What do you think?
Rate this book
The Girl from Foreign: A Memoir
A search for shipwrecked ancestors, forgotten histories, and a sense of home
Fascinating and intimate , The Girl from Foreign is one woman's search for ancient family secrets that leads to an adventure in far-off lands. Sadia Shepard, the daughter of a white Protestant from Colorado and a Muslim from Pakistan, was shocked to discover that her grandmother was a descendant of the Bene Israel, a tiny Jewish community shipwrecked in India two thousand years ago. After traveling to India to put the pieces of her family's past together, her quest for identity unlocks a myriad of profound religious and cultural revelations that Shepard gracefully weaves into this touching, eye-opening memoir.
Fascinating and intimate , The Girl from Foreign is one woman's search for ancient family secrets that leads to an adventure in far-off lands. Sadia Shepard, the daughter of a white Protestant from Colorado and a Muslim from Pakistan, was shocked to discover that her grandmother was a descendant of the Bene Israel, a tiny Jewish community shipwrecked in India two thousand years ago. After traveling to India to put the pieces of her family's past together, her quest for identity unlocks a myriad of profound religious and cultural revelations that Shepard gracefully weaves into this touching, eye-opening memoir.
384 pages, Paperback
First published July 31, 2008
59 people are currently reading
1049 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 177 reviews
March 15, 2009
This book got better and better as I got more and more into it. It's a true story of a woman who was born in the United States of a mixed marriage between her Pakistani Muslim mother and her Christian white father. Her grandmother (mother's mother) was born to a Jewish diaspora family in India who married a Pakistani Muslim, converted to Islam, and moved with her husband and his two other wives to Pakistan during the India/Pakistani split in the late 1940s. Her grandmother was an important part of her life growing up and, after her grandmother's death, she gets a Fulbright scholarship to study in India. Ostensibly, she is searching for her grandmother's story, but what she is really searching for, however, are the answers to how she fits into these religions - Islam, Judaism and Christianity - and these three cultures - Pakistani, Indian and American. Her search is ultimately an acceptance of who she is and the process is fascinating.
July 25, 2011
This is a well-written memoir that is very much Sadia Shepard's story. It's her journey and her emotional process regarding her family connection, spirituality and cultural identification. These issues are very complex for her. She has multiple family heritages and religions.
If you wanted to read this book to find out about Bene Israel practices, there is only a small amount of that sort of content. Judging from Sadia's descriptions, I have an impression that the few Bene Israel left in the villages of the area where they originally shipwrecked, practice what seems to be a Hindu flavored Judaism that is unique to them. The Bene Israel in large cities such as Mumbai (formerly Bombay) have been steered toward mainstream Judaism by exposure to Israeli religious practices. I would love to have more specifics to confirm whether my impression is correct.
I also noted that the village Bene Israel perform an annual animal sacrifice associated with Passover. They kill a lamb and sprinkle the blood on their door posts as the Israelites in Egypt did in the Bible. Some Ashkenazi Orthodox Jews also perform an animal sacrifice called the Kapporeth. They kill a chicken for the High Holy Days. The chicken is supposed to absorb their sins, so it's not eaten. I observed my paternal grandmother doing this as a child and was completely horrified.
If you wanted to read this book to find out about Bene Israel practices, there is only a small amount of that sort of content. Judging from Sadia's descriptions, I have an impression that the few Bene Israel left in the villages of the area where they originally shipwrecked, practice what seems to be a Hindu flavored Judaism that is unique to them. The Bene Israel in large cities such as Mumbai (formerly Bombay) have been steered toward mainstream Judaism by exposure to Israeli religious practices. I would love to have more specifics to confirm whether my impression is correct.
I also noted that the village Bene Israel perform an annual animal sacrifice associated with Passover. They kill a lamb and sprinkle the blood on their door posts as the Israelites in Egypt did in the Bible. Some Ashkenazi Orthodox Jews also perform an animal sacrifice called the Kapporeth. They kill a chicken for the High Holy Days. The chicken is supposed to absorb their sins, so it's not eaten. I observed my paternal grandmother doing this as a child and was completely horrified.
