Echoes of Translation: Audibility and Relationality in Indian Jewish Women's Songs

The Bene Israel are a Jewish community from western India who, over centuries, developed a distinctive identity in relation to other Jewish and non-Jewish communities, translating their sounds, words, and practices to have uniquely Marathi Jewish meanings.Some men sing Marathi Jewish songs, but over the past half century, women have assumed the important cultural role of stewarding these songs for the future.As author Anna C. Schultz demonstrates, the Bene Israel women are translators who creatively mediate the worlds around them through song; while they may not always be visible, they are audible, and this book amplifies their relational soundings. Schultz explores sonic translation among the Bene Israel through the metaphor of the echo: a resonant, transformative, relational phenomenon.The voices of Bene Israel women today, like Ovid's Echo, resonate empathically with loved ones they have survived, and, faintly, with those they never knew.Singing this repertoire teaches singers and l