Sweet Malida: A Discussion with Zilka Joseph and Prof. Shalva Weil

“Sweet Malida” is a moving, multi-layered, richly sensory and  informative collection of poems and short prose inspired by this ancient  community to which the poet herself belongs. In this discussion, we'll  explore some of the questions raised in the poetry, such as: Who are the  Bene Israel Jews of India? Where did they come from? How did they  survive in India? For more information and to order the book: tinyurl.com/OrderSweetMalidaBook

Suggested donation: http://tinyurl.com/JUniTDiDonate

About the speakers:

Zilka Joseph is an internationally published poet who has authored six collections. Her work is influenced by Indian and Western cultures, and her Bene Israel roots. She was nominated for prizes such as PEN America, American Book Awards, and Pushcart, and won a Zell Fellowship, the Michael Gutterman prize, and the Elsie Choy Lee Scholarship from the University of Michigan. Her book Sparrows and Dust won a Notable Best Indie Book award. Sharp Blue Search of Flame and In Our Beautiful Bones were Foreword INDIES finalists. Sweet Malida: Memories of a Bene Israel Woman, her new collection, was published in the US in February, and will be published in India in November, 2024. She is a creative writing coach, manuscript advisor, and a mentor to writers in her community. www.zilkajoseph.com

Prof. Shalva Weil is Senior Researcher at the Seymour Fox School of Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she researches ethnicities, migration and femicide.

She is editor of several books on India’s Jews, including India's Jewish Heritage (Marg, 2002 & 2009), Indo-Judaic Studies in the Twenty-First Century (with Nathan Katz et al) (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2007), Karmic Passages (with David Shulman) (OUP, 2008), Baghdadi Jews in India (Routledge, 2019), and The Jews of Goa (Primus, 2020). She has published over 120 articles, chapters in books, and encyclopedia entries on different aspects of Jews and Judaism in India.

Shalva Weil is Founding Chairperson of the first India-Israel Friendship Association (with Maestro Zubin Mehta as President) when diplomatic relations were established between the two countries in 1992. In 2017, as GIAN Distinguished Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, she taught the first-ever semester course on Jews in India in India. In 2021, she was invited to research the Sassoons as Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Financial History at Darwin College, at the University of Cambridge, UK. In 2022, she was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society of Great Britain.