March 17, 2014
I enjoyed this book. Basically it tells the story of a young, well educated woman from a well-to-do family whose grandmother dies. The grandmother, from India, was Jewish originally and then married a Moslem man with two other wives, and then, with Partition in 1948, moved to Pakistan. The author's mother immigrated to the US, and married a Christian American from Colorado. The book involves the author's search for the Jewish branch of the family, as well as the understanding of how and why the grandmother converted to Islam. This search takes the author to India, Karachi, New York and Florida. This was a quest I could not resist reading about, and the author delivered - she found what she was searching for, and described the journey well.
I did have a couple of issues with the book, though - the first was that she referred to her grandmother as "Nana" throughout the story. It was almost as if this was too familiar a term for me, and my mind kept seeing the author as a young child. Also - she states that she explores the three religions, but it seems that the Christian side was rather neglected, even though that would have been half of her childhood.
I did have a couple of issues with the book, though - the first was that she referred to her grandmother as "Nana" throughout the story. It was almost as if this was too familiar a term for me, and my mind kept seeing the author as a young child. Also - she states that she explores the three religions, but it seems that the Christian side was rather neglected, even though that would have been half of her childhood.
August 12, 2009
Interesting, but also dry parts. A woman travels to India & Pakistan to try to find her Grandmother's Jewish roots, and find out more about the Jewish community in Mumbai (Bombay). Through the book we learn also, how the author's mom emigrated to the US and married an American Christian.
What was amazing to me, was that there is an indiginous Jewish group of Indians in India! They believe they are descendants of the 12 Lost Tribes of Israel. Their oral heritage tells that they came to India from the Middle East in a boat 2,000 years earlier, and settled in towns along the coast near Mumbai. When Christian missionaries came, they found this group practicing religious rituals that were similar to the Jewish faith. In the 1970s (or 80s?) Israel gave this group the right of return. Many of them have emigrated to Israel.
What was amazing to me, was that there is an indiginous Jewish group of Indians in India! They believe they are descendants of the 12 Lost Tribes of Israel. Their oral heritage tells that they came to India from the Middle East in a boat 2,000 years earlier, and settled in towns along the coast near Mumbai. When Christian missionaries came, they found this group practicing religious rituals that were similar to the Jewish faith. In the 1970s (or 80s?) Israel gave this group the right of return. Many of them have emigrated to Israel.
March 24, 2009
I probably would've rated this book a little higher if (it'd been written then and) I'd read it when I was going through that same hyper-consciousness of my own multi-culturalism, back when I too was a self-centered navel gazer. But I've read many many other stories that offered more to the reader to relate to, and this was just way too much/long about Shepard's own story, or that of her grandmother's actually and without a rewarding explanation or disclosure at the end to make it worthwhile for me. I really was rooting for her to succeed, to fall in love, to figure things out, to make a decision; and unfortunately I didn't get the sense from reading this that she accomplished any of those.
June 3, 2009
This is such an interesting story. A jewish friend of mine calls me up one day and says have you heard of this story. I said I had not, and she asked me to read it so that we could have a discussion about it afterwards. I'm almost finished and find it very fascinating. Sadia Shepard is searching for something to find meaning in her life. Her grandmother was a Jew from India. That in in itself is what drew me to this book. I don't want to give away too much more, but I definitely recommend this book. It is non-fictional and written well. I felt as though I was traveling with Sadia thru her journey.
August 17, 2009
I found Shepard's memoir of her path to and on her Fulbright year enjoyable. Despite a few books on my shelves of far-flung Jewish Communities such as the Bene Israel, I am sadly mostly ignorant of them. Additionally I have a large hole in my knowledge of "real" Islam. I studied Western Religions at an introductory level in College, but it was very theoretical. I don't know much about many things as they are in the world outside the academic bubble. The portrait Shepard sketches of her identity and the customs and concerns she faces was a refreshing read. It reminds me many respects of Saidiya Hartman's Lose Your Mother, both write with a frank poetry and cadence that left me feeling as if I were conversing over a cup of tea. (note: I took a seminar with Professor Hartman in 2008 so my memory of her book and her class have most likely merged in the past year). If you think your way of religion is the one and only right way, please don't open this book or come ranting to me with "how could she". If you are respectful and curious, I think you will greatly enjoy the journey Shepard invites us on. I wish her the best on her future endeavors.
