Hello--a rather
bland word for reuniting or gathering interest, wouldn't you say?
All of you to
whom I am addressing this week's BLOG know that my daughter's father hails from
India. Southern India to be more exact, the State of Andrah Pradesh.
He is very dark
skinned, very good looking, speaks Telugu.
He immigrated
to the States to study at Columbia University before my daughter was born.
He became a
professor of History and Foreign Relations. He remarried after his first wife
passed away early in her 60's.They had a daughter together----who became my
daughter's close half sister.
In all my years
spent back and forth in Israel, I had never encountered nor interacted with any
Indian immigrants here. Who ever knew that there were 80,000 East Indians
living in Israel, and only 3,000 in India at last count?
It is very
common here in Eilat to hear Indian tongues at most bus stops. I have often
introduced myself and thereby entered into really interesting conversations about
being a Jew and also and Indian----or the other way around!
I have engaged
on quick bus introductions---once I see the Indian face or, of course, if I
hear their language being spoken. I have at times been mistaken and asked
a Sri Lankan if she were Indian. Such an error is quickly dispelled!
My daughter was
married briefly to a Sri Lankan lad, and I just learned that we were
mispronouncing his family name. It as Wijawardina, a popular family
name-----second syllable stress which we missed by pronouncing the third
syllable! They married in China---or at that time independent Hong Kong----the
ceremony in Mandarin,(not spoken locally---Cantonese is the preferred tongue). Ironically,
my racially mixed daughter has often been taken for a Yemenite Jew as well
as a Hispanic or a black,
I had never met
an Indian Jew before relocating to Eilat. I never looked for them during my
month in India way back in 1986.No interest, I was learning about India and my
daughter's heritage!
So, once again,
a deeply hidden curiosity about Indian folks outside of my daughter's family
(all Hindu) has come alive with unexpected vibrancy! It has been a highlight of
my cultural discovery in the Eilat diversity!
One more time a
wish fulfillment---comes into my love lap of cultural diversity---and I have a
close Jewish friend from India who comes to Eilat for a few months every year
from Goa. She is trying to settle in Eilat, but must sell her apartment there
first.
Life has a turn
round at a certain age, I have found-----I have been exposed to so many
situations I have sought
to be a part
of----without any effort on my part. Here I am a N.Y.C. Jew from the Bronx,
happily married against all odds, looking and being taken for the actress
I have always known myself to be!
Three HAIL MARYS-----and
off I go.
MISS RHEINGOLD
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