On a Char­i­ot of Fire, writ­ten by Eri­ca Lyons and illus­trat­ed by Siona Ben­jamin, brings the ori­gin sto­ry of the Bene Israel — a Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty in India — into vibrant col­or. Dur­ing the era of the Mac­cabees and the fight for reli­gious free­dom under Greek rule, a brave fac­tion of Jews set out to find a new home. Their ship was caught in a vio­lent storm, and only four­teen sur­vivors made it to shore. The sur­vivors cre­at­ed a new home for them­selves, inte­grat­ing into the cus­toms of the com­mu­ni­ty but also retain­ing their old tra­di­tions and beliefs. 

This children’s book explores mythol­o­gy and its impacts on how we hon­or our her­itage. The sto­ry of the ori­gins of the Bene Israel com­mu­ni­ty is one of sur­vival, hope, and adapt­ing to chang­ing circumstances. 

Lyons and Ben­jamin are a pow­er­ful team, com­bin­ing the lived expe­ri­ence of Asian Jews with the desire to edu­cate oth­ers who may not be famil­iar with these histories. 

Isado­ra Kianovsky: How did you two come to work togeth­er on this book?

Eri­ca Lyons: Siona and I have known each oth­er since 2011. I chose Siona’s 2010/2011 Ful­bright sto­ry as the cov­er sto­ry for the Spring 2011 issue of the mag­a­zine I found­ed, Asian Jew­ish Life. I had ​“dis­cov­ered” Siona’s work a cou­ple of years before, and was thrilled to be able to inter­view her. We devel­oped a friend­ship and were always look­ing for new oppor­tu­ni­ties to work together. 

Siona Ben­jamin: Yes, Eri­ca high­light­ed my work sev­er­al times when she ran Asian Jew­ish Life. It was my plea­sure to work with her. Since then, we have met sev­er­al times when she comes to New York. She’s very schol­ar­ly and well-versed on Asian Jew­ry and my com­mu­ni­ty, the Bene Israel Jews and Indi­an Jews gen­er­al­ly. Like Eri­ca said, we always talked about doing some­thing togeth­er. And then COVID hit, right? 

EL: Well, first was Grow­ing Up Jew­ish in India, edit­ed by Ori Z. Soltes (Niyo­gi Books, Del­hi, 2021). We had already worked on that. The focus of the book was on Siona. I wrote an intro­duc­to­ry chap­ter on Jew­ish life in Asia. Not long after the pub­li­ca­tion of Grow­ing Up Jew­ish in India, I stum­bled on a post about the first children’s book that Siona illus­trat­ed: I Am Hava, by Fre­da Lewkow­icz (Inter­galac­tic Afiko­man, 2021). 

I had just start­ed pay­ing clos­er atten­tion to children’s book news because my debut, Alone Togeth­er on Dan Street (Apples & Hon­ey Press, 2022), was to be released soon. I remem­ber speak­ing on the phone with Siona not long after; both of us said excit­ed­ly, ​“I didn’t know you were inter­est­ed in children’s books too!” 

SB: That’s right. We knew we want­ed to col­lab­o­rate again, so a children’s book had to be next. 

IK: What was the process like of cre­at­ing the book as an author and illus­tra­tor team?

SB: Since Eri­ca was so knowl­edge­able about Asian Jews, and par­tic­u­lar­ly about my com­mu­ni­ty of Indi­an Jews, it was very easy to com­mu­ni­cate with her about the dif­fer­ent aspects and sen­si­tiv­i­ties per­tain­ing to my com­mu­ni­ty. She rec­og­nizes the diver­si­ty of the Jew­ish peo­ple. Because she was immersed in the cul­ture in Asia I felt very inspired to work with her as the author. It was such an easy, flow­ing dia­logue between us.

EL: It was a dream. I’m a fan and a friend of Siona’s. As an author, it feels dif­fer­ent when you are so famil­iar with the illustrator’s work. I’ve inter­viewed her and cri­tiqued her work. I had a pret­ty good sense of what the art was going to look like (pri­or to see­ing the final prod­uct), so there wasn’t that same sense of sur­prise, but I was still stunned by the beau­ty. It was like the feel­ing of com­ing home to some­thing familiar. 