July 2, 2022
The story was fascinating and felt honest, though as with a few other books I’ve read recently (by other authors), the prose sometimes lacked flow and polish. On balance, I am glad Sadia chose to research and write about her family history; it could have been a tale lost to time. Through persistence and tremendous curiosity, she documented not just a personal family story but an important part of Jewish and South Asian history.
October 22, 2013
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.
August 11, 2014
This book was everything it was said to be, compelling, poignant, a little sad, personal, touching, etc. Sadia's deep love for her grandmother takes her on a journey to discover her multi-cultural family's past after the death of her grandmother. I really give it to her family to be able to combine 3 religions & cultures in their home, & you could feel the love she wrote with in ever word.
This book taught me things I didn't know about both the Bene Israel's Judaism, as well as the Muslim faith. This is a book you can get lost in, & a book that you can connect to....
This book taught me things I didn't know about both the Bene Israel's Judaism, as well as the Muslim faith. This is a book you can get lost in, & a book that you can connect to....
December 29, 2008
I found this book in the Conservative or Reform Jewish magazine. It's a terrific work of non-fiction that is, in itself, a great story. My eldest son said it would make a great movie, and he's right.
The Girl From Foreign is the memoir of Sadia Shepard's search for her grandmother's roots in the Indian Jewish community known as Bene Israel. Not only does Ms. Shepard find her grandmother's essence, she discovers her true self in the process.
The Girl From Foreign is the memoir of Sadia Shepard's search for her grandmother's roots in the Indian Jewish community known as Bene Israel. Not only does Ms. Shepard find her grandmother's essence, she discovers her true self in the process.
June 2, 2015
Getting to talk to Sadia about this book more than a decade after she wrote it was all the more interesting-- it put an older woman in conversation with the young woman Sadia was when she made this trip to India. Hers is a very rich personal history which she honors in such a heart-warming fashion.
February 16, 2009
Excellent true story written by a girl who was raised with three religions, but went to India to find the diminishing community of the Bene Israels to learn about the Jewish community that was originally her grandmother's.
November 1, 2008
Well written but would rather have seen the documentary about the Bene Israel including a portion on those who have emigrated to Israel. For those who like the memoir form. . . . .
January 28, 2009
I love this story of a women researching her grandmother's Jewish roots in India and Pakistan.
June 22, 2023
A memoir written by Sadia, a young Bostonian woman whose father is a American Christian and her mother is a Pakistani-American Muslim. Sadia's grandmother lives with the family in Boston, but has a home in Pakistan that the family visits often. Sadia has always assumed her grandmother was Muslim, but her grandmother has a hidden past. To Sadia's surprise, she learns that her grandmother grew up as a Bene Jew in southern India. At the time of Partition, she moved with her husband to Pakistan and became a Muslim.
Sadia lived in India for a year, learning about her grandmother's heritage and the Bene Jewish community. It is a moving story about a young woman discovering her roots and the three religions that make up her family background. I learned so much about the 1947 war that created the division of India and Muslim Pakistan. I was interested in the vast differences between India and Pakistan, but also the similarities. The author explores this juxtaposition as she lives in both countries as a U. S. citizen.
Sadia lived in India for a year, learning about her grandmother's heritage and the Bene Jewish community. It is a moving story about a young woman discovering her roots and the three religions that make up her family background. I learned so much about the 1947 war that created the division of India and Muslim Pakistan. I was interested in the vast differences between India and Pakistan, but also the similarities. The author explores this juxtaposition as she lives in both countries as a U. S. citizen.
