JIMENA Staff’s Suggested Readings in Sephardic and Mizrahi Studies
Sephardic History:
A History of the Jews in Christian Spain by Yitzhak Baer
A History of the Jews of Arabia: From Ancient Times to Their Eclipse under Islam by Gordon Darnell Newby
A Hug From Afar: One family’s dramatic journey through three continents to escape the Holocaust by Claire Barkey Flash
A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza by S.D. Goitein
A political and economic history of the Jews of Afghanistan by Sara Koplik
After the Eagles Landed: The Yemenites of Israel by Herbert S. Lewis
An Ode to Salonika: The Ladino Verses of Bouena Sarfatty by Renée Levine Melammed
Becoming Ottomans: Sephardi Jews and Imperial Citizenship in the Modern Era by Julia Phillips Cohen
Between Foreigners and Shi‘is: Nineteenth-Century Iran and its Jewish Minority by Daniel Tsadik
Bukharan Jews and the Dynamics of Global Judaism by Alanna E. Cooper
Bukharan Jews in the 20th Century: History, Experience and Narration by Ingeborg Baldauf; Moshe Gammer; Thomas Loy
Change Within Tradition Among Jewish Women in Libya by Rachel Simon
Collectivization and Social Engineering: Soviet Administration and the Jews of Uzbekistan, 1917-1939 by Zeev Levin
Contemporary Sephardic Identity in the Americas: An Interdisciplinary Approach by Margalit Bejarano
Conversos on Trial: The Inquisition in Ciudad Real by Haim Beinart
Cover Me With My Izar by Nora Houri-Haim
Crisis and Creativity in the Sephardic World (1391-1648) by Benjamin Gampel
Egypt from Monarchy to Republic: A Reassessment of Revolution and Change by Shimon Shamir
Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World by Norman Stillman
Esther’s Children: A portrait of Iranian Jews by Houman Sarshar
Exile in the Maghreb: Jews under Islam, Sources and Documents by Paul B. Fenton; David Littman
Extraterritorial Dreams: European Citizenship, Sephardi Jews, and the Ottoman Twentieth Century by Sarah Abrevaya Stein
Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century by Sarah Abrevaya Stein
Folktales of the Jews, Volume 1: Tales from the Sephardic Dispersion by Dan Ben-Amos, Dov Noy, Ellen Frankel
Folktales of the Jews, Volume 3: Tales from Arab Lands by Dan Ben-Amos
Forging Ties, Forging Passports: Migration and the Modern Sephardi Diaspora by Devi Mays
Foundations of Sephardic Spirituality: The Inner Life of Jews of the Ottoman Empire by Rabbi Marc D. Angel
French Jews, Turkish Jews: The Alliance Israelite Universelle and the Politics of Jewish Schooling in Turkey 1860-1925 by Aron Rodrigue
From the Shahs to Los Angeles: Three Generations of Iranian Jewish Women Between Religion and Culture by Saba Soomekh
Ginger And Salt: Yemeni Jewish Women In An Israeli Town by Lisa Gilad
Golden Age of Aragonese Jewry: Community and Society in the Crown of Aragon, 1213-1327 by Yom Tov Assis
Homeless Tongues: poetry and languages of the Sephardic diaspora by Monique Balbuena
In the Shadow of History: Jews and Conversos at the Dawn of Modernity by Jose Faur
Irano-Judaica: Studies Relating to Jewish Contacts with Persian culture Throughout the Ages by Amnon Netzer; Shaul Shaked
Isaac Aboab da Fonseca: Jewish Leadership in the New World by Moises Orfali
Israel and Ishmael: Studies in Muslim-Jewish Relations by Tudor Parfitt; Yehud Nini
Jacob’s Children in the Land of Mahdi: Jews of the Sudan by Eli S. Malka
Jewish Communities of Iran by Houman Sarshar
Jewish Culture and Society in North Africa by Emily Benichou Gottreich; Daniel J. Schroeter
Jewish Identities in Iran: Resistance and Conversion to Islam and the Baha’i Faith by Mehrdad Amanat
Jewish Libya: Memory and Identity in Text and Image by Jacques Roumani, Judith Roumani, David Meghnagi
Jewish Life in Muslim Libya: Rivals and Relatives by Harvey E. Goldberg
Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece by Devin Naar
Jews and Arabs by Albert Memmi
Jews and Arabs: A Concise History of Their Social and Cultural Relations by S.D. Goitein
Jews and Muslims in the Islamic World by Zvi Zohar; Bernard Dov Cooperman
Jews and Muslims: Images of Sephardi and Eastern Jewries in Modern Times by Aron Rodrigue
