An Indian-Jewish Mom Connects To Her Culture & Multiculturalism While Raising Adopted Children

Natasha Kehimkar, was born and raised in Canada, and comes from a family of Bene Israel Indian Jews. Her husband Derek Lau, of Chinese descent from Hawaii, converted to Judaism. Natasha and Derek are raising their children, Zev and Sela, originally from South Korea, in the Indian Jewish tradition. Zev, 13, and Sela, 12, had their bar and bat mitzvahs, or BE Mitzvah at the Peninsula Temple Beth El in San Mateo, Calif., on April 1, 2023. The BE Mitzvah is a new program at the temple, promoting gender inclusivity.

We Belong is a visual series highlighting different experiences of South Asian and Indian identity. This series was produced by India Currents in collaboration with CatchLight as part of the CatchLight Local CA Visual Desk. Photographs and interviews by CatchLight Fellow Sree Sripathy.

Portraits were made in San Mateo and Foster City, Calif., on April 1, 2023 and May 29, 2023. The interview took place on May 23, 2023 via Zoom. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Your children, Zev and Sela, recently had their Bar/Bat Mitzvah or BE Mitzvah and I had the chance to meet your mom. She told me “My daughter is so good. I’m so proud of her. She’s so good at maintaining tradition and culture and better than I am.” Can you talk about that?

They spent a lot of money to send me to Jewish day schools. I liked going to Jewish Day School. I love learning Hebrew and I love learning. They’re trying to interpret the Torah and get the meaning behind the meaning. When you read the Talmud and the debates between Rabbis, it’s a place to practice logic and connect the ancient tradition to current contemporary life. I really liked Jewish day schools.

They went into debt to send me to Jewish day schools because I went all the way through high school. I loved it. I loved the learning. I love that academic rigor.

I was the only non-white kid in the whole Jewish day school. Or that I knew of. There were Moroccan Jews. But there was no one else.

When I got to high school, they used to have what they call shluchim. They are Israeli teachers who go to another country for two or three years to teach Hebrew. When the Yemenite Jewish teachers started to come, many were darker than me and their kids were typically much younger than me. I never had anybody who was my age who looked like me.

I learned early on that I have to deal with bigotry, just like everywhere else. Another family in the school pulled their kids out. My mother, who was in HR, said, “I can pull you out of the school but you’re gonna have to learn to deal with this at some point in your life. It’s up to you.”

So at six years old, I had to make a decision. I decided that I wanted to stay because I really love learning Hebrew. There are not that many people who speak Hebrew who are Indian. It’s unique. And it throws people off. I like the fact that I have a foot in two worlds. And so by the time I hit high school, I was very comfortable with who I am.

Natasha reads passages from the Torah while waiting for her children’s bar and bat mitzvah to begin. Natasha uses her father’s yad to move over the Torah passages. Natasha’s mother, Shirley, brought the yad from Toronto, Canada, for her grandchildren to use, in honor of her husband, who passed away in 2021.

I wish I had longer hair, like everybody else. My hair has been short for a very long time. I wish maybe I had some of the same clothes that other people did. But I never wished that I was white. Never. I don’t remember ever wishing I was white. When it became more noticeable to me is when people started dating.

That’s when it became more obvious to me that I don’t look like other Jewish people in this environment. I sort of made a decision that I was going to adopt kids on my own. And then I would marry some divorced guy who had the brains to know that Jews are global and not just all white. We ended up adopting kids.

I was very comfortable in my own skin. I never felt like I had to be different. When I was in university I had a friend who was Sikh. And she really wanted me to go with her to the Indian students’ event. When I went with her she and many of her friends were like, “Oh, you have to meet this person. She’s a Jewish Indian.” Whenever I would go to Jewish events, people would be like, “Oh, this is my friend. She’s an Indian Jew.”

That’s what happened in Jewish circles when I was growing up. I (felt) I didn’t need to go to an environment where I was singled out and on display. So I never continued with the Indian students’ group, because I felt like, here I am, again on display.

Natasha Kehimkar affixes a kippah to daughter Sela’s hair.

Natasha Kehimkar’s mother, Shirley, 84, laughs during the kiddush luncheon after her grandchildren’s, Zev and Sela, bar and bat mitzvah.

For the BE Mitzvah, you wore a saree. I remember your mom saying that growing up she never wore sarees, because she was from Bombay and it wasn’t the fashion. What made you decide to wear one?

I do love wearing them. Like my grandmother, my mother didn’t wear sarees. My grandmother in India did, but I never met her. My auntie did, but we saw her rarely. Part of the reason I always wear saris on High Holy Days and that I insisted that I wanted to wear a saree on the day of the bar and bat mitzvah was because it was a bold expression of being an Indian Jew. That I am here. This is the richness of our world heritage, and how amazing would it be if we all embraced our ancestry or our adopted ancestry, in a way that felt good to us and wasn’t imposed upon us?

There’s something about the art and the muscle memory of putting on a saree that feels ancient to me. And I love it. Sometimes I need my daughter to come and help me, like “Hold this while I get the next pleat in.” My would hands start to hurt.

