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Targeting Tolerance in Mumbai
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More in Forward ForumWhen my Indian Jewish grandmother married my Indian Muslim grandfather in the 1930s, their marriage was unusual in some ways. But in others it was commonplace. Theirs was a romance of pre-Partition India, and their courtship and early marriage, like so many in Mumbai, unfolded in the grand and intimate spaces of the Taj Hotel — its restaurants, ballrooms and long, grand hallways.
Now, photographs of these same rooms show walls and floors streaked with blood and littered with glass. Nearly 200 people died in the attacks on Mumbai, most of them Indians — Hindus and Muslims alike. The terrorists also targeted foreign tourists, international business people and Jews, killing six at the city’s Chabad center — the first time that Jews have been singled out and massacred on Indian soil.
When the terrorists walked unimpeded into the heart of Mumbai, they exposed the vulnerability of this famously hospitable city. Mumbai is a magnet for people from across India, and from around the world, all seeking something — whether it is wealth, opportunity or the possibility of reinvention. Dreams are Mumbai’s foundation — its currency and its fuel.
I was one of those seekers the day I arrived in 2001. True, I arrived seeking something less tangible than a job. My goal was to discover what role my grandparents’ past might play in my future, to understand what it meant to be tied to both India, the land of their birth, and Pakistan, the land they fled to after the Partition of 1947.
My mother’s own migration to the United States and marriage to my American father meant that my identity was further hyphenated — I was raised in Boston by a Muslim mother, Christian father and Jewish grandmother. What better place to make sense of this confluence than Mumbai, one of the world’s great crucibles? In the city I adopted as my second home there were no bag searches and no guards to bar entry. Mumbai, and its Jewish community, welcomed me, like they have done for so many others, with open doors and open arms.
While the Chabad house targeted by the terrorists served mostly Israelis and other visitors passing through Mumbai, there are also two distinct Jewish communities with deep roots in the city. Members of my grandmother’s community, the Bene Israel, maintain that their forebears arrived in India as early as 175 B.C.E. after being shipwrecked on the Konkan Coast. Then there are the Jews known locally as Baghdadis, who immigrated to India from Iraq as merchant traders during the period of the British Raj.
As a result of changing demographics, most of Mumbai’s eight synagogues are today located in Muslim neighborhoods, on the same sites where they have conducted religious services and Jewish education for hundreds of years. One of these synagogues, Magen David, has had a Muslim custodian for decades. In 2002 I photographed Muhammed as he packed and organized the city’s supply of matzo in anticipation of the Passover holiday, as he does every year.
I asked the synagogue’s caretaker, an elderly woman named Flora, if she had ever encountered problems with the local Muslim community. She rebuffed my question with a swat of her hand. “The problems in Israel are not our problems here,” she explained. “We Jews in India have had good relations with the Muslims, and they with us.” She told me of how, during the Six Day War, Muslim shopkeepers held hands across the synagogue gate to protect it from the possibility of looters, saying that this was a house of God and it should be protected. 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,” she said.
Mumbai has long been a city where cooperation and commerce across cultural and religious lines is a way of life. In the 1930s, my grandfather’s business partners included Hindus, Jains and my grandmother’s Jewish father, while my grandmother’s brothers fought in a Sikh regiment of the Indian army. My grandparents’ religious upbringings may have been different, but their love story was shaped by a moment in Indian history when the threat and promise of dissection had not yet torn apart the country.
It was communal riots in the wake of Partition that compelled my grandparents to leave. So much was uncertain at the time of the British withdrawal, and my grandfather hoped that tensions would dissipate quickly and life would return to normal. But as news reports of Hindu and Muslim neighbors attacking one another mounted, he became fearful for his family’s safety and moved his wife and children to Karachi.
Their migration was part of the single largest transfer of populations in human history, as nearly 15 million people, Hindus in what became Pakistan and Muslims in newly independent India, gathered what few belongings they could carry and swapped one country for another. The ensuing violence that shook the Subcontinent left a million people dead.
