Footpaths in the Painted City

Sadia Shepard's mother was Muslim, her father Protestant. But when she found out her Pakistani grandmother had been born Jewish in Bombay, she set out to discover the disappearing Jews of India - and uncover her own roots...

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Sadia Shepard grew up in a joyful, chaotic home in Boston. Her father, a white Protestant from Colorado, and her mother, a Muslim from Pakistan, cherished their disparate customs and religious backgrounds, and created a household full of stories and storytellers, where cultures intertwined. But at the age of thirteen, Sadia learned that there was another story which she had never been told. Her beloved maternal grandmother was not born a Muslim like the rest of her Pakistani family. Instead, she had begun her life as Rachel Jacobs - a member of a tiny Indian-Jewish community. The Bene Israel believe they are descended from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, shipwrecked on India's Konkan coast over two thousand years ago.

Sadia headed to India in search of the Bene Israel community, wanting to understand their unique traditions, and to fulfill a promise she made to her grandmother before she died. Weaving together the story of her grandparents' secret marriage with an evocative account of a little-known and dying Jewish community, Footpaths in the Painted City is a beautifully affecting depiction of a young woman's attempt to come to terms with her family's past in order to shape her own future. It is an unforgettable story of lost stories, shrouded identities, forbidden love and, above all, self-discovery.