. Nothing happened. She shook her head at the memory, considering it from a distance. “I will never forget the kindness of the Muslims that day.”

When I needed a break from my research and its many questions, I went to Colaba. I browsed the bookstalls for distraction and inspiration, ambled along the Causeway, and met friends for tea at Cafeacute; Leopold. When I sought relief from the heat, I walked through the grand hallways of the Taj, remembering my grandmother’s stories of her girlhood. This, I understood now, was much more than a hotel. This was the promise of everything that independent India represented and made possible, of great fortune and great romance. The luxuries of its restaurants and shops were too rich for my budget, but for a few moments, I too could be part of it. I discovered the pleasures of walking through the serene, cooled air, reading magazines in the bookstore, and watching boats bobble in the harbour from the hotel’s large, picture windows. And then I returned to the reality of Mumbai; to the teeming, thriving city that welcomed me just outside those quiet walls.

Last week, in the midst of the devastation that shook Mumbai, the proud, unbroken record of tolerance and acceptance towards Jews on Indian soil was shattered, along with the innocent lives of the mostly Israeli residents of the Chabad Jewish centre. As we seek answers to our anger and our questions in the coming days and weeks, we must not forget the more than 2,000 years of peaceful assimilation and amalgamation of local traditions that India’s Jewish communities have enjoyed and thrived on.
We must endeavour to not let the actions of a few ruin a remarkable history. And we must assure Mumbai’s Jewish population, along with their Hindu and Muslim neighbours, that peace will return and prevail.

Sadia Shepard is a documentary filmmaker and writer based in New York City. In 2001, she left New York for Mumbai to study the history and future of the tiny Indian Jewish community that her grandmother was born into. Her two years spent in the city became the basis of her first book, The Girl from Foreign: A Search for Shipwrecked Ancestors, Forgotten Histories, and a Sense of Home, published by Penguin. In the book, Shepard sets out on three voyages of discovery: her grandmother’s history; the story of the Bene Israel and her own self-discovery.