The bitter legacy of Partition — including the unresolved fate of Kashmir — haunts the Subcontinent to this day, fueling tensions that have erupted sporadically and sometimes violently in Mumbai in the ensuing 61 years. But it is the city’s larger promise of a multi-layered, cosmopolitan reality — the very aspect of the city that brought my grandparents together and compelled me to return — that made it a tempting target for militants seeking to reignite hostilities between India and Pakistan. In striking at Mumbai, the terrorists tried to destroy the foundations of hope for regional harmony and cooperation. It is vital that Indians and Pakistanis not let them succeed.
Sadia Shepard is the author of “The Girl From Foreign: A Search for Shipwrecked Ancestors, Lost Loves, and Forgotten Histories” (Penguin Press).
Comments
I write to respond to Yehuda's comment. Yehuda missed the whole point of the article. Many, many of us have hyphenated identities. I do. I am both African-American and Caribbean-American. Although most of the Caucasian world doesn't seem to realize it, these are two very different cultures with very different world views, different histories, adhering to different religions and very different senses of "self." My Caribbean-American mother and my African-American (I prefer the term Negro - but that is out of fashion and politically incorrect nowdays) father had VERY different identities. My identity IS hyphenated, with a foot in both worlds (actually one and one fifth foot in the Caribbean culture and four fifths of a foot in African-American culture. Add to that the fact that both families are racial mixtures - some, centuries back, some, more recent AND the fact that as prosperous middle class people, we have the elements of what is said to me majority (white American) culture, while not forgetting that we were enslaved for hundreds of years by white America and are still subjected to DWB (Driving While Black) - those in my families are hyphenated in deed!!! My primary identity is NOT singular. I am composed of many parts, all active. In another branch of my family, we have Jewish roots (late 19th century) and have actually published a family history, in which the term "hyphenated identity" was not used, but our many identities were well-chronicled. To me, someone who is not Jewish (I am an atheist), but has always lived "next door", "Jewish" signifies both a peoplehood (like African-American) and a religion which can be contrasted and compared to/with other religions. A hyphenated identity is NOT empty. It is more highly evolved, inclusive, and over time, less likely to cause wars and hatred. Pamela McGhee
Pamela - even taking identity as the author intended, are we to believe that she is Jewish and Christian and Moslem? That is what she was hyphenating. People do not maintain triple religious identities, nor do they maintain double or triple ethnicities. An "Italian-Polish-American" is probably a monolingual English speaker. People can call themselves as they wish - but in serious sociological terms, an ethnic identity without the language that carries that identity is quite empty.
Yehuda, My ethnic identities speak, in general, the same language - with different nuances and different references - but the basic language is English. In a sense, I am bi-lingual (tri-lingual if you count WASP). Our historical identities are different, and in my generation, they are dual or multiple. I assess that you are taking a specific case (Jewish identity) and generalizing it to apply to all cultures. It may not apply - and I do not think that it applies to all Jews, either. Identity is not necessarily singular - and it should not be - this leads to perceiving fellow human beings as "other". And that has led to thousands and thousands of years of war and bloodshed, all because of the perception of "not us". It is this obscenity that is at the root of the Israeli/Palestinian genocide, at the root of the Rwandan genocide, the Somali obscenity, the Serbian mess, the American mass crime of chattel slavery, and on and on.... "Not us" - so we can do anything to them, mass murder, enslavement, genocide - Germany went this way in the 1930's and 40's. The United States went this way from the 1700's to the mid twentieth century - and it goes on still - in water color, not thick acrylic - but it goes on. I think people of this planet will destroy themselves before they learn better. Too much of this "single identity" mentality, I think, will complete our destruction. We see the destruction growing piecemeal, in the areas of the world I’ve mentioned, and in many more areas that I have not mentioned. We, the people of the world, MUST get beyond this preoccupation with a single identity. I think it is an outgrowth of an earlier human mental state and if we are to survive and grow, we must discard it, or at the very least keep it in severe check. Else, we will become as extinct as the dinosaur, after having lasted for a MUCH shorter time.
