Ruby Daniel
Ruby "Rivka" Daniel | |
---|---|
Born | Ruby Daniel December 1912 Neot Mordekhai, Israel |
Resting place | Neot Mordechai, Israel |
Occupation(s) | Indian Navy, Writer, Translator |
Parent(s) | Eliyahu Hai Daniel (d. 1934) and Leah Japheth Daniel (1892–1982) |
Ruby "Rivka" Daniel (December 1912 - 23 September 2002) was a
Early life
Ruby Daniel was born in
Ruby Daniel excelled in school, both at the local government school for girls and at the Jewish school where she studied Hebrew, Torah, and the synagogue liturgy every morning and afternoon. She attended St. Treasas Convent Girls Higher Secondary School in Ernakulam. She completed high school there and studied one year at St. Teresa's College. She left St. Teresa’s College after her father and grandfather died in the same year.[1]
Military career
Ruby Daniel enlisted in the military and served in the Armed Forces of India. She is noted for not only being one of the few women in the Indian army at the time but also as the first Jewish Indian woman and the first Malayali to do so in modern Indian history. She was employed for over fifteen years in government service, as a clerk in the High Court, District Court Munsiff Court, and from 1944–1946 in the Women’s Royal Indian Navy.[1]
Writing career
She made aliyah in 1951 and moved to the predominantly Ashkenazi and secular kibbutz Neot Mordechai.[2] Her 1995 memoir, "Ruby of Cochin", lists a fourth method for marriage among the Jews of Cochin: that of witness by the entire congregation to a marriage. The memoir includes her experience in the Armed Forces of India as a Jewish woman among Hindu and Muslim men. In order to preserve Cochin Jewish culture, Ruby Daniel published a booklet of nine songs in Judeo-Malayalam - transliterated in Hebrew. She worked prodigiously through the 1990s to translated some 130 songs, which are sung by the Jewish women,[3][4] into English.[5][6]
Works
- We Learned from the Grandparents: Memories of a Cochin Jewish Woman. 1992
- Ruby of Cochin .Jewish Publication Society (JPS). 1995
References
- ^ a b c "Ruby Daniel". Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved 12 October 2013.
- ^ ‘Ruby of Cochin’ provides firsthand look at bygone era of India’s Jews Archived 29 August 2016 at the Wayback Machine. The Jewish Chronicle
- ^ Bose, Abhish K. (7 June 2016). "Jewish folk songs similar to those of Kerala". Deccan Chronicle. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
- ISSN 2075-5287.
- ^ "The Journal of Asian Studies". Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved 12 October 2013.
- S2CID 161154172. Retrieved 12 October 2013.