Library of Congress: Indian, Israeli book talk, March 31

"Being Indian, Being Israeli: Migration, Ethnicity and Gender in the Jewish Homeland" is the title of a book talk by Maina Chawla Singh on Wednesday, March 31.

The event begins at noon in the Asian Reading Room Foyer in the Jefferson Building.

In contemporary Israel, the bulk of Indian Jews live in Israeli periphery, where they were settled by the state from the 1950s to early 1970s.

For the first time, this book presents a deeply researched analysis of three Jewish communities from India, studying them holistically as Indian-Israelis with shared histories of migration, acculturation and identity in the Jewish Homeland.

Based on fieldwork and ethnographic research conducted 2005-2008 among Indian Jews across Israel, the book reflects the authors deep engagement and familiarity with Israeli society and the complexities of ethnicity and class that underlie the cleavages within Israeli Jewish society.

Maina Chawla Singh is Associate Professor, University of Delhi. From 2005-2008, she researched and lectured at Bar Ilan, Haifa and Tel Aviv universities. In 2008, she was Scholar-in-Residence at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and, in 2009, was a Fellow at Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, Brandeis University. Currently, she is Scholar-in-Residence at American University, Washington DC.

The talk is sponsored by the LOC's Asian Division, the Asian Division Friends Society and the Embassy of India.

For more information, send an email.