In my early twenties, I told my mother, “One day, I want to publish a book on our family’s tale.”
“Inshallah” – “God willing” – she said, evoking our ancestors’ Arabic. Because my mother uses this word, someone could assume that my family is Muslim. We are, however, Jewish. And for a long time, I was wary of revealing my odd ancestry.
Almost no Jews in Australia are descended from Arabic speakers. The majority of Australian Jews are Ashkenazi or European Jews. But I’m not one of them: both of my parents were born and raised in Bombay (now Mumbai), and their families emigrated from Iraq to India. Mum and Dad arrived in Australia in the 1960s and found a home in Sydney’s small Sephardi Jewish community, where they met co-religionists from India, Iraq, and Egypt. But it wasn’t that easy for me to figure out where I belonged in the Jewish community.
Source: https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/voices/culture/article/2020/07/17/growing-iraqi-indian-jew-australia