"Reinventing Community and Finding Home: Notes from a Diaspora of Hope"

In the cosmopolitan Indian city of Calcutta, a vibrant Baghdadi Jewish community thrived in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but today only a handful of elders remain. Jael Silliman, author of "Jewish Portraits, Indian Frames: Women’s Narratives from a Diaspora of Hope", will talk about how the Jews of Calcutta made their way in multiple worlds as British imperialism gave way to an independent India.

Through the lives of several generations of remarkable women in her family, Dr. Silliman will discuss how Indian and Jewish identities frame the history of a community that finds home, and hope, through transnational movement and changing local traditions. These life portraits reveal the often untold story of women within a Jewish diaspora, while highlighting these women’s roles in the contested emergence of India across the turbulent twentieth century. A reception will follow the event.

Event Sponsor
History, Women's Studies, the UH Fund for the Promotion of Jewish Life and Studies, the College of Arts & Humanities, and the Office of SEED, UH-Manoa

More Information
Ned Bertz, 956-6766, ned.bertz@hawaii.edu, Flyer (PDF)

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