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.
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Scapegoat
by Eli AmirNuri, a thirteen year old Iraqi Jewish immigrant sent with other newcomer teenagers to a kibbutz in the early 1950s, where they wrestle with religion, family loyalty, and pressure to remake themselves as Israelis.
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Sephardi and Middle Eastern Jewries: History and Culture in the Modern Era
by Harvey E. Goldberg
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Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in America
by Saba SoomekhA collection of essays by leading scholars on the modern history, religion, and culture of Sephardi and Middle Eastern Jewish communities, from the Ottoman Balkans to North Africa, Iraq, Yemen, and Israel.
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Sephardi Jewry: A History of the Judeo-Spanish Community, 14th-20th Centuries
by Esther Benbassa; Aron RodrigueA history of the Judeo Spanish speaking Sephardic communities of the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans from the fourteenth through twentieth centuries, covering expulsion from Spain, settlement, communal life, Westernization, and the Holocaust.
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Sephardi Lives: A Documentary History, 1700–1950
by Sarah Abrevaya Stein and Julia Philips CohenA documentary history presenting more than one hundred translated letters, memoirs, legal records, and other primary sources that illuminate Sephardic Jewish life across the Ottoman world, Europe, and beyond from 1700 to 1950.
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Sephardic Genealogy: Discovering Your Sephardic Ancestors and Their World
by Jeffrey S. MalkaA practical guide to researching Sephardic family history, combining an overview of Sephardic history and naming customs with detailed sources, archives, and methods for tracing ancestors across the Sephardic diaspora.
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Sephardic Jews in America: A Diasporic History
by Aviva Ben-UrA history of Sephardic Jews in the Americas from colonial Portuguese Jewish congregations through Ottoman Ladino speaking immigrants and later Middle Eastern arrivals, examining how diverse groups formed a Sephardic diaspora identity.
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Sephardic Jews in the West Coast States
by William M. KramerA collection of historical articles on Sephardic Jews in California, Oregon, and Washington, from early nineteenth century pioneers to the twentieth century Ladino speaking communities of Seattle, Los Angeles, and Portland.
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Sephardic Trajectories: Archives, Objects, and the Ottoman Jewish Past in the United States
by (edited by) Kerem Tinaz and Oscar Aguirre-MandujanoAn edited volume examining how archives, objects, photographs, and family collections carried by Ottoman Sephardic immigrants to the United States preserve and shape the memory of the Ottoman Jewish past.
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Sephardic Women’s Voices: Out of North Africa
by Nina B. LichtensteinA literary study and selection of translated writing by Francophone Jewish women from Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, exploring memory, exile, gender, and identity in their fiction and memoirs after leaving North Africa.
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Sephardim in 20th Century America: In Search of Unity
by Joseph M. PapoA history of Sephardic Jews in the United States during the twentieth century, tracing the immigrant communities from the Ottoman Empire and their long efforts to build shared organizations and a unified communal voice.
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Shoham’s Bangle
by Sarah Sassoon (Author), Noa Kelner (Illustrator)A picture book about Shoham, an Iraqi Jewish girl leaving Baghdad for Israel, who holds on to her grandmother's gold bangle as the family departs with only what they can carry.