A Diaspora within a Diaspora: Sephardic Jews in America (Dr. Devin Naar)

As many as fifty thousand Jews from the lands of the former Ottoman Empire came to the United States in the decades surrounding World War I. They constituted a tiny minority within the broader Jewish American community. How did the newly arriving Sephardic Jews adapt to their new country of residence? What became of their language, culture, religious traditions, and connections to their places birth? How was their experience shaped by interactions with their new neighbors, including Yiddish-speaking Jews? This lecture will explore the trajectories of Sephardic Jews from the Mediterranean world to America during the twentieth century.

Dr. Devin E. Naar is the Isaac Alhadeff Professor in Sephardic Studies, Associate Professor of History, and faculty at the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies in the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. Born and raised in New Jersey, Dr. Naar graduated summa cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis and received his Ph.D. in History at Stanford University. He has also served as a Fulbright fellow to Greece. His first book, Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece, was published by Stanford University Press in 2016. The book won the 2016 National Jewish Book Award in the category of Research Based on Archival Material and was named a finalist in Sephardic Culture. It also won the 2017 Edmund Keeley Prize for best book in Modern Greek Studies awarded by the Modern Greek Studies Association.

[JR-yxpo]

Arie - thank you so much. You and Prof Naar hit it out of the park!!!!

[sandrakatz]

thia was an excellent presentation. I am a Venezuelan jew of sephardic descent (moroccan).... so much information and insteresting BTW my grandparents spoke LADINO at home.

[eemakaren]

Thank you so much for providing the YouTube. I missed the original live lecture but am so grateful for being able to listen to this fascinating

[silvierousso]

Thank you ! Very Interesting indeed ! Sicilia as well was under Spanish rule and a place with innumerable Jewish Communities that now live in the Bnei Anusim...Descendientes de los Conversos ....Converted by force

[robertagross-torres]

Fabulous program! So interesting. Thank you.