Ruby Daniel: Difference between revisions

{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2022}}

{{Use Indian English|date=June 2022}}

| birth_place            = [[Cochin]], [[Kingdom of Cochin]]

'''Ruby "Rivka" Daniel''' ({{lang-he| רובי "רבקה" דניאל}}; {{lang-ml|റൂബി ദാനിയേൽ}}; December 1912 - 23 September 2002) was a [[Malayali]] of [[Cochin Jew]]ish heritage, the first Malayali woman in the Indian Navy, and the first Cochin Jewish woman to publish a book. Between the years of 1982–1999 Daniel translated into English over 120 [[Judeo-Malayalam]] women’s songs. Her translation efforts led the way for an ongoing international project to translate and analyze the songs within the Cochin Jewish community.<ref name=":0">{{cite web|url=http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/daniel-ruby |title=Ruby Daniel |work=Jewish Women's Archive  |accessdate=12 October 2022}}</ref>

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.<ref name=":0" />

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]].<ref name=":0" />

She made [[aliyah]] in 1951 and moved to the predominantly [[Ashkenazi Jews|Ashkenazi]] and secular [[kibbutz]] [[Neot Mordechai]].<ref>[http://thejewishchronicle.net/view/full_story/27119483/article--Ruby-of-Cochin--provides-firsthand-look-at-bygone-era-of-India-s-Jews?instance=news_style ‘Ruby of Cochin’ provides firsthand look at bygone era of India’s Jews]. [[The Jewish Chronicle]]</ref> 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,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bose |first=Abhish K. |date=2016-06-07 |title=Jewish folk songs similar to those of Kerala |url=https://www.deccanchronicle.com/entertainment/music/070616/jewish-folk-songs-similar-to-those-of-kerala.html |access-date=2022-11-06 |website=Deccan Chronicle |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Chemana |first=Martine |date=2002-10-15 |title=Women sing, men listen |url=https://journals.openedition.org/bcrfj/942 |journal=Bulletin du Centre de recherche français à Jérusalem |language=en |issue=11 |pages=83–98 |issn=2075-5287}}</ref> into English.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/daniel-ruby |title=The Journal of Asian Studies |work=Jewish Women's Archive  |accessdate=12 October 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|url=http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=6802256 |title=Ruby Daniel |journal=  The Journal of Asian Studies|date=August 1997 |volume=56 |issue=3 |pages=811–812 |doi=10.2307/2659650 |jstor=2659650 |accessdate=12 October 2013|last1=Gentes |first1=M. J. |s2cid=161154172 }}</ref>