Ella Shohat (New York University) in conversation with Yuval Evri

The Sephardi-Moorish Atlantic: The Two 1492s and the Multi-Chronotope of Orientalism

Ella Shohat approached some of the theoretical and methodological challenges faced by researchers of Sephardi modernities within the epistemic frameworks of the field called Jewish Studies. Shohat spoke about the question of origins and beginnings and their constructed nature or, more specifically, the function of origins in the context of certain histories.  She referred to the diversity of origins, the establishment of narrative connections between origins and events, and the multiple beginnings for the formation of identities and discourses.

Through the case of 1492, which marks the Expulsion of Sephardi Jews, the fall of Granada, the Reconquista and, also, the conquest of America, Shohat discussed how these events are often examined separately, thus separating Jewish and Muslims’ history in Iberia/ Al-Andalus, and omitting the impact that the Reconquista and its phobic ideas about Jews and Muslims had on the ideological apparatus of Spanish colonialism (Conquista) in America.

Shohat discussed how the conversos and moriscos traveled to the Americas, and how the Conquista and its ideological apparatus was equipped with the phobic ideas about Jews and Muslims taken from the Reconquista and the “Orient in Iberia”, ideas which were then applied to the conceptualization of the Americas and indigenous people. Modernization in Latin America is in turn inseparable from the Sephardi-Moorish figure: the idea that the Moor and Sephardi are in the blood of the Portuguese, who is used to conviviality or modernization as a rejection of the Portuguese-Iberian model evoked by the Moorish-Sephardi past, in favor of the French and American model. Finally, Shohat spoke about the importance of cutting through the limitations of area studies as well as adopting a transdisciplinarity that welcomes metaphors, discourses, analogies or “linked analogies”, as she put it. This is a way of traveling through knowledge and formulating ideas and as a way of thinking about memory, history, identities and their formation. 

Yoram Meital (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)

Preservation of Jewish Heritage and Debating Egypt’s Past and Present

Yoram Meital shared part of his research on Egypt’s Jewish heritage and spoke about the renewed interest in the country’s Jewish past, placing the question of the nostalgia for the Jews and their absence in today’s Egypt in the context of the present political and social reality of the country and, more specifically, in the context of the civic uprising of 2011 and the attempt to bring the downfall of the regime. Meital’s lecture connected to some of the topics laid out by Ella Shohat in her dialogue with Yuval Evri: the function of origins in the context of certain histories. Meital’s lecture referred to the multiplicity of origins and heritages of Egypt and the work done by the leadership of the currently tiny Egyptian Jewish community to pass on Egypt’s Jewish legacy on to the next generation of Egyptians, under the assumption that the Jewish story is part of their heritage as Egyptians, and not just a relic. For that past to be seen as their heritage, it has to have some sort of relevance in the present, something to contribute and a function to play. The material history of the Egyptian Jews is, according to Meital, a sort of living archive, an archive that continues to be filled by local cultural products and discourses that keep adding their share to the preservation of Egyptian Jewish memory. 

Lital Belinko-Sabah (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

How do Judeo-Spanish proverbs and tales recorded a century ago communicate with us and how do we communicate with them?

Lital Belinko-Sabah spoke about Judeo-Spanish tales and proverbs emphasizing the importance of crossing linguistic, literary and folklore research methods in order to understand how we interpret these narratives in the absence of audio or video recordings. She referred to the nostalgic use of these proverbs and the feeling of loss among speakers and researchers, due to the lack of proper recording and diminished use, which in turn speaks to our limitations to fully understand these pieces of our collective past. Her talk zoomed into the case of proverbs and tales in order to make a more general point about the mediated nature of our relationship with our past. 

Aviad Moreno (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) in conversation with Angy Cohen (University of Calgary)

Modernity' and 'Tradition' on the Move: Spanish Moroccan Jews and their Diasporas 

The fourth meeting of the seminar was a dialogue between Aviad Moreno and Angy Cohen about Spanish-Moroccan Jews and their Diasporas as a case study of the concepts of modernity and tradition. Moreno approached modernity as the context in which tradition emerges as a concept. Modernity creates the need to represent our identities, and provides the concepts we must use to describe who we are. He expounded on the dialectical relationship between identities and migration and how the Spanish-Moroccan Jewish case shows a community marked by transnational migrations and returns, a community whose center was, in many ways, a migratory one. Moreno and Cohen discussed the relation between memory and migration in the context of the Israeli reception of Moroccan Jews and the development of a new ethnic identity. 

Edwin Seroussi (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) in conversation with Yair Dalal (Composer, violinist, oud player, singer and a teacher)

Sephardi Musical Modernities: Listening to the Past in the Future

In this closing session of the 2023 Sephardi Modernities Seminar Series, musicologist Edwin Seroussi and musician Yair Dalal reflected on Sephardi and Mizrahi musical traditions as living archives of memory, transmission, and reinvention. Through historical recordings, contemporary performances, and personal reflections on Iraqi Jewish music, maqam, piyyut, and Israeli musical culture, the conversation explored how the musical past is recovered, transformed, and projected into the future. The session also considered music as a space of cultural continuity, artistic creativity, and dialogue across Jewish, Arab, and Middle Eastern worlds.