Natasha holds daughter Sela’s, age 12, hand before her BE Mitzvah.

Ken Lau and Natasha Kehimkar participate in the BE Mitzvah for their children Zev and Sela.

How did you feel about connecting to your culture, and your heritage during Zev and Selahs bar and bat mitzvah?

That moment was really special. I call that whole Saturday with them a moment in time because our children are adopted. And connection to community is really important. I love that they understood what they were reading. I love that they wrestled with understanding how to apply it to their lives today. They’re at this age right now where they’re figuring out who they are. They’re making choices.

Choosing the tallit (a prayer shawl) fabric for example – we got saree material because they wanted it to be something Indian. We talked about it. “Do you want to make it something Korean?” They were like, “No, we actually like it this way.” They chose the saree fabric themselves, they actually chose the design. The color of the atarah, the part that was embroidered, they chose the layout of what colors.. Zev wanted something very simple. He didn’t want a lot of other embellishments. So that’s why his atarah has the gold border and gold in the corners. Sela wanted more color and vibrancy to hers. So hers has that purple and gold down the back. And it’s got the purple and gold in the corners, the tzitzit, the fringes. They really personalized it.

Natasha holds her son Zev’s tallit. Zev wanted a saree border for the tallit, which he helped design.

Sela’s tallit lies unfolded on her home sofa. She helped design her tallit by choosing the colors and the fabric. The color of the atarah, made of saree fabric, matches the color of the tallit.

Zev and Sela (center), put their tallits on for the first time. These are the *tallits* that they’re going to be buried in, says their mother, Natasha. “We don’t get buried in clothes and shoes. The only thing that goes in besides the burial shroud is your tallit and maybe a kippah.”

Derek places a haku ribbon lei over his daughter Sela’s head as his son, Zev, wearing a kukui nut and woven tea leaf lei, looks on. Derek was born and raised in Hawaii. To honor the children’s connection to Hawaii, Derek’s sister and sister-in law brought leis for both children.

Listening to Sela’s speech, a lesson from the Torah, was beautiful. She sounded so incredibly confident and secure in who she was.

When I was growing up, it was no makeup, you’re going to dress this way, your hair will be this way. I’ve told my kids, “You can cut your hair however you want. I don’t really care. Just don’t color it because it will fall out. And as long as you’re modest and you’re not baring body parts that I don’t think you should bare at this point, you can wear whatever colors you want.” The only thing I’ve taught Sela is if it’s loose on top, make it tighter on the bottom and if it’s tighter on top, try looser on the bottom.

She wanted to have one pair of nice shoes and one pair of sneakers. So I was like let’s go for sparkle because she loves sparkle. I don’t want her to ever feel like she has to do things my way. That doesn’t mean I’m not strict. Both Derek and I are strict.

For Zev, he looked at some K-pop musicians or singers and picked a hairstyle. We wanted him to pick his haircut and his hairstyle based on what he liked, not what we liked. I personally love his hair super short, because he’s got such a beautiful bone structure.. I know I’m biased, but I think he has a perfect nose. I would love for him to have shorter hair and you know, off the forehead, but that’s the cut he chose. I do want them to have some control as they’re becoming who they are. There are still family rules. We’re just trying to loosen them a little bit as we go. We are very strict about devices and screen time. I am extremely strict and I will not deviate.

The Kehimkar-Lau family relax in their Foster City home with their dog, Roti, after Zev and Sela’s BE Mitzvah.

What I love about my kids is that when they talk about community service, it’s because they do it. And they don’t ever argue about it. There’s never “I don’t want to.” We were making sandwiches at home during COVID time and we would take them over to Samaritan house. I wanted them to see that these are people, it’s not some faceless organization, that there are people who are going hungry in our community and we can help.

I love that Sela is very connected to community. I love that Zev is trying to figure out what he wants to be, what kind of Jewish person he wants to be, That’s part of the journey. My only hope is that when they’re confused, or they’re conflicted they either ask us a question, even if it’s an obscure question, or that they tell us what they’re what they’re struggling with. But they understand that connection to community, connection to our family, is complicated compared to some of their friends. And that’s okay. Sela lives very happily in the tension that might emerge. Zev struggles with it a little bit, but they’re both becoming people that I’m proud of.

And I’m so blessed to have Derek who is so connected to Hawaii and the melding of cultures there has shaped who he is. He’s a very generous and warm soul. He sees good in everybody. He’s a great partner for me and a supporter of me. I could not be luckier than to have him in my life. He’s just an amazing husband, an amazing human being and an amazing man.

A call for portrait volunteers was promoted in the India Currents newsletter and on social media for this series.

This series was produced by India Currents in collaboration with CatchLight as part of the CatchLight Local CA Visual Desk. Contributors include Vandana Kumar, Meera Kymal, Mabel Jimenez, and Jenny Jacklin-Stratton. Learn more about CatchLight Local’s collaborative model for local visual journalism at https://www.catchlight.io/local

This series was made possible in part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library in partnership with the California Department of Social Services and the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs as part of the Stop the Hate program.

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