The Girl from Foreign

Starred review from June 30, 2008
“Who is Rachel Jacobs?” the 13-year-old asks her Muslim grandmother Rahat Siddiqi; “that,” Nana tells her, “was my name before I was married.” Thus does a grandmother's stunning reply and a granddaughter's promise “to learn about her ancestors” set Shepard's three voyages of discovery in motion: her grandmother's history; the story of the Bene Israel (one of the lost tribes of Israel that, having sailed from Israel two millennia ago, crashed on the Konkan coast in India; and her own self-discovery (her mother was Muslim, her father Christian, and her grand mother Jewish). Shepard balances all three journeys with dexterity as she spends her Fulbright year, with an old hand-drawn map and her grandmother's family tree, unraveling the mysteries of Nana's past while visiting and photographing the grand and minuscule synagogues in Bombay and on the Konkan Coast. A filmmaker, Shepard writes with a lively sense of pacing (her year proceeds chronologically, interspersed with well-placed flashbacks) and a keen sense of character (getting to know her friend, escort and fellow filmmaker Rekhev as gradually as she does, or capturing the Muslim baker who makes the “only authentic challah in Bombay” in a few strokes). Shepard's story is entertaining and instructive, inquiring and visionary.

Starred review from August 1, 2008
Shepards mother, Samina, a Muslim Pakistani, and father, Richard, a Christian American, gave her the freedom to embrace both religions and cultures during her childhood outside of Boston. Shepards third parent was her adored maternal grandmother, Rahat Siddiqi, called Nana. At age 13, Shepard was shocked to discover that Nana was once Rachel Jacobs, a member of the Bene Israel, a small Jewish community near the Konkan coast of India. Years later, Shepard, now a filmmaker, promises Nana that she will return to India to document her history and that of the Bene Israel, whose descendants believe they are a lost tribe of Israel. With the aid of a Fulbright, she arrives in Bombay shortly after the events of 9/11. Shepard entwines narrative flashbacks of her familys history with a chronicle of her time abroad, as she interacts with a colorful array of individuals, seeks out the Bene Israels synagogues and diminishing communities, and reflects upon her sense of self and home, given her complex heritage. Shepards engaging and pensive memoir of discovery offers a moving portrait of her grandmother within an inquisitive, complex journey into urgent questions of religious, cultural, and personal identity.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)