IK: This book fea­tures a com­mu­ni­ty that is not often high­light­ed in main­stream Jew­ish sto­ries. What do you hope chil­dren take away from the sto­ry of the Bene Israel? 

SB: I hope peo­ple rec­og­nize the diver­si­ty of the Jew­ish peo­ple; that a com­mu­ni­ty’s cus­toms aren’t weird just because they’re not like the rit­u­als that you per­form or you know in your par­tic­u­lar com­mu­ni­ty. It’s impor­tant to under­stand and accept that diver­si­ty for chil­dren and their parents.

EL: I would add that I hope that read­ers see that even though we have these cul­tur­al speci­fici­ties with­in Judaism, we’re one peo­ple. And this sto­ry, while it focus­es on the Bene Israel, belongs to all of us in a way, because it’s a part of Jew­ish dias­po­ra his­to­ry and the Jew­ish expe­ri­ence. We were scat­tered to the four cor­ners of the Earth and that would, of course, include the thou­sands of years of Jew­ish pres­ence in India and the Far East.

SB: I’m very hap­py to have Eri­ca to tell this sto­ry with. With oth­ers, there’s often a back­hand­ed ques­tion asked of me: Where did you guys real­ly come from? Like Eri­ca said, Jews have been in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, India, all these coun­tries for two thou­sand years. Abra­ham came from the land of Ur. Where is Ur? It’s Bagh­dad. It’s not in East­ern Europe. You need to remind peo­ple of the diversity.

IK: Can you speak more about the incor­po­ra­tion of myth as a cor­ner­stone of all his­to­ries and cul­tures? (For exam­ple, in addi­tion to the con­text of Mac­cabee upris­ing and the fight for reli­gious free­dom, the ori­gin of the Bene Israel peo­ple fea­tures Eliyahu Hanavi, a famous fig­ure in the Tanakh). 

SB: Myth — the recy­cling of mythol­o­gy — is what my work is about. I take from mythol­o­gy and I renew it to cre­ate some­thing that feels new. But mythol­o­gy is def­i­nite­ly the basis of my inspi­ra­tion in its abil­i­ty to be passed from gen­er­a­tion to generation. 

EL: Because of this gen­er­a­tional link, as soon as I came up with the char­ac­ters of Nani Penkar and her grand­daugh­ter Maya, Siona and I both felt strong­ly that they need­ed to be there to frame the sto­ry. We want­ed read­ers to under­stand that this sto­ry isn’t mere­ly an ancient rel­ic; myth is a liv­ing part of cul­ture and iden­ti­ty. Nani Penkar doesn’t sim­ply point to this sto­ry in a book. She retells it to her grand­daugh­ter and then they par­tic­i­pate in Mal­i­da, they reen­act a part of this sto­ry in the very place that it hap­pened. Think of Pesach, where Eliyahu HaNavi inci­den­tal­ly hap­pens to play an impor­tant role, too. We tell the sto­ry in a way that is imme­di­ate. We see our­selves as part of the nar­ra­tive. The lines between past and present blend, as do the lines between his­to­ry and myth. 

SB: All my work is based on this idea that we can make myths new, but they’re our link to the past. I use midrash as a jump­ing board to be able to recy­cle that mythol­o­gy or sto­ry, to bring it forth so that it can be retold for today’s gen­er­a­tion in a way that is fresh and new again.

EL: It’s no sur­prise that we end­ed up work­ing togeth­er! I share the same under­stand­ing of the role of myth, though I obvi­ous­ly express it in a dif­fer­ent medi­um, words rather than visu­al art. 

IK: How do you think this book speaks to the idea of home? 

SB: I think it speaks to the con­cept of home in a very dias­poric way. And that the Jew­ish idea of home is not just from one part of the world and not from one kind of cul­ture or tra­di­tion, but is var­ied and blended. 

EL: I agree. By telling the sto­ry of the Jews in India, it’s a reminder that home is many places for the Jew­ish peo­ple. In the sto­ry, they come from ancient Israel. This is their home. They set­tle in India, which is also their home. And it’s not a con­tra­dic­tion in any way; both places are home. This is what it means to live in the dias­po­ra, wher­ev­er it may be. 

SB: Indi­an Jews say Moth­er­land, Father­land. India is Moth­er­land. Israel is Father­land. My sec­ond Ful­bright in 2016 to 2017 was actu­al­ly titled From Moth­er­land to Father­land: Tran­scul­tur­al Indi­an Jews in Israel.

