MUMBAI, India -- The first surprise comes when she answers the phone. All I know about this woman -- let's call her Fatima -- is that she wears a black burqa and niqab that covers her entire face except her eyes.
I call, expecting a timid woman. I know that contrary to the stereotype, many women who wear burqas are highly educated. And yet, I subconsciously assumed Fatima only spoke Urdu or Hindi. I am taken aback when she answers the phone speaking perfect English.
She also sounds friendly and inviting. She calls me "dear."
I arrive at her home in a Muslim neighborhood in central Mumbai, and she greets me with a warm smile and a hug. "So nice to meet you!" she says at the door.
Fatima is wearing a strikingly fashionable salwar kameez with bright pinks and blues and a delicate blue veil covering her head, shoulders and chest. Had I gotten it wrong, I think to myself. I wanted to meet a woman in a burqa -- who's this lady?
Again, I had consciously known that women only wore the burqa when they left the home or in front of men. But in my imagination, these women were covered in black at all hours of the day and night.
We sit in Fatima's living room, and she serves me fruit juice and dates. I leave my notebook in my bag, wanting to make her feel comfortable. In hindsight, I think she was more comfortable than I was.
We chat, and she tells me about her ancestors. One had moved to India from Ethiopia, another from Afghanistan and another from Western Europe. They had come as traders.
Her history reminds me of my own. Jews throughout time migrated from country to country often as merchants, acclimating themselves to their new lands while maintaining their own distinct culture. Normally, in an attempt to make an interview subject feel at ease, I might have compared her story to my own. I might have said, "Oh, just like my family!"
This time, I do not.
My Indian friends tell me that I need not be afraid of being Jewish here. This is not the Middle East, they say. It's not even Austria or Poland. India is one of the few countries in the world where Jews have almost always lived in peace with their neighbors.
After their reassurance, I have decided to be open about my religion. I tweet about celebrating Shabbat, I talk to my friends about my culture, I am writing this article. Being Jewish is a huge part of my identity, and if possible, I'd rather be open about who I am.
And yet, I am still careful.
As Fatima and I chat, she explains Allah's teachings with a sense of deep love for Islam. She speaks calmly, her body at ease. She shares with me different rules that govern her. "Islam is a way of life," she says. It teaches one how to live in a peaceful way, at harmony with others.
Prophet Mohammed says don't kill a bird if you don't want to eat it, she tells me. Yes, I think to myself, Rabbinic law also forbids hunting for pleasure.
Fatima tells me that Muslims must give a percentage of their annual earnings to charity, called zakat. That is similar to in Judaism, I think to myself. She says she has a small box in her house where her family puts change for the needy. I think of my Sunday school classes at Temple Beth Shalom in New York and remember bringing change each week to add to the tzedukah box sitting on the teacher's desk.
In the background, we hear a man begin to chant in a low, melodious voice over a loudspeaker. Fatima silently recites the muezzin's words, and then translates for me the azaan or call to prayer.
Fatima talks like a rabbi, telling a parable with every point she makes. As we sit on her floor and enjoy a lunch of roti, dal and vegetable dishes, she tells me a story about two men walking with a camel. When the young man sits on the camel and the old man walks nearby, people criticize the younger one for making his elder work hard. When they both sit on the camel, the community criticizes them for putting so much weight on the animal. The men jump off, tie the camel's legs to a stick and carry the animal down the road. People then laugh at them for working while the camel gets a free ride. No matter what you do, Fatima says, people will judge you.
Thinking I will get points for celebrating a Muslim holiday, I bring up the street festival in honor of Prophet Mohammed's birthday that I had attended the previous week.
Fatima shrivels up her face in a look of disgust. "This is all crap," she says, pointing out the window. The festival had taken over her streets as shopkeepers blared loud music and men rode by dancing and singing on big trucks.
"Money should go where? To these things? These are pagan habits," she says. "This is not the way of our Prophet."
Throughout our conversation, Fatima frequently addresses the issue of men and women being separate. She tells an anecdote about diamonds and says, "Allah made women precious."
"We are exactly as a yummy cake with a lot of ice cream," she says. "What happens to it? You see humans pouncing on it, you see flies pouncing on it."
To protect women from being pounced on like a dessert, they must separate themselves from men.
As Fatima describes the comfort and joy she gets out of following Allah's direction and covering herself from men, I think of my visit to a Jewish Chabad House in Venice years ago. I had popped in to see the synagogue there, and the rabbi's wife spotted me -- young, eager and open -- sat me down for a Kosher lunch and spent two hours explaining to me why Jewish women should follow God's rules.
Coming from a Reform background, I had been raised believing that women's equality meant that women should be treated the same as men. This rabbi's wife turned that argument on its head. She said God viewed women as even more special than men and therefore gave them certain obligations.
The rabbi's wife described to me the mikvah, a body of water that a woman must cleanse herself in after menstruation. Rather than condemning the practice because it assumes that a woman needs to be purified after menstruation, this woman described the mikvah as a spiritual experience even nicer than going to a spa. Once a month, you go to this separate facility, take off all your clothes, clean your nails and comb your hair and then submerge yourself in a body of water.
Both Fatima and the rabbi's wife said that women must keep themselves separate because men cannot control themselves. Muslim and Jewish women cover their hair, which is considered super sexy, and must stay out of sight while the men pray, lest they distract them.
As I leave, Fatima and I make a date to meet again. I have been debating if next time I should be open about my own heritage. I want to give Fatima the benefit of the doubt, and I know that my assumption that she might dislike Jews is one more stereotype I have of Muslims in this part of the world.
