My Mother's Spice Cupboard

My Mother's Spice Cupboard

Author: Elana Benjamin

Publisher: Hybrid Publishers

Published: 2018-11-01

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1742981712

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My Mother's Spice Cupboard is the true story of the author's Sephardi Jewish family's migration from Baghdad to Bombay (now Mumbai) to Sydney. Unlike most other Australian Jews, her parents were born and grew up in Bombay, and her grandparents came from Iraq, Burma and India. Her father's family immigrated to Sydney, her mother's to Los Angeles, both in the 1960s. They married in Sydney and raised their family there, alongside the father's many brothers and sisters and members of their former Bombay community. Despite being Jewish, her upbringing was greatly influenced by the food, language and culture of India, and to a lesser extent, Iraq. My Mother's Spice Cupboard is the story of what happened to a community which no longer exists, how its members built new lives in a different country, and what it was like to grow up as one of their children. It's also about how much things have changed over four generations in one family. The author's grandparents' arranged marriage produced nine children; both her parents grew up within the confines of Bombay's insular Baghdadi Jewish community whereas she grew up as a first generation Australian in Sydney. Her children's lives are underpinned by the differing Jewish traditions of her family and her husband's family. The themes underlying the story are those of family and community versus individuality; choice versus obligation; and tradition versus modernity. And underlying the entire narrative is the importance of food and cooking, which goes beyond the mere provision of sustenance to express warmth, love and hospitality.


The Nation and its Margins

The Nation and its Margins

Author: Aditi Chandra

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2019-12-13

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 1527544575

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This volume questions the idea that the nation-state is the only available form of community, and challenges its hegemonic control over forms of socio-cultural belonging. The contributions here explore cross-cultural and transnational encounters which highlight narratives that escape the neat boundaries constructed by nationalities. They complicate our understanding of peoples and groups and the varying spaces they inhabit by allowing narratives that have been made invisible, due to hegemonic national control, to emerge. This volume throws light on moments of cultural encounters in the Global South, specifically South Asia, South-east Asia, West Asia, and Latin America, exploring what happens when diverse communities come together to challenge the notion that claiming national identity is the only acceptable mode of being, belonging, and existing in the world. In doing so, the book reveals other radically innovative forms of attaining cohesion and identity.


Growing Up Indian in Australia

Growing Up Indian in Australia

Author: Aarti Betigeri

Publisher: Black Inc.

Published: 2024-07-02

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 1743823606

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Vibrant, moving and diverse stories of shape-shifting between cultures. ‘To be Indian growing up in Australia is to tread the narrow line between here and there, to constantly code-switch and navigate between filling the needs and aspirations of your family, your community – and yourself.’ ‘Indian-Australian’ is not a one-size-fits-all descriptor. Given the depth and richness of diversity of the Indian subcontinent, it is fitting that its diaspora is similarly varied. Growing Up Indian in Australia reflects and celebrates this vibrant diversity. It features contributions from Australian-Indian writers, both established and emerging, who hail from a wide range of backgrounds, religions and experiences. This colourful, energetic anthology offers reflections on identity, culture, family, food and expectations, ultimately revealing deep truths about both Australian and Indian life. Contributors include Sunil Badami, Swagata Bapat, Kavita Bedford, Elana Benjamin,Tejas Bhat, Nicholas Brown, Michelle Cahill, Tasneem Chopra, Shaheen De Souza Hughes, Hardeep Dhanoa, Rakhee Ghelani, Kavita Ivy Nandan, Rachael Jacobs, Jessica Joseph, Joseph Jude, Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa, Meenal Khare, Sneha Lees, Daizy Maan, Preeti Maharaj, Kishor Napier-Raman, Zoya Patel and Ikebal Patel, Mia Pandey Gordon, Natasha Pinto, Shamna Sanam, Priya SaratChandran, Shreya Tekumalla and Sharon Verghis.


My Mother's Spice Cupboard

My Mother's Spice Cupboard

Author: Elana Benjamin

Publisher: ReadHowYouWant

Published: 2014-05-22

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 9781459680074

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In My Mother's Spice Cupboard, Elana Benjamin has produced a warm and detailed account of her family's story, as they moved from Baghdad to Bombay (now Mumbai) and finally to Sydney, Australia. With loving strokes, she has created a detailed picture of everyday life for Jews living in Bombay during the British rule, followed by the disintegration of the community post - independence. By the early 1960s, when her family left, the majority of India's Jewish community had emigrated. Thus, she has managed to recreate a world that no longer exists, whilst there were still family members around to tell her the stories.


