Online Class: Sephardic Experiences of the Holocaust

The centuries-old, culturally rich Sephardi (Judeo-Spanish) communities of southeastern Europe experienced some of the highest percentages of annihilation during the Holocaust: yet their stories are rarely told. In this series of lectures, Professor Sarah Abrevaya Stein will explore devastation during the Shoah in the Sephardi heartland of southeastern Europe, framing that story within the broad sweep of modern Sephardi history.  Two lectures visit two notable Balkan Jewish communities: that of Salonica (present day Thessaloniki, Greece), and Monastir (present day Bitola, The Republic of North Macedonia), tracing these communities' histories through intimate family stories. A final lecture will move to the North African context to explore how the Second World War and Holocaust were experienced and viewed by refugees and local populations of Muslims and Jews. Though North Africa's Jews were not deported to the Nazi death camps en masse, they were subject to racial laws, plunder, loss of legal rights, and, in cases, forced labor and internment. In this last lecture, wartime North Africa is framed not as a site of military campaigns, but as a lived environment in which many stories and family trajectories dramatically converged.

This class will be held online on three Thursdays, April 30, May 7 and May 14 at 6:00pm PDT.

April 30: A Sephardi Journey Through the Twentieth Century

May 7: Intimate Stories of Sephardi Monastir

May 14: Wartime North Africa

Sarah Abrevaya Stein is a historian, writer and educator whose work has reshaped our understanding of Jewish history. Her commitment to research is matched by her love of teaching. At UCLA, she is Distinguished Professor of History and the Viterbi Family Chair in Mediterranean Jewish Studies. She is the author or editor of ten books, including Family Papers: a Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century and Plumes: Ostrich Feathers, Jews, and a Lost World of Global Commerce. 

Professor Stein has received many awards including the the Salo W. and Jeannette M. Baron Senior Award for Scholarly Excellence in Research of the Jewish Experience from the University of Vienna, the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, two National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Jewish Book Awards, three National Jewish Book Award Finalist Awards, Best Historical Materials Award from the American Library Association, Judaica Reference Award from the Association for Jewish Libraries, and the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award. Her work has been translated into Spanish, French, Hebrew, Russian, and Arabic.

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