April 22, 2023
4.25/5
no doubt my review is influenced by my own positionality as on a similar journey of sorts, we are never all the same, but the angst and displacement we feel seems to be common
sheppard is not the best writer to be honest, but she pings directly on to the ache we feel when we have lost someone who we want to understand, and have no means of accessing them or their history aside from diving in and submerging ourselves in discomfort. she deftly approaches the problem of loss of a historical tie by becoming a historian, a tactic i understand far too well. we feel a special kind of loneliness here, extreme visibility, immediately recognized as not-indian, but somehow finding a comfort in that liminality.
i will soon lose my grandparents, and my connection to two villages i have only ever visited several times, and my claim to this country will continue to weaken. but i can always ride through the narmada river valley in a bus and cry my tears out the window
no doubt my review is influenced by my own positionality as on a similar journey of sorts, we are never all the same, but the angst and displacement we feel seems to be common
sheppard is not the best writer to be honest, but she pings directly on to the ache we feel when we have lost someone who we want to understand, and have no means of accessing them or their history aside from diving in and submerging ourselves in discomfort. she deftly approaches the problem of loss of a historical tie by becoming a historian, a tactic i understand far too well. we feel a special kind of loneliness here, extreme visibility, immediately recognized as not-indian, but somehow finding a comfort in that liminality.
i will soon lose my grandparents, and my connection to two villages i have only ever visited several times, and my claim to this country will continue to weaken. but i can always ride through the narmada river valley in a bus and cry my tears out the window
January 19, 2018
Like The Latehomecomer, this is a book about the immigrant experience that is also about how important a grandmother can be to a young girl searching for her identity.
One of these days I will be on a plane to a miniscule village in the Italian Piedmont, looking for my own grandmother's heritage, longing to be back in her bed listening to the cicadas as she draws letters on my back.
The old cliche about families is that you want to give your children both roots and wings. The huge recent surge in popularity of genealogy is witness to how important it is in this peripatetic age to know where we came from. Shepard's tree is perhaps more tangled than most, and her journey to India and Pakistan to try to understand the Bene Israel has an undercurrent of sadness, but when she finds the home place, she feels at home. At least temporarily.
One of these days I will be on a plane to a miniscule village in the Italian Piedmont, looking for my own grandmother's heritage, longing to be back in her bed listening to the cicadas as she draws letters on my back.
The old cliche about families is that you want to give your children both roots and wings. The huge recent surge in popularity of genealogy is witness to how important it is in this peripatetic age to know where we came from. Shepard's tree is perhaps more tangled than most, and her journey to India and Pakistan to try to understand the Bene Israel has an undercurrent of sadness, but when she finds the home place, she feels at home. At least temporarily.
September 14, 2020
Sadia is the daughter of a Muslim mother and Christian father. Her maternal grandmother was Jewish. Before Nana died, she had Sadia promise that she would travel to India to study the family roots. A Fulbright scholarship provided the means for her to do just that. What started as a year turned into 18 months of photos, films, and interviews documenting the Bene Israel community. Along the way she learned not only about her grandmother, but about herself.
I really enjoyed this. It had been on my want to read list for a long time and a library copy was available at a time that I was looking for something to read. I know that she had made family trips to India and Pakistan as a child but it still impresses me that she was able to leave behind her life in the States for an extended time and make a life for herself in a foreign land.
I really enjoyed this. It had been on my want to read list for a long time and a library copy was available at a time that I was looking for something to read. I know that she had made family trips to India and Pakistan as a child but it still impresses me that she was able to leave behind her life in the States for an extended time and make a life for herself in a foreign land.
August 20, 2022
Young woman goes to India to learn about her ancestry, which is complicated to say the least. Jewish, Indian, Muslim, Pakistani, and that’s just her mother’s side. A white American father. It ends much better than it begins. Really picks up just over half-way through, but a lot of the aha moments are revealed late though the author knew them going in, so that felt manipulative. It amazes me how important religion is to some people. Shepard is trying to figure out who she is and thinks learning more about the religions of her grandmother will help. She’s obsessed with her grandmother and that’s touching, if a little … too much? But a fascinating story, something very foreign to me, so I’m glad I read it!