Pamela - Singular identity is simply the way of the world. All of us are the cultural product of a particular society and its educational system, and others (who are the product of other cultural realities) are foreigners to us. When you went to high school, so I suppose, you had to study a "foreign language" - by definition, the language of the "other". It's really besides the point if this is good or bad, or if this is the supposed source of human tragedy (it isn't, obviously). I understand that a temporary situation could exist in which a person feels "at home" in two cultures (most probably because of recent immigration). This is never an ongoing reality. Yiddish-speaking immigrants to the USA of one-hundred years ago had bilingual children, and then monolingual grandchildren. Peoples who live in a bilingual society for generations (let's say in Belgium) - nevertheless, the one language is one's native language and culture, and the other language is an acquired foreign language (no matter how well one learns it). Getting back to Sadia Shepard's claim that she has a "Jewish-Christian-Moslem" hyphenated identity - without having met her, I find it just silly even to assume that she attends mosque-synagogue-church on her Fridays-Saturdays-Sundays. It's just very common in America to claim multiple identities. Apparently, it's "cool". But, in reality, one's primary identity is American, and this is the only identity that has real content (a familiar historic narrative, language and literature, a sense of feeling "at home" in society).
Yehuda, I can see that like me, you relish a good debate. I challenge your position of "singular identity being the way of the world". I am African-American, Afro-Caribbean, and American. Which is stronger depends on what day I am in, the environment I am in, and my intellectual predilections for the day. One of the singularities of the African-American experience is the maintaining of a dual identity. It seems to be something that almost all (American) whites can neither understand nor perceive. For me (us) it is survival. I must function in several worlds and therefore find dual or multiple identities necessary. One develops a facility in moving among them, shifting one's mind from one to the other, as needed. I would say that the emotionally stable person does have a core "being", but social identities can be many. I think that if we do not kill off our species with our single-identity induced wars, this is the way we will evolve, socially and psychologically. The "single identity" modality is from our distant past, when it was useful and damage from conflict would not extinguish the species. Now, with technology always developing faster than human social and cultural progress, Homo sapiens sapiens can blow up the entire planet by touching a few screens. We can no longer afford "single identity" simplicities.
Pamela - I certainly cannot debate with you about your identity without knowing you. I can only make general observations. Language and identity go hand in hand, and hence a declaration of one's identity only has limited real value in the American monolingual reality. Mr Obama, for example, had a Kenyan father who has given him a Swahili name. But Mr Obama is not a Swahili-speaker, and Kenyan society and norms are totally foreign to him. He is "African" only by descent, but he is clearly American by culture and education. Descent and culture are not the same. Most Jews in America had their own language and culture (Yiddish) when they arrived as immigrants after 1881. The abandonment of their own language and the adoption of American English can be defined as a primary change in culture. They don't have today two equal cultures, living side by side. For most American Jews, American culture is primary, and Jewish culture can be reached only through translation into the American medium. It is secondary at best, and for most just marginal. If you like, you can call this situation "multi-cultural" - but in my eyes the true definition of monolingual America is that there is a primary or core American culture that all share. The other cultures brought to America can no longer be understood in their true context.
Thanks for such a beautiful article. As to the debate that it has sparked, let me weigh in. I am a Dominican American Orthodox Jew. I speak English, Spanish and very limited Hebrew. My parents came to America as teenagers but between trips to the Dominican Republic, food, customs, etc, I find myself identifying strongly as Dominican. Living as an Orthodox Jew is another side of my identity. Growing up as a first-generation American is another side of my identity. I have a hyphenated identity and I find that people with singular identities have a hard time coping or understanding how my life functions in English and Spanish and Hebrew and some smattering of Yiddish. But I would think an American Jew or a Jewish American wouldn't need to have these kinds of things explained to him.
And might I add that if you'd like to learn more about hyphenated identities, you might want to read Sadia's book or check out my blog. :) We're very real people, in fact, us hyphenates as Pamela troubled herself to point out throughout all her comments.
Aliza, I've just scanned your blog: GREAT!! I've put it in my Favorites list and will return to it often. It may represent a possible wonderful world of the present and future! And, there is much I can still learn - I'm looking forward to great readings.