Jews in an Arab Land: Libya, 1835–1970 by Renzo De Felice
Jews in Arab Countries the Great Uprooting: 1850-1975 by Georges Bensoussan
Jews of Egypt, 1920-70 : In the midst of Zionism, anti-Semitism and the Middle East Conflict by Michael M. Laskier
Jews, Turks, and Ottomans: A Shared History, Fifteenth Through the Twentieth Century by Avigdor Levy
Judaism on Trial: Jewish-Christian Disputations in the Middle Ages by Hyam Maccoby
La America: The Sephardic Experience in the United States by Marc D. Angel
Ladino Rabbinic Literature and Ottoman Sephardic Culture by Matthias B. Lehmann
Ladino reveries: Tales of the Sephardic experience in America by Hank Halio
Living with the Law: Gender and Community Among the Jews of Medieval Egypt by Oded Zinger
Model Citizens of the State: The Jews of Turkey during the Multi-Party Period by Rifat Bali
Modern Ladino Culture: Press, Belles Lettres, and Theater in the Late Ottoman Empire by Olga Borovaya
Moreshet Sepharad: The Sephardi Legacy edited by Haim Beinart
My Mother’s Spice Cupboard by Elana Benjamin
New Babylonians: A History of Jews in Modern Iraq by Orit Bashkin
On the Mediterranean and the Nile: The Jews of Egypt by Aimée Israel-Pelletier
One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World by Michael Frank
Pādyāvand by Amnon Netzer
Rabbinic Creativity in the Modern Middle East by Zvi Zohar
Ritual Medical Lore of Sephardic Women: Sweetening the Spirits, Healing the Sick by Isaac Jack Levy; Rosemary Zumwalt
Sephardi and Middle Eastern Jewries: History and Culture in the Modern Era by Harvey E. Goldberg
Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in America by Saba Soomekh
Sephardi Jewry: A History of the Judeo-Spanish Community, 14th-20th Centuries by Esther Benbassa; Aron Rodrigue
Sephardi Lives: A Documentary History, 1700–1950 by Sarah Abrevaya Stein and Julia Philips Cohen
Sephardic Genealogy: Discovering Your Sephardic Ancestors and Their World by Jeffrey S. Malka
Sephardic Jews in America: A Diasporic History by Aviva Ben-Ur
Sephardic Jews in the West Coast States edited by William M. Kramer
Sephardic Trajectories: Archives, Objects, and the Ottoman Jewish Past in the United States edited by Kerem Tinaz and Oscar Aguirre-Mandujano
Sephardic Women’s Voices: Out of North Africa by Nina B. Lichtenstein
Sephardim in 20th Century America: In Search of Unity by Joseph M. Papo
Studies in Sephardic Culture: The David N. Barocas Memorial Volume by David N. Barocas; Marc D. Angel
Syrian Jewry in Transition, 1840-1880 by Yaron Harel
Tevye’s Ottoman Daughter: Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews at the End of Empire by Sarah M. Zaides
The Alliance Israelite Universelle and the Jewish Communities of Morocco, 1862-1962 by Michael M. Laskier
The Beauty of Sephardic Life: Scholarly, Humorous & Personal Reflections by Sam B. Maimon
The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492 by Peter Cole
The End of Judaism in Muslim Lands by Shmuel Trigano
The Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Heritage by Loolwa Khazzoom
The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture by Robert Brody
The History of the Jews of Italy by Cecil. Roth
The Jewish Center of Culture in the Ottoman Empire (History of Jewish Literature, Volume 5, Part Six) by Israel Zinberg (Author), Bernard Martin (Translator)
The Jewish Martyrs of Rhodes and Cos by Hizkia M. Franco
The Jews in Modern Egypt, 1914-1952 by Gudrun Kramer
The Jews in Sharifian Morocco: Aspects of Jewish life in Morocco from the 16th Century to Modern Times by Shalom Bar-Asher
The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times by Norman A. Stillman
The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book by Norman A. Stillman
The Jews of Beirut: The Rise of a Levantine Community, 1860s-1930s by Tomer Levi
The Jews of Iran in the Nineteenth Century: Aspects of History, Community, and Culture by David Yeroushalmi
The Jews of Iran: Chapters in their History and Cultural Heritage by David Yeroushalmi
The Jews of Iran: The History, Religion and Culture of a Community in the Islamic World by Houman M. Sarshar
