Esther David

Esther David (Dandekar) (born March 17, 1945) is a Jewish-Indian author, an artist and a sculptor.^[1] She was born into a Bene Israel Jewish family^[2] in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. She won Sahitya Akademi Award in 2010 for The Book of Rachel.^[3]

A single mother and grandmother of two, she is now a full-time writer who lives in Ahmedabad.^[4]

Life

Her father, Reuben David Dandekar was a hunter-turned-veterinarian, who founded the Kamala Nehru Zoological Garden and Balvatika in the city of Ahmedabad.^[5] Her mother Sarah, was a school teacher.^[6] As a child she spent a lot of time in the zoo, watching and communicating with the animals her father nurtured there.

After her schooling in Ahmedabad, she joined Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, as a student of Fine Arts and Art History. There she met Sankho Chaudhary, a renowned sculptor, who taught her sculpture and Art History.^[3] After her graduation she returned to Ahmedabad and started her career as a professor in art history and art appreciation. She taught at the Sheth C.N. Fine Art, CEPT University and NIFT.

Writing career

She started writing about art and became the Times of India art critic, a prominent national English daily. Later she became a columnist for Femina, a women’s magazine, the “Times of India” and other leading national dallies. She is an advisory editor of Eve Times, Ahmedabad.^[4] She has written several books. She had edited and contributed in some books also.^[7] Her books are related to Bene Israel Jews in Ahmedabad.^[3]

Works

• Her first book, The Walled City was published in 1997 by East West Books, Madras. Its story was set in the walled city of Ahmedabad, telling its culture and history. Later it was re-published by Syracuse University Press USA and is listed in the library of modern Jewish Literature.^[3]
• Her By the Sabarmati was about two women's living in pols and slum of Ahmedabad.^[8]
• The Book of Esther was a novel based on a Jewish family from Alibaug and Ahmedabad spanning period of 150 years.^[8]
• The Book of Rachel is on preservation of Jewish traditions in India. It was also translated into French.^[8]
• In August 2007 she wrote My Father’s Zoo. It was a tribute to her father and have stories related animals in the kankaria zoo .^[6]
• Her Book, Shalom India Housing Society was published on November 4, 2007. It received a positive response from critics.^[8][9]
• One Church, One All Jewish Faith, One God was published by Media Creations,Inc. in 2008 which is a fiction based on believes of christianity.^[10]
• The Man with Enormous Wings, published in 2010 by Penguin Books, is a fiction around 2002 Gujarat violence in Ahmedabad.^[11]
• In Sari Sutra, she contributed a chapter on Bene Israeli Jewish costumes. This book is on Jewish Heritage, Rituals, Arts in India.^[12]
• She also edited 'Ane Dhara Dhruji' -a collection of short stories in Gujarati by victims of Gujarat 2001 earthquake.^[8]
• She also contributed a short story named The Worry Box and The Laughing Lady, for an anthology, 'City Stories', published by Scholastic India.^[8]
• Her short story 'Nanki Chirai' was in Growing Up as a Woman Writer- an anthology published by Sahitya Academy New Delhi.^[8]
• She had also contributed in a web based audio-visual books for children, Gattu's Wildlife Adventures.^[8]

Awards and Recognition

• Sahitya Akademi Award 2010 for The Book of Rachel.^[3][13]
• The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute (HBI) had chosen to feature 'Shalom India Housing Society' in the Hasassah-Brandeis 2010-2011 calendar, which highlights 12 eminent Jewish women authors of across the world whose 'writing illuminates a particular city'. The title of the calendar was 'Jewish Women Writers and the Cities that Influence Them'.^[14]

References

Further reading

• Weil, Shalva. 2008 'Esther David: The Bene Israel Novelist who Grew Up with a Tiger' in David Shulman and Shalva Weil (eds) Karmic Passages: Israeli Scholarship on India,New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 232–253.
• Weil, Shalva. 2009 'Bene Israel Rites and Routines' in Shalva Weil (ed.) India’s Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art and Life-Cycle, Mumbai: Marg Publications [first published in 2002; 3rdedn.], 78-89. Reprinted in Marg: A Magazine of The Arts, 54(2): 26-37
• Weil, Shalva. 'Bene Israel' in Judith Baskin (ed.) Cambridge Dictionary of Judaism and Jewish Culture, New York: Cambridge University Press.2011,pp 59.

External links

• Esther David Official Website
• Esther's Impressions, Reading Rainbow