Yehuda, PLEASE Google Aliza's name and read her blog. Check out the associated links and references. We just might alter your thinking a little bit! Hyphenated identities are being lived now, as they have been lived in the past - African-American people are but one of MANY examples. See Aliza's blog for more examples and for mind-expanding writings!!
First I would like to commend Sadia Shepard for sharing her story. I look forward to reading her book! I too take issue with Yehuda's comment. As someone with patrilineal Ashkenazi descent and a Japanese mother my identities are very strongly Jewish, Japanese, and American. I was born in Japan, raised for the most part in America, and have spent formative parts of my life in France and Israel. As a result, I speak Japanese, English, French, and Hebrew. Yes, it is true that since my family left Japan when I was still an infant English is my primary language, but please don't tell me that I don't have a hyphenated identity. Since most people look at me and assume that an Asian girl can't be Jewish, I am constantly having to affirm my Jewish identity. And yes I had an Orthodox conversion, but I can tell you that even before my conversion I had a strong Jewish identity though I knew that I was not halakhically Jewish. Now however people label me as a "convert" without respecting the variation in converts' stories and the fact that not all converts want to be "outed" as such. I do not appreciate being pigeon-holed by others who do not have the imagination to conceive of plural, hyphenated identities. It is truly the most infuriating thing to not be seen for the full human being which I am instead of the preconceived notion which one assumes me to be. My identities are etched into my face, my soul, and the very way that I live my life every day.
Yes, there are some people who were born in one place, and then they were raised in another place, and then in yet another place, etc. No one is denying such a special reality, and it surely is a very exciting biography. However, it is so obvious that a "Japanese-French-Hebrew-English" identity of today will not be the identity of that person's grandchildren. It is not the way of the world. Within two generations, there will be a single native language - representing a single primary culture. I think that all of you should distinguish between one's special personal story and general sociological trends. Moreover, in the original article, Sadia Shepard was speaking of a religious hyphenated identity (Jewish-Christian-Moslem). It sounds so "cool". Yet, I remain quite incredulous.
Great article! I have read Sadia's book and found it lovely and touching. As far as being 'hyphenated', U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama is a perfect example of what Sadia means. Because the ethnicities of his parents held equal weight for him, Obama had to work out an identity that incorporated both. He has done this successfully, and so has Sadia.
I am very moved by Ms. Shepard's article. Luckily, I had already read "The Girl from Foreign" because my son (a college classmate of hers) recommended it to me. It is a wonderful book and I encourage all of you to read it. I am NOT a hyphenate. All of my ancestors (as far as I know) were Ashkenazi Jews. My husband comes from this background as well. We are not, according to some Jews, Jewish enough, because we are not observant. Nevertheless, not only do we identify strongly as Jews, believe ourselves Jewish and like being Jewish but we also believe in the fact that if someone identifies as being Jewish then that is who they are. We have an adopted niece; her birth mother was an Ashkenazi American Jew and her biological father was African- American. Thus she is technically Jewish because of her biology and because her adopted mother(my sister) is Jewish as well. She is indeed a hyphenate and Jewish as well. It does not seem to me that we have the right to deny someone with Jewish heritage their essential Jewishness. I was raised to perceive of a Jewish identity as going beyond a single religious observance. It makes me uncomfortable that someone like Sadia Shepard needs to be lectured to about her identity by a Jewish person. Actually, I am ashamed and embarrassed by it. What I would like to say to all who wrote in who have Jewishness in their ancestry, that if they wish in any part to assume the mantle of Jewish identity (not always an easy one to deal with, considering anti-Semitism) then please feel welcome into MY world of Jewish identity.
Hi Yehuda, unless you are drawing from some knowledge from the author's book, I do not see where Sadia Shepard affirms being a practicing Jew, Christian, and Muslim all at once. Rather, she simply states that her family is made up of these components. My point in sharing my story was to state that there was a time when I identified with the cultural legacy that Buddhism and Judaism had on my family without actually adhering to one or the other. As identity is fluid, it is true that I have come to a place in my life where I identify with one religion, but I still carry the weight of my cultural identities. I would be interested in knowing what sociological studies you might be referring to which try to prove that my story could not be part of a trend because as far as I know sociolinguistics affirms that it is possible to inhabit different identities with code switching in language.