On the other hand, I am a Jewish reporter working abroad in a time of great hatred against the state of Israel. It is not a myth that many Islamist extremists associate all Jews with a state they consider evil. While Fatima is not an extremist, I know nothing about her neighbors and friends.
At the end of the day, I am still scared.
I begin to realize that I am not going to be telling Fatima I am Jewish. One meeting with a woman who has thus far shattered all my prejudices is not going to crush this last one. Assuming that there may be some in Fatima's wider community who may wish me harm or could cause problems for me is one prejudice that will not be broken down so easily. At least not yet.
Follow Hanna on Twitter: @Hanna_India
Follow Hanna Ingber Win on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Hanna_India
Aziz Poonawalla: Ashura: Shi'a Islam's Day of Sorrow and Inspiration
Anita Diamant: Let Us Begin: Celebrating the Mikveh Water's Power to Renew
I think her feelings, fears, thoughts are common among many and for her to express them, will help others in their own personal reflections.
I think if many of the critical posters here, were to be as introspective of themselves as Hanna has been of herself, we might be able to advance the ball...just a bit.
You've been getting too many cigars lately, so how about a little pinot noir?
To protect women from being pounced on like a dessert, they must separate themselves from men.
Does no one tell these people how disrespectful such a statement is of all men? Are we all just rapists waiting on a street corner with chloroform? Rotten statements like that have no place in India.
THere's a paradox for you.
I understood this fear better after I saw the documentary "Defamation." Much as I disagree with Foxman and his project of seeing antisemitism everywhere--it made clear that fear is being passed along. This is a sadness.
I know how she feels. This is a lovely story though.
http://www.jewishjournal.com/thegodblog/item/muslim_massacre_in_hindu_india/
If you visit again, having found within yourself the basic good manners not be honest, do not be surprised if she responds to your "brave" admission of your Jewishness "But, my dear, I knew that all along. Why would it be a problem?"
You need to do a great deal of work on your insecurities, which obviously does not apply to your generous hostess.
"manners not be honest" should read "manners to be honest"
You have made an assumption, perhaps based on the comments that I have left on HP, which represent only a portion of my life.
There is much more to it, thankfully.
But perhaps I should feel flattered that you have taken some small notice!
Now you made him even angrier :)
Regarding orthodox Jews and Muslims, 90% of their rules are the same and yet, there is such mistrust and ill-feelings.
People who immigrated from India and their progeny are reffered to as Indian-Americans (or alternately East Indian). This follows the general trend used for all other groups (Ie Irish American, African American, etc.)
American Indian is used to describe Native Americans, not East Indians.
At any rate, this last statement of your confirms that you want to keep all the steroptypes of the others intact even when they "were shattered" and will give your host the benefit of the doubt next time!! Really!!
Your refernce to Israel as also troublesome, because unless you are an Israeli I dont see the association because then I would ask the author is it OK then for any non-Jew to associate Jews with Israel all the time and anytime? What does that mean then? what are the implications?
This article should be studied carefully, because under the disguise of reaching for the other, there is a serious ghettoizing discourse, a stereotypically inspired one that is not only very simplistic but also insulting to us readers.
I found the article so self-indulgent. So, the author has all sorts of prejudices about other cultures. She's so terribly afraid of revealing she's a Jew, lest she be subjected to all the stereotypical views that she's seems to be full of? Just get over it. And why should we care,really?
BTW, bamz, perhaps this is why she's a 'former' editor of HuffPost .... But she's somehow working for Globalpost. So much for a world view.
"ABROAD"? You don't have to go that far. You can find all that right here on this site- just read the comments for any story dealing with Israel.
People can only claim victimhood for so long before others start looking at their behavior and saying enough. Yeah, things happened, but that doesn't give them the right to treat others poorly.
By simply screaming "Anti-semitism" and "Holocaust" as an answer to every criticism it reinforces the perception that Israelis think they are above the law, and more important than everyone else.
Articles like this don't help. She is supposed to be covering Mumbai for HP, yet she comes back with a long story establishing her Jewishness and positioning herself as a vicitm before anyone has done anything to her or even knows what her religion is! I don't care what her religion is, cover Mumbai, cover India, do your job.
They don't, You do.
Some informative quotations:
Jewish historian Dr. Norman Stillman: "It is not mere coincidence that the flowering of Jewish culture in the Arab world should occur at the very time that Islamic civilization was at its apogee. Day to day contacts between Muslims and non-Muslims were on the whole amicable." (Norman A. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands: a History and Source, Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979
"When Rabbi Benjamim of Tuleda visited Baghdad in 1170 A.D., he found ten rabbinical schools and 238 synagogues in the land." "The Chief Rabbi," he wrote, "was held in highest esteem, being regarded as a descendant of David." (Philip Hitti, The Arabs, Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1956)
Chaim Weizmann, Israel's first president, addressing the 1946 Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry: "I would not like to do any injustice. The Muslim world has treated the Jews with considerable tolerance. The Ottoman Empire [of which the Arabs were a major part] received the Jews with open arms when they were driven out of Spain and Europe, and the Jews should never forget that."
Rabbi Sassoon Kehdouri, Iraq's Chief Rabbi for 48 years, also speaking before the 1946 Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry on Palestine: "Iraqi Jews will be forever against Zionism. Jews and Arabs have enjoyed the same rights and privileges for a thousand years and do not regard themselves as a distinctive separate part of this nation."
Jews fared better in the Arab world than in Christendom, but it was hardly the bastion of equality and tolerance that some would have us believe.
Jewish Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, born into an affluent Jewish family in Baghdad: "We are not refugees, nobody expelled us from Iraq, nobody told us that we were unwanted. We are victims of the Israeli-Arab conflict." ( Ha'aretz, August 11, 2005)