Books
Books recommended by JIMENA staff for readers, students, and educators exploring the history, literature, languages, and traditions of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews. Browse children’s books, novels, history, Jewish languages, and Sephardic thought.
Buy BookHistory & Nonfiction
Entwined Homelands, Empowered Diasporas: Hispanic Moroccan Jews and Their Globalizing Community
by Aviad MorenoA history of the Hispanic Moroccan Jews of northern Morocco's former Spanish zone, following their twentieth century migrations to Venezuela, Spain, Israel, and beyond and the transnational community ties they maintained.
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Exile in the Maghreb: Jews under Islam, Sources and Documents
by Paul B. Fenton; David LittmanA collection of translated sources and documents on the status and treatment of Jews in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia under Muslim rule from the medieval period to the twentieth century.
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Jewish Culture and Society in North Africa
by Emily Benichou Gottreich; Daniel J. SchroeterA collection of scholarly essays on the Jews of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, covering religion, language, gender, colonialism, music, and migration from the medieval era to the twentieth century.
Buy BookPoetry
Jews
by Sami Shalom ChetritAn English selection of three decades of poetry by Sami Shalom Chetrit, a Moroccan born poet raised in Ashdod, confronting Mizrahi marginalization, the loss of Arabic, and Israeli politics.
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Memories of Absence: How Muslims Remember Jews in Morocco
by Aomar BoumAn anthropological study, based on interviews across four generations in southern Morocco, of how Moroccan Muslims remember, imagine, and talk about the Jewish neighbors who emigrated after 1948.
Buy BookFiction & Literature
Sunburnt Faces
by Shimon AdafFollows Ori Elhayani as a girl in a southern Israeli town and again as a writer in her thirties, weaving childhood loss, a spell of muteness, and a moment she believes is God speaking through a television into a meditation on memory, faith, and storytelling.
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The Alliance Israelite Universelle and the Jewish Communities of Morocco, 1862-1962
by Michael M. LaskierA history of the Alliance Israélite Universelle schools in Morocco from 1862 to 1962, examining how French Jewish education reshaped Moroccan Jewish society, its relations with Muslim neighbors and colonial authorities, and its path toward emigration.
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The Jews in Sharifian Morocco: Aspects of Jewish life in Morocco from the 16th Century to Modern
by Shalom Bar-AsherA Hebrew language reader of chapters and sources on Jewish history in Morocco from the sixteenth century to modern times, covering community life, relations with the Sharifian rulers, and later developments.
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The Jews of North Africa during the Second World War
by Michel AbitbolA study of the Jews of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia under Vichy French rule and German occupation in World War Two, examining anti Jewish laws, internment, and the impact of the Allied landings.
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The Language and Culture of the Jews of Sefrou, Morocco: An Ethnolinguistic Study
by Norman A. StillmanAn ethnolinguistic study of the Judeo Arabic spoken by the Jews of Sefrou, Morocco, combining grammar, recorded texts, and a glossary with insight into the community's material culture and daily life.
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The Mellah Society: Jewish Community Life in Sherifian Morocco
by Shlomo DeshenArgues against the popular image of medieval Islamic Spain as a model of tolerance, presenting evidence of religious restrictions and violence faced by Christians and Jews under Muslim rule in al Andalus.
Buy BookChildren’s & Young Adult Books
The Story of the Baba Sali
by Sarah FeldbrandA children's biography of Rabbi Yisrael Abuhatzeira, the Baba Sali, the revered Moroccan kabbalist who later lived in Netivot, Israel, told through stories of his piety and kindness.