Aya - In the article it is clearly stated that "my identity was further hyphenated — I was raised in Boston by a Muslim mother, Christian father and Jewish grandmother." Her "IDENTITY" was hyphenated - not the components of her family. I have read the other comments, and I see that the other readers don't share the same definition of "identity" that I do. Dr Forman, for example, believes that "if someone identifies as being Jewish then that is who they are". I don't understand how a Jewish cultural life could be defined and maintained throughout the centuries without some sort of general agreement on who is in and who is out. Identities are not based solely on subjective declarations. Thalassa Ali believes: "the ethnicities of his parents held equal weight for him, Obama had to work out an identity that incorporated both". How could president-elect Obama have any identity from an heritage of a father whom he didn't know? He visited Kenya once, and so that country and its culture are still quite foreign to him. Simply, there seems to be another definition of "identity" (for both the author and readers) that seems to see descent (DNA) - not actual content in one's life - as being centrally important. There is simply no point debating anything when people are basing themselves on totally different dictionaries.
Aya - of course you can express different cultures. You lived in Japan and in France and elsewhere. However, you wouldn't have adopted French culture unless French society as a whole radiated a clear singular message. I live in Israel, a land of immigrants. Yet, this immigrant society radiates a clear, Hebrew culture. That's the way of the world.
Yehuda: I think Ms. Shepard is trying to say that identity is subjective. We're too multi-faceted (and interconnected) a world for such litmus tests. Rather, it's the shared values that Ms. Shepard extols in this article (as well as in her wonderful book) that are the most influential. The idea of hyphenated identity is a less blase way of saying that voices are emerging from a melting pot (in Ms. Shepard's case: a monotheistic melting pot) and that the more we can connect our cultures and religions, the more our cultures and religions enrich the world and remain relevant and accessible.
Perhaps you might agree that even (or perhaps especially) in Israel that while there is, as you said, a strong Hebrew culture among immigrants, there are parts of the country in which Israelis still primarily speak Yiddish, towns in the north in which Israelis speak mostly Russian, and histories split among Jews, secularists, Druze, Muslims, and Christians that make the country important to such a large number of people. And when an Ashkenazi Jew like Begin or a woman like Meir become Prime Minister or Persian Jew like Moshe Katsav becomes President, it resonates not only as emblems of these variegations, but as celebrations of the shared values.
Identity is subjective only to a certain extent. There is also an very important element of social agreement. So, I could very subjectively maintain that my identity is Icelandic. However, I believe very strongly that all the readers (who believe that "if someone identifies as being Jewish then that is who [s/he is]") would raise an eyebrow in amazement, and argue that my claim to Icelandic identity is simply unconvincing. Obviously, there is some sort of normative understanding of identity. Well, there is also a normative understanding of Jewish identity - as a religion and as a peoplehood.
Four generations of my family have been in America and I still speak Spanish, the language of my ancestors. I speak English, the language of my birth. I have adopted Jewish culture but that doesn't mean I eschew being Dominican or American in any way. And I take issue with people who would deny that let's say a Hispanic person who doesn't speak Spanish isn't really Hispanic anymore. An identity, a culture, is about much more than a language. I really think that Yehuda needs to go buy Sadia's book. It's official. Let him read about the Bene Israel community to see how they have managed to stay Jewish and become Indian in their 2,000 years in India. It is not impossible to have a hyphenated identity, a true multicultural identity. What you point to as the loss of language or the loss of parts of the culture CAN BE a tragedy of a hyphenated identity but it is not always the case. Why is it so hard for a person with a singular identity to wrap their minds around someone whose identity is so much bigger, so much richer for being hyphenated? Is it because you haven't experienced it that you cannot see all the people around you, all the people who have commented on this article who say "Look at me, I'm a person with a hyphenated identity, I exist." No one said it's an easy road but it's a fact of life that many of live every single day. It means that I make a choice between plaintains or gefilte fish every Shabbos. It means that I think in English and in Spanish. And someday, G-d willing in Hebrew. Many people came to this country and chose to become some European version of what American meant but more and more people are choosing to juggle being American and being from somewhere else. Obama may not have been exposed to his father's culture growing up but his heritage was written on his face. He could not deny his hyphenated identity as a biracial man, the child of an African father and a white mother.
