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
Forging Ties, Forging Passports: Migration and the Modern Sephardi Diaspora
by Devi MaysA history of Sephardic Jews who moved between the Ottoman Empire, Mexico, and France in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, examining how they used passports, citizenship, and networks to migrate.
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Foundations of Sephardic Spirituality: The Inner Life of Jews of the Ottoman Empire
by Rabbi Marc D. AngelA study of the religious thought and inner life of Ottoman Sephardic Jews, drawing on rabbinic writings, ethical literature, and folk customs to describe their spiritual values.
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French Jews, Turkish Jews: The Alliance Israelite Universelle and the Politics of Jewish Schooling in Turkey 1860-1925
by Aron RodrigueA history of the Alliance Israelite Universelle schools in Ottoman Turkey from 1860 to 1925, showing how French Jewish educators reshaped Sephardic education, language, and identity.
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From the Shahs to Los Angeles: Three Generations of Iranian Jewish Women Between Religion and Culture
by Saba SoomekhA sociological study of three generations of Iranian Jewish women, from Iran under the Pahlavi shahs to Los Angeles, examining how they balance religious practice, Persian culture, and changing gender roles.
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Ginger And Salt: Yemeni Jewish Women In An Israeli Town
by Lisa GiladAn anthropological study of Yemeni Jewish women who settled in an Israeli town, exploring how they adapted family life, work, and tradition after immigration.
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Golden Age of Aragonese Jewry: Community and Society in the Crown of Aragon, 1213-1327
by Yom Tov AssisA history of Jewish communities in the Crown of Aragon between 1213 and 1327, examining their self government, economic life, culture, and relations with the Christian crown.
Buy BookReligion & Philosophy
Ha-Emunot ve-ha-Deot (The Book of Beliefs and Opinions)
by Saadia ben Yosef al-FayyumiSaadia Gaon's tenth century Judeo Arabic treatise, written in Baghdad, the first systematic work of Jewish philosophy, which defends the harmony of reason and revelation on creation, God, the soul, and redemption.
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Homeless Tongues: poetry and languages of the Sephardic diaspora
by Monique BalbuenaA literary study of modern poets writing in Ladino, Hebrew, Spanish, and other languages of the Sephardic diaspora, examining how multilingual poetry expresses memory, exile, and identity.
Buy BookReligion & Philosophy
Homo Mysticus: A Guide to Maimonides’s Guide for the Perplexed
by Jose FaurA study by the Sephardic scholar José Faur that argues Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed should be read as a mystical and initiatory work, offering a guide to its structure, language, and philosophical aims.
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Horizontal Society: Understanding the Covenant and Alphabetical Judaism
by Jose FaurA philosophical work in which Sephardic scholar Jose Faur argues that the biblical covenant and the alphabet shaped Judaism as a horizontal society of literate equals, contrasting it with hierarchical, vertical models of authority.
Buy BookChildren’s & Young Adult Books
I Share My Name
by Esther Levy Chehebar (Author), Luisa Galstyan (Illustrator)A picture book in which young Jojo, from a Syrian Jewish family in Brooklyn, wonders why so many cousins share his name and learns the Sephardic custom of naming children after living grandparents.
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Impossible Exodus: Iraqi Jews in Israel
by Orit BashkinFollows the roughly 120,000 Iraqi Jews who arrived in Israel in the early 1950s, examining life in the transit camps, discrimination, labor and political protest, and how Iraqi Jews built new identities as Israelis; a scholarly social history.