The Girl From Foreign: A Search For Shipwrecked Ancestors, Forgotten Histories, And A Sense Of Home (2008) - Plot & Excerpts
This is an excellent memoir written by a woman raised in three religions. Her maternal grandmother was born in India in the Bene Israel Jewish community who were shipwrecked there 2000 years ago. Nana married a Muslim and the family was forced to leave India at the time of the partition. The author' s mother was raised Muslim in Karachi, came to the US for college and married an American Episcopalian. The author was raised by her parents and Nana where she was taught to honor all 3 religions. After Nana's death, she moves to India to research the Bene Israel community and learns more about her grandmothers past and struggles with her religious identity as she is advised that she will eventually need to choose one over the others. Subtitled “A Search for Shipwrecked Ancestors, Forgotten Histories, and a Sense of Home,” this book is also a tribute to Rachel Jacobs, Shepard’s grandmother. Sadia is the daughter of an American Protestant father and a Muslim mother who grew up in a Boston suburb. Also in the household was her mother’s mother, Rachel, a practicing Muslim but also a Jew from India who took her husband’s religion when she married. Sadia Shepherd went to India on a Fulbright scholarship to research and film a documentary about the Bene Israel community, which descends from a group of Jews who were shipwrecked off India’s coast 2000 years ago and believe they are one of the lost tribes of Israel. She spends a year and a half in India and this is the story of her time there. In the process she discovers family secrets and becomes more comfortable with her own place in the family and its history.
What do You think about The Girl From Foreign: A Search For Shipwrecked Ancestors, Forgotten Histories, And A Sense Of Home (2008)?
Very interesting non-fiction account of the Bene Israel community in India.
—Liddy
very interesting and enjoyablemoving and caring
—kittan
Wow... I never knew about Indian Jews before.
—SteelWing