The Jews of Iraq: 3000 Years of History and Culture by Nissm Rejwan
The Jews of Islam by Bernard Lewis
The Jews of Libya: Coexistence, Persecution, Resettlement by Maurice Roumani
The Jews of Moslem Spain by Eliyahu Ashtor
The Jews of North Africa during the Second World War by Michel Abitbol
The Jews of Ottoman Izmir: A Modern History by Dina Danon
The Jews of Rhodes: The History of a Sephardic Community by Marc Angel
The Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience by Jane S. Gerber
The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times by Simon; Laskier; Reguer
The Jews of the Ottoman Empire by Avigdor Levy
The Jews of the Yemen, 1800-1914 by Yehuda Nini
The Jews of Yemen studies in their history and culture by Yosef Tobi
The Journey: From Ismaeleya to Higienópolis – The story of an Egyptian Jew by Alain Bigio
The Juderia: A Holocaust Survivor’s Tribute to the Jewish Community of Rhodes by Laura Varon
The Last Ottoman Century and Beyond The Jews in Turkey and the Balkans 1808-1945 by Minna Rozen
The Lost World of the Egyptian Jews: First-person accounts from Egypt’s Jewish community in the Twentieth Century by Liliane Dammond
The Mellah Society: Jewish Community Life in Sherifian Morocco by Shlomo Deshen
The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain by Dario Fernandez-Morera
The New Babylonian Diaspora: The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Community in Iraq, 16th-20th centuries C.E. by Zvi Yehudah
The Road to Redemption: The Jews of the Yemen 1900-1950 by Tudor Parfitt
The Schocken Book of Modern Sephardic Literature by Ilan Stavans
The Sephardic World – Le Monde Sépharade by Shmuel Trigano
The Woman Who Defied Kings: The Life and Times of Dona Gracia Nasi by Andrée Aelion Brooks
The Women of Israel: Characters and Sketches from the Holy Scriptures and Jewish History by Grace Aguilar
The Yemenites: Two Thousand Years of Jewish Culture by Ester Muchawsky-Schnapper
Threads of silk: The Story of Bukharian Jewry by David Yeroushalmi
Two thousand years of Jewish life in Morocco by Haïm Zafranim
Uprooted: How 3000 Years of Jewish Civilization in the Arab World Vanished Overnight by Lyn Julius
Voices in Exile: A Study in Sephardic Intellectual History by Marc D. Angel
Zionism in an Arab Country: Jews in Iraq in the 1940s by Esther Meir-Glitzenstein
Sephardic Rabbinic literature:
Abrabanel on Pirke Avot: A Digest of Rabbi Isaac Abrabanel’s “Nahalat Avot”
A Sephardic Passover Haggadah: With Translation and Commentary by Marc D. Angel
A Treasury of Sephardic Laws and Customs: The Ritual Practices of Syrian, Moroccan, Judeo-Spanish and Spanish and Portuguese Jews of North America by Herbert C. Dobrinsky
Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel by Samuel Usque
Ha-Emunot ve-ha-Deot (The Book of Beliefs and Opinions) by Saadia ben Yosef al-Fayyumi
Homo Mysticus: A Guide to Maimonides’s Guide for the Perplexed by Jose Faur
Israel and Humanity by Rabbi Elijah Benamozegh
Ma’amar al Yishmael by Shelomo ben Avraham ibn Aderet
Siddurim and mahzorim based on the Turkish and Rhodes customs of the Jews of Seattle, Washington by Isaac Azose
Tafsir RaSaG – Saadia ben Yose al-Fayummi’s Judeo-Arabic Translation of the Torah
The Essential Pele Yoetz by Rabbi Eliezer Papo, translated by Marc D. Angel
The Jewish Sermon in 14th-Century Spain: The Derashot of R. Joshua ibn Shu’eib by Carmi Horowitz
Yemenite Midrash: Philosophical Commentaries on the Torah: An Anthology of Writings from the Golden Age of Judaism in the Yemen by Y. Tzvi Langermann
Zionism in an Arab Country: Jews in Iraq in the 1940s by Esther Meir-Glitzenstein
Digital Projects:
Exploring Sephardic Life Cycle Customs
HeHaCham HaYomi (The Daily Sage)
Jewish Languages: Judeo-Arabic
Sephardic Heritage Museum Education Initiatives
Sephardic Studies Digital Collection at the University of Washington
The Journey to the Mizrah curriculum
The Sephardi Studies Project, Taube Center for Jewish Studies at Stanford
Children’s literature:
A Cage Without Bars by Anne Dublin
A Ceiling Made of Eggshells by Gail Carson Levine
A Persian Passover by Etan Basseri