Memories of Eden

Memories of Eden

Author: Violette Shamash

Publisher: Northwestern University Press

Published: 2016-03-15

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 0810164086

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According to legend, the Garden of Eden was located in Iraq, and for millennia, Jews resided peacefully in metropolitan Baghdad. Memories of Eden: A Journey Through Jewish Baghdad reconstructs the last years of the oldest Jewish Diaspora community in the world through the recollections of Violette Shamash, a Jewish woman who was born in Baghdad in 1912, sent to her daughter Mira Rocca and son-in-law, the British journalist Tony Rocca. The result is a deeply textured memoir—an intimate portrait of an individual life, yet revealing of the complex dynamics of the Middle East in the twentieth century. Toward the end of her long life, Violette Shamash began writing letters, notes, and essays and sending them to the Roccas. The resulting book begins near the end of Ottoman rule and runs through the British Mandate, the emergence of an independent Iraq, and the start of dictatorial government. Shamash clearly loved the world in which she grew up but is altogether honest in her depiction of the transformation of attitudes toward Baghdad’s Jewish population. Shamash’s world is finally shattered by the Farhud, the name given to the massacre of hundreds of Iraqi Jews over three days in 1941. An event that has received very slight historical coverage, the Farhud is further described and placed in context in a concluding essay by Tony Rocca.


My Father's Paradise

My Father's Paradise

Author: Ariel Sabar

Publisher: Algonquin Books

Published: 2009-10-13

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 1565129962

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In a remote corner of the world, forgotten for nearly three thousand years, lived an enclave of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers and humble peddlers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born. Yona's son Ariel grew up in Los Angeles, where Yona had become an esteemed professor, dedicating his career to preserving his people’s traditions. Ariel wanted nothing to do with his father’s strange immigrant heritage—until he had a son of his own. Ariel Sabar brings to life the ancient town of Zakho, discovering his family’s place in the sweeping saga of Middle-Eastern history. This powerful book is an improbable story of tolerance and hope set in what today is the very center of the world’s attention.


In the Tracks of Old Bluey

In the Tracks of Old Bluey

Author: Bobbie Buchanan

Publisher: Boolarong Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 1921920882

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Nat Buchanan was the first European to cross the Barkly Tablelands from east to west and first to take a large herd of breeding cattle from Queensland to the Top End of the Northern Territory. Buchanan created a droving record when he supervised 20,000 head over this route.


The Last Showman

The Last Showman

Author: Fred Brophy

Publisher: Penguin Group Australia

Published: 2014-08-27

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 174348304X

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'My life has been a mad travelling show, meeting some of the strangest and greatest people who've ever lived. I've had my fair share of trouble and I'm lucky to be here. But I've always been a showman and I've done my best to preserve a precious part of an old Australia that's fast disappearing.' Son of a sideshow operator and trapeze artist, fourth-generation showman Fred Brophy grew up on the road, travelling the length and breadth of Australia. He did time in jail as a wild teenager before establishing his own successful boxing tent. It has become a star attraction in the Outback and is now the only one of its kind in the world. Fred tells stories of living on the smell of an oily rag, rescuing battlers, and becoming embroiled in some of the most bizarre adventures imaginable. This is one helluva life, full of hardship, hilarity and unexpected turns, including Fred being inducted into the Queensland Boxing Hall of Fame and receiving a Medal of the Order of Australia. 'Now ladies and gentlemen, let's go inside. The show's about to begin . . .'


Confessions of a Millionaire's Mistress

Confessions of a Millionaire's Mistress

Author: Ava Reilly

Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Published: 2015-01-01

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 1760112038

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'The morning after meeting Hugh, I was heading out the door when I saw I had a new message. I opened it cautiously and saw six words that made my heart skip a beat. I need to see you again.' Ava Reilly was just starting her career in PR when she was sent to meet one of the industry's major players. She was naive to the ways of the entertainment business, but was determined to make a good impression. What she wasn't prepared for was the electricity she would feel between them from the moment of their first meeting. Soon they had embarked on a stormy, seductive love affair, with liaisons in opulent hotels across Australia and around the world. The thrill of their encounters was tainted by constant pressure to keep their relationship out of the public eye, as the danger of being discovered could put not only their personal lives but their professional lives at risk. Ava also felt the weight of her conscience - she had never, ever imagined herself as the other woman. However, it had been a long time since she'd been able to truly trust a man, and Hugh seemed to be only one who could come close to breaking down the protective walls Ava had built around her heart. Working day to day in an industry where secrets are currency, Ava's lips were tightly sealed about what was happening between her and Hugh - until she began to make her confessions. Confessions of A Millionaire's Mistress is the true story of an innocent young woman who found herself swept into a passionate, irresistible romance with a charismatic, wealthy, powerful man who is used to getting what he wants - whatever the cost.