Sweet Malida: Memories of a Bene Israel Woman

by Zilka Joseph

66 pages, Paperback

Published February 5, 2024

Reviews

[Fran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Take the journeys shared within this unique and original world that the author creates as she shares her past, in between and the now travelling to a new world filled with hope, wonders and fear as a bolt of lightning hit somewhere and she’s suspended into another world then returns. Memories flood of her father who sailed for decades from the days of the dream ship to diesel vessels. Family dynamics change as you read her poems each capturing an important event, time or occasion and family members that are more precious than anything in this world. Her family remains in Kolkata but their spirits, love and hope rise up as you read each poem or remembrance.
“Life in a new land is never easy. We have to educate, break barriers and fight to be heard.

Eliyahoo Hanabi is the first poem shared giving thanks to the Prophet Elijah and focuses on special memories of foods filled with sugar sprinkled poha and mixed shredded coconut dried fruit and so much more that I could picture each ingredient, smell the fragrances of each fruit, sweat, and saying the prayer or Baraja over each item brought tears to my eyes remembering that my grandmother and grandfather who I lived with did the same and I learned the prayers too. The last line says it all as they came from Poland hoping to find a life here. You can practically taste the ingredients and wish you could scoop them up. Sweet Malida the title of the book and second offering brings us a special tradition of how this is made and why. Sabbath is special and so is breaking fasts . Reminding us of the unity of cultures living with Christian, Muslim and Hindu neighbors and celebrating together. The Fiona is so vividly described you can smell and taste it. Then it turns to the heartbreaking and yet heartwarming story of her childhood and life before coming to America. That section is titled My Cup Runneth Over and it focuses on her life and tradition and preparing for Yom Kippur and pressing the kilo of raisins and picked over and washed and how they loved to create their dishes. After her grandmother’s death she was depressed, and Yom Kippur brings it all back. How did they all disappear? You want to get a good laugh as to who ate them all read page 40. The second half retells it in a unique way with her grandmother still alive and the dishes prepared and the hardships they went through and more as they left their home and created a new path for their family. Pouring the Sharbath into small glass whiskey both by marine engineer father met and then MY CUP RUNNETH OVER.
Green Kaanji and Destiny is next, and you can small the different fragrance in a way that it didn’t when red curries were cook. The author describes the dishes, garlic and onion smashed plus the crackling fragrance and the paste added soon after what a sizzle and you want to know what a mouthwatering smell filling rooms read this poem and the last two on pages 46and 47 and ten A CHirota for my thoughts comes next

Pantoum for Chik-cha Halwa is a poem that tells how you make his halwa and whose hands soaked the mounts of wheat knew each stop of the recipe and from a new culture from a new land did they take their ancestors foods. Different sweets from home and a new land, new life and new history. Hands working in unison to make the HALWA. Next the Laadu Makers and this poem shares a picture of her mother that remains in her mind and hear. Pictures and the pictures polished the brass Star of David oil lamp and the lace tablecloths and platers. Fading memories yet her body is the vault that holds them.
The final paragraph on page 54 will bring tears and smiles to your face as she asks “for forgiveness for all of these things, but most of all for not writing down the recipes their magic words.
Once Upon a Sabbath brings family memories, going to synagogue with her father bellows out he first few words of the prayer. Her mothers’ soft tones and the oil lamps at my grandmother’s wood and silver embossed Star of Daivd on the wall. This brings back so many memories of getting to read to say the Sabbath prays, her grandmother like mom holding her upturned palms in front of her to her head and though reading a book and saying the Baruch ata Adonai Eloheinu. I chimed in with her as did my grad mother and my mothers. Hugs after the loud Shabbat Shaloms and you never forget these memories.
The author concludes with memories of how they rarely do make draksha cha sharbath and the sweetness on the young and the juice of the grapes. The recipe is mouthwatering, and she told her me not go to America the dishes bring her to life again. Sometime her siblings visit but they are far away. As you read the final stanza you will realize that she feels that she feels that she feels that she is her loved ones, and they are with her and that is reason enough. ‘Heartwarming, beautifully written in the words of the author as she shares her life, her journey and the people in the past and those where she is in the present letting you know that life in anew land is never easy but after you read these poems you will understand the story and much more. The poems bring to light the history of Bene Israel in the past and the present and let you know just how proud the author is of her heritage, the land in the past and in the present sharing her food, friendship with diverse cultures.

Fran Lewis Just reviews

[Keith Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love to learn things from poems. Things about science and natural history, about art and literature, of course, the expected things about personalities in lyric poems, about culture, of course, but best of all I like to learn about history, particularly the history of things I know nothing about. Zilka Joseph's poems have been part of my education, certainly about contemporary (English speaking) literary culture in India, but even more importantly about the history of her people, the tiny Bene Israel community, that has been in India at least since the destruction of the second Temple in the first century AD, and very likely since the diaspora of the second century BCE.

This isolated religious community has kept the major prayers, and some of the instructions (celebrating Shabbat, for instance) while absorbing much of the culture -- the food and dress -- of the Indian culture that surrounds them. In Joseph's poems this leads to a wonderful mix of the old prayers and their legacy, with the rich foods that are both Indian and Bene Israel or a mix of the two (Joseph has always written well about food--and it becomes one of the major connections between her family history, her personal history in India, and her emigration to America).

Here's part of an early prayer in this book, addressed to Elijah, the central religious figure of the Bene Israel, "Eliyahoo Hanabi":

Let us heap the sugar-sprinkled poha
tall as a pyramid, mixed with shredded
coconut, precious dried fruit and nuts,
scented with the most fragrant
of spices. O Elijah, can you taste

the nutmeg, the cardamon, the freshly
sliced mangoes, guava, chikoo, apples and
bananas arranged like garlands?

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, loving, delectable reflection on familial culture and the Bene Israel Jews of India. Highly recommend.