A Persian Princess by Barbara Diamond Goldin (Author), Steliyana Doneva (Illustrator)
A Sweet Meeting on Mimouna Night by Allison Ofanansky (Author), Rotem Teplow (Illustrator)
A Treasury of Sephardic Bedtime Stories by Shmuel Blitz (Author) Rabbi David Sutton (Editor)
Apples and Pomegranates: A Rosh Hashanah Seder by Rahel Musleah, Judy Jarrett Gier
Buen Shabat, Shabbat Shalom by Sarah Aroeste (Author), Ayesha L. Rubio (Illustrator)
Bou Le-Gani: Piyutim in Early Childhood: an online resource for teaching piyutim to K-5
Day of Delight: A Jewish Sabbath in Ethiopia by Maxine Rose Schur, Brian Pinkney
El Princhipiko: The Little Prince (Ladino Edition) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Author), Avner Perez; Gladys Pimienta (Translators)
Emma’s Poem: The Voice of the Statue of Liberty by Linda Glaser (Author), Claire A. Nivola (Illustrator)
I Share My Name by Esther Levy Chehebar (Author), Luisa Galstyan (Illustrator)
Joha Makes A Wish: A Middle Eastern Tale by Eric A. Kimmel (Author), Omar Rayyan (Illustrator)
Judah Touro Didn’t Want to be Famous by Audrey Ades (Author), Vivien Mildenberger (Illustrator)
Las Aventuras de Alisia en el Paiz de las Maraviyas: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Ladino Edition) by Lewis Carroll (Author), John Tenniel (Illustrator), Avner Perez (Translator)
Lucky Broken Girl by Ruth Behar
Much, Much Better by Chaim Kosofsky (Author), Jessica Schiffman (Illustrator)
Ora de Despertar – Time to Wake Up! By Sarah Aroeste
Osnat and Her Dove: The True Story of the World’s First Female Rabbi by Sigal Samuel (Author), Vali Mintzi (Illustrator)
Shoham’s Bangle by Sarah Sassoon (Author), Noa Kelner (Illustrator)
The Jewish parrot and other Judeo-Spanish tales by François Azar
The Button Box by Bridget Hodder and Fawzia Gilani-Williams (Authors), Harshad Marathe (Illustrator)
The Key from Spain: Flory Jagoda and Her Music by Debbie Levy (Author), Sonja Wimmer (Illustrator)
The Rabbi’s Cat by Joann Sfar
The Secret Shofar of Barcelona by Jacqueline Dembar Greene (Author), Doug Chayka (Illustrator)
The Sephardic Children’s Haggadah Shel Pesach by Ellis J. Safdeye
The Story of the Baba Sali by Sarah Feldbrand
The Wooden Sword: A Jewish Folktale from Afghanistan by Carol Liddiment and Ann Redisch Stampler
Tía Fortuna’s New Home: A Jewish Cuban Journey by Ruth Behar (Author), Devon Holzwarth (Illustrator)
Jewish Languages:
Dictionary of Medieval Judaeo-Arabic Texts by Joshua Blau
Judeo-Arabic Literature in Tunisia, 1850-1950 by Yosef Tobi; Tsivia Tobi
Judeo-Spanish and the Making of a Community by Bryan Kirschen
Ladino-English Concise Encyclopedic Dictionary by Elli Kohen & Kohen-Gordon
Manuel of Judeo-Spanish by Marie-Christine Varol
The Arabic Dialect of the Jews of Baghdad by Assaf Bar-Moshe
The Language and Culture of the Jews of Sefrou, Morocco: An Ethnolinguistic Study by Norman A. Stillman
Additional books on Sephardic Thought:
Aleppo Tales by Haim Sabato
Anti Semitism in the Sepharadi Mind by Jose Faur
Confronting the Loss of a Baby: A Personal and Jewish Perspective by Yamin Levy
Loving Truth and Peace: The Grand Religious Worldview of Rabbi Benzion Uziel by Marc D. Angel
Horizontal Society: Understanding the Covenant and Alphabetical Judaism by Jose Faur
Rabbi Haim David Halevy: Gentle Scholar and Courageous Thinker by Marc D. Angel
The Mysticism of Andalusia: Exploring HaRambam’s Mystical Tradition by Yamin Levy
The Sephardic Book of Why by Rabbi Ilan Acoca
Recent articles and opinion pieces:
Bias Against Sephardim Tests Jewish Unity by Gary Rosenblat
Diasporic Reunions: Sephardi/Ashkenazi Tensions in Historical Perspective by Aviva Ben-Ur
Holocaust “Kaddish Day” & Sephardic Shoah Voices by Rabbi Daniel Bouskila
Jewish indigeneity to Israel by Sarah Levin
Many Jews of color and diverse Jews are politically conservative by Mijal Bitton
The Myth of Jewish Immigration by Devin Naar (Jewish in Seattle Magazine)
Who is an Arab Jew? by Albert Memmi
Novels:
Auto-da-Fé by Elias Canetti
The Pillar of Salt by Albert Memmi
The White Islands / Las Islas Blancas by Marjorie Agosín
White Zion by Gila Green
