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

RSVP HERE