On March 1st I went to a lecture by a Jewish Indian woman about her artwork. Siona Benjamin is a Jewish artist from India who now lives in the United States. She is a part of the Bene Israel group who primarily live in Mumbai, Pune, Karachi, and Ahmadabad and whose native language is Judeo-Marathi. There is indication of intermarriage with non-Jewish Maratha people due to physical similarities, but the Bene Israel Jews still maintain Jewish practices of dietary restrictions, circumcision, and the observing of the Sabbath. At their peak in the mid 1900s, the Bene Israel Jews numbered around 20,000 in Indian which has now dropped to around 5,000 due to migration to Israel.
Benjamin’s work is strongly influenced by her Jewish Indian background and heritage and plays an integral part in the message she wants to bring across through her art. The most notable characteristic of her art is the turquoise blue skin color of her subjects. During her lecture, Benjamin explained her use of a blue skin tone as a symbol being the “other” or minority as a Jewish Indian. Since it is also the color of the sky and ocean, she explained it as belonging everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Additionally, the color of blue also has significance in Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism.
What I enjoyed the most about Benjamin’s work is that her art is relatively straightforward in that it’s very easy to understand the message in her paintings as compared to modern paintings that expect me to derive meaning from a couple splashes of paint. The messages in her paintings are also very relevant to present real world events and issues. For example, one of her paintings depicts a blue lady looking into a white pavilion structure with a checkered floor. This particular picture was painted around the time of the capture of Saddam Hussein, and one of the symbols Benjamin explained was the checkered floor which symbolized the chess game of war.
Another aspect of her work that I found very interesting is the use of midrash which Benjamin described as recycling mythology. From what I understand after doing some more research on it, midrash is a genre which helps to interpret the Torah through anthologies and homilies. The series that Benjamin did on Lilith, a demoness, was done in a pop art style resembling comic books, drawing from Indian and other comic books she had read as a child. In this series, it is especially easy to see the fusion of cultures and past and present on Benjamin’s work.
In addition to paintings, Benjamin also takes commissions, one of which was a floor for a synagogue in St. Louis. I think the floor was my favorite piece that Benjamin showed on her slides. It was a giant mosaic tile circle. The inner ring depicts the twelve tribes of Israel with the tribe of Dinah at the center since as a woman she did not receive a tribe alongside her brothers. Another ring depicts the zodiac signs while the outermost ring illustrates all the Jewish holidays. Overall I really liked the detail and color of her artwork and enjoyed hearing how her background as a Jewish Indian influenced her work.
There was also yummy Indian kosher food at the end which was a plus.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/India.html
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0014_0_13846.html