February 11, 2024
The author was raised thinking she had dual religious heritages (Muslim on her mother's side and Christian on her father's side). She learns that her grandmother was actually descended from the Bene Israel of India (shipwrecked 2000 years ago in India). In this story that covers the years of her Fulbright grant to find and study the remaining Bene Israel descendants in India she shares her discoveries and wrestles with her triple religious heritage and her grandmother's choices that sent her to Pakistan (her Jewish family was based in Israel) upon Partition. The author embraces traditions from both her Muslim and Jewish heritages (we don't hear much about what she takes from her Christian heritage.
December 15, 2019
I enjoyed this memoir very much. It brought to life the experiences of a small group of Jews who had been shipwrecked along the coast of India 2000 years ago, consider themselves a lost tribe of Israel and formed the Bene Israel community in Bombay (Mumbai). The author's grandmother was a practicing member of this tribe, but then married a Muslim man and was forced by the partition to move to Pakistan where she raised her daughter (the author's mother) as a Muslim.
There is so much history to be gleaned from reading the experiences of Sadia and her mother that I highly recommend this book.
There is so much history to be gleaned from reading the experiences of Sadia and her mother that I highly recommend this book.
February 27, 2021
When I picked up this book for reading, I was only faintly aware of it being based on a girl who migrates to another country; and because I absolutely love reading memoirs, I dug into the book with an open mind. This book is work straight out of the author's heart and soul, and with each passing chapter I felt more connected to her and even more to her Nana. I am close to my family, but after reading The Girl from Foreign I understand the depths of relationships and how close knit and multilayered they can be, and most importantly the extend to which one goes just for their loved ones. And hence, I'm not surprised at how beautiful the outcome (i.e. this book) is.
November 3, 2019
Interesting read. It affects more as a journal than as a memoir — which is a good thing. Direct impressions of living in India as a westernized East Asian foreigner, a diaspora Muslim, and as someone who discovers her grandmother’s secret (not going to spoil it for you).
The subsequent hullabaloo over the author’s alleged plagiarism of a short story dimmed her star for me, though I do not take a stand on the matter. It was her excellent short story in the New Yorker that led me to read her book in the first place.
The subsequent hullabaloo over the author’s alleged plagiarism of a short story dimmed her star for me, though I do not take a stand on the matter. It was her excellent short story in the New Yorker that led me to read her book in the first place.
May 23, 2021
A fun read about the quest to discover oneself through family history. Shepard's deep respect for her grandmother is evident throughout, something I found deeply comforting and admirable. The only reason I gave this 3 stars instead of 4 or 5 is because the sequence of the story made the book confusing at times. Shepard plays with time by bringing the reader back and forth from the present, to the past, to places in between. This has the important effect of reminding the reader that time is never linear, but it also creates a choppy narrative arc.
September 28, 2017
This ho hum memoir takes a young woman with a Fullbright to India to find her Grandmother's Jewish ancestors. Shepard visits synagogues and meets long ago acquaintances in Pune and Bombay. She tries to decide which religions is she: Jewish (maternal grandmother), Muslim (maternal grandfather and mother), Christian, father.
September 20, 2019
As a young Indian woman, it was nice to read a book that mimicked some of the same search for identity that I experience. Also obviously interesting to learn more about the Bene Israel Community in India. However, the book felt quite long and drawn out at parts. I ultimately skimmed the second half.
December 2, 2020
A solid memoir/biography/story. An interesting look into a young woman's family's story and the Jews of India with lore and a bit of romance. She manages to capture a bit of her generation and her grandmother's but none of her mother's so there is a missing step in the transition. An intriguing if slightly self-indulgent piece (as memoirs can be).
January 29, 2022
Memoir. Sadia Shepard travel to India to research her grandmother's roots. Grandmother was descended from a tiny Jewish community, became the 3rd wife of a Muslim and was displaced to Pakistan during partition. The author grew up in a mixed household of Christian white father, Muslim mother, and her maternal grandmother.
July 15, 2022
This non-fiction memoir was riveting. It is the story of a young woman who travels to India after her grandmother’s death to explore her roots as a Bene Indian Jew who became a Muslim wife. I cried throughout the final chapters and enjoyed the honest exploration of religion, family, friendship, and traditions.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 177 reviews