IK: Siona, I know that much of your inspi­ra­tion for the book comes from sto­ries from your com­mu­ni­ty — are there any spe­cif­ic ele­ments or themes that are par­tic­u­lar­ly mean­ing­ful to you? Do you hope to evoke any par­tic­u­lar feel­ings or thoughts through your art here? (I am specif­i­cal­ly inter­est­ed in the sym­bol­ism of the col­or blue in your work.)

SB: I’m inspired by the beau­ti­ful rit­u­als of my child­hood grow­ing up Jew­ish in India, and also by the sto­ries told by my fam­i­ly. One of them was this sto­ry, passed down from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion. I espe­cial­ly remem­ber the Mal­i­da cer­e­monies dur­ing my years grow­ing up. These were per­formed for the prophet Eli­jah, as my com­mu­ni­ty believed that he left on his char­i­ot to go up to the heav­ens from Alibag. Here, we met as a fam­i­ly and as a com­mu­ni­ty. We did the Eliyahu HaNavi prayer, and pre­pared and ate the Mal­i­da (a dish of flat­tened sweet rice with nuts and crushed car­damom and fresh­ly grat­ed coconut). It was delicious! 

In my paint­ings, I employ the blue-skinned fig­ures as a device to more provoca­tive­ly raise issues about iden­ti­ty, immi­gra­tion and the role of art in social change. The blue skin has become a sym­bol for me of the col­or of the sky and the ocean, of belong­ing every­where and nowhere, and about being a Jew­ish woman of color.

IK: Eri­ca, can you speak more to your expe­ri­ence work­ing with the Asian Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty around the world? How has it influ­enced your writing? 

EL: The Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ties of Asia and Asian Jew­ry have been more than just my work, it’s my life. I’ve lived in Hong Kong for almost twen­ty-two years and am rais­ing Jew­ish Chi­nese chil­dren. Actu­al­ly, Hong Kong was my father’s base for busi­ness (Per­sian rugs) when I was a child, so I sup­pose all roads led here for me. My child­hood home was essen­tial­ly a col­lage of his vis­its to Iran, India, Chi­na, Hong Kong, and oth­er Asian countries. 

In 2009, I found­ed Asian Jew­ish Life, a mag­a­zine that aimed to help pre­serve the unique his­to­ry of Jews in the region and to change people’s per­cep­tions about where Jews hail from and what they look like. When I closed the mag­a­zine, I knew that there were more sto­ries to tell. I amassed a trea­sure trove of infor­ma­tion. Just how Siona spoke about recy­cling myths, I was deter­mined to find a way to recy­cle these less­er known Jew­ish his­to­ries. Addi­tion­al­ly, chil­dren need to see them­selves in sto­ries. Col­lec­tive­ly, we’re a small part of a tremen­dous push to cre­ate a new can­non of diverse Jew­ish books reflec­tive of our own Jew­ish diversity. 

IK: What drew you to this par­tic­u­lar sto­ry? What is it like to tell it for children?

EL: I fell in love with this sto­ry the first time I heard it. And when I start­ed seri­ous­ly writ­ing chil­dren’s books in about 2019, I knew that this was a sto­ry that I had to tell. One of the first things that I wrote for chil­dren was a mid­dle grade short sto­ry ver­sion of this tale. with a pre­teen and her moth­er as two of the sev­en women that sur­vive the shipwreck. 

When Siona and I had that first call and dis­cov­ered our mutu­al love for children’s books, we made a list of all the sto­ry ideas that we could col­lab­o­rate on. I said we had to start at the begin­ning with the ori­gin sto­ry. She agreed.

SB: And for me, this is the ori­gin sto­ry of my peo­ple, my com­mu­ni­ty. It was told to me in my child­hood by my grand­moth­er, my moth­er, my aunts. It’s a sto­ry which is so much a part of me, and I have gone to the site of the ship­wreck in Alibag with my fam­i­ly. When we pray, it’s usu­al­ly in our homes. Recent­ly, for my Ful­bright, I was there for a big Eliyahu ceremony. 

EL: I’ve been to Elijah’s Rock also, but I’ve nev­er been part of a Mal­i­da cer­e­mo­ny there. We need to go one time together.

SB: And work on our next book togeth­er there, too!