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$39.95
Elana Benjamin is a Jewish-Australian writer of Indian-Iraqi heritage.
Her new cookbook, Indian-Jewish Food: Recipes and Stories from the Backstreets of Bondi, published by the Sydney Jewish Museum, is now available.
Elana’s articles have been published widely, including in Good Weekend, Sunday Life, the Sydney Morning Herald, SBS Voices, The Jewish Independent (formerly Plus61J Media), Kveller, Tablet Magazine, Debrief Daily, Essential Kids and the Jewish Book Council blog.
Elana is a contributor to Growing Up Indian in Australia (2024, Black Inc.). She is also the author of My Mother’s Spice Cupboard: A Journey from Baghdad to Bombay to Bondi (2012, Hybrid Publishers), a memoir-history which traces her family’s migration from Iraq to India to Australia.
Elana is a co-founder of Sephardi Mizrahi Voices Australia, an organisation which seeks to raise awareness of the traditions, culture and history of Jews from Southeast Asia, the Middle East, North African and Iran.
Elana holds an Arts/Law degree with a history major from the University of New South Wales. She lives in Sydney with her husband and their two children.
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Recipes and Stories from the Backstreets of Bondi
India was home to three Jewish communities, including one which originated in Iraq: the Baghdadi Jews. By incorporating Indian spices into traditional Iraqi dishes and following the Jewish dietary laws – which prohibit the mixing of meat and dairy – India’s Baghdadi Jews created a delicious cuisine that isn’t quite typical Indian.
Baghdadi Jews from India, mostly Bombay and Calcutta, began arriving in Australia in the late 1940s. Many settled in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, especially Bondi. This was well before the end of the White Australia Policy, well before the first trickle of Indian immigrants to Australia in the 1960s.
Indian-Jewish Food: A Book of Recipes and Stories from the Back Streets of Bondi captures the spectacular – but little-known – cuisine of India’s Baghdadi Jews who immigrated to Australia in the 1950s and 60s.
The collection of recipes is divided into five sections: Sides, Vegetarian, Fish & Chicken, Meat, and Sweet. Recipes include chakla bakla (pickled vegetables), cheese samoosas (cheese-filled pastries), chittarnee (tomato-based chicken curry) and chatpatay (chickpeas and potatoes in tamarind sauce).
The book also tells the story of Eze Moses’ legendary Bondi spice shop. Eze Moses was a Baghdadi Jew from India, and for many years, his shop was the only place fresh spices could be bought in Sydney, making it a magnet for all Indian immigrants – Jewish and otherwise.
| Weight | 0.660 kg |
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