Heritage is not passed down through DNA. It is solely the outcome of one's education at home, in school and in society. Calling someone "African-American" does NOT mean that that individual expresses two heritages - one American and one African. The African-American identity is an American phenomenon only. It has to do with how American society copes with its legacy of slavery, civil rights, bigotry, etc. This legacy has created an identity, but it is an American identity - a result of American history and sociology.
It is worthy of mention that also Jewish identity is not passed down through the magic of birth. One can call oneself "an American Jew", but it does not necessarily mean that this person carries the legacy of two rich cultures. Quite often, too often, the Jewish legacy is in name only. There is no real content. I know that many readers will be insulted and say: "How dare you question someone else's identity"! Well, a little boy is breaking with general consensus and screaming out his truth: "The king has no clothes. Everyone is saying how beautiful the king is dressed, but he isn't". Cultural identity has real content. It can be achieved only through real efforts and through real achievements. And it has to stand the beatings of criticism as well. The reality of Jewish illiteracy cannot be swept away by declarations of hyphenated identities.
Is that a failure of Judaism or America or hyphenated identities? There are plenty of ultra-Orthodox Jews who are fighting the good fight, they're definitely American and have been so for many generations but they keep the Jewish traditions just as vibrant as in the old shtetel. They speak English and Yiddish and Hebrew. These people are not an abberation. Neither are the English and Hebrew speaking Modern Orthodox. Neither are the English, Hebrew, French, and Russian speaking Mexican-Russian Canadian Jews I know in Montreal. There is a way to have to have a true hyphenated identity but as you said it takes work, it takes knowledge. Many American Jews suffer from a lack of knowledge about the Jewish faith and Jewish culture.
Very moving article: it seems there was a time when, a place where cultures touched, exchanged, and coexisted in relative peace. I was once drawn to Montreal thinking it would offer some of that quality. To my bitter disappointment, it turned out to be more of a juxtaposition of cultures angrily oblivious to each other. A debate raged in the comments about hyphenated identities -- a new word, perhaps a new context (the individual), for a situation that seems to have existed for a long while in Mumbai. It has always been my understanding (as is mentioned by others, and as an example) that Jewish identity is quite complex, and quite unique to each person. I don't usually think of myself as a Jew, but I might sometimes claim that identity; some people say I am a Jew whether I want it or not, while others would not recognize me as a Jew at all. Bottom line: I don't think anyone should feel able to establish for others the definition of a certain human group (cultural, ethnic, religious, etc.). In that sense, I wonder about the special magic of Mumbai in the 1930s, perhaps comparable to Salonika in the 1920s. Was this good-natured coexistence encouraged in a certain social class, within a certain professional activity? Was it enabled by the inner strength of the various communities, which were so self-evident that they did not need exclusive patriotism from their members? Did they have something we've lost, in our appetite for cultural homogeneity, in our acceptance of the mitosis of our human groups?
On hyphenated identities in terms of a logic of multiplicity, may I recommend my book which I think is still relevant: Katya Gibel Azoulay, Black, Jewish and Interracial: Its Not the Color of Your Skin but the Race of your Kin and other Myths of Identity (Duke University Press, 1997).
I really don't understand the meaning of a "hyphenated identity", although I do hear the term quite often when talking with Americans. Are we to believe that our author is Jewish and Christian and Moslem all at the same time? There is a general confusion between the two terms of "identity" and "descent". They are not the same. So while one's descent might be from a number of communities, one's primary identity - a result of a particular social reality - is usually singular. By the way, "Jewish" signifies a peoplehood identity. This reality is quite lossed on our author (for whom "Jewish" is always parallel to "Moslem" or "Hindu"), indicating the emptiness of the perceived "hyphenated identity".