Sephardic Jewry and the Holocaust: The Future of the Field

April 28–30, 2013
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington

Laurette Cohen (front row, far right) poses for a class portrait with with her students at an Alliance Israélite Universelle school in Morocco, 1935. US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Mathilde Tagger

Co-organized through the Sephardic Studies Initiative of the University of Washington’s Samuel & Althea Stroum Jewish Studies Program and the Museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, this symposium explores the unique history of Sephardic Jewry and the Holocaust.

Although extensive research has been conducted on the Holocaust in recent decades, the experience of Sephardic Jews on the periphery of occupied Europe, along the Mediterranean, and in Vichy-controlled colonies in North Africa has remained relatively unexplored. Understanding the Sephardic experience during the Holocaust forces us to refine our assumptions about its scope and the qualitative differences in the persecution, destruction, resistance, and survival of varied Jewish communities under occupation.

Keynote Address: “Sephardim, Memory, and the Holocaust”
Dr. Aron Rodrigue
Charles Michael Professor in Jewish History and Culture; Director and Anthony P. Meier Family Professor in the Humanities, Stanford Humanities Center, Stanford University
Sunday, April 28, 7:30 p.m.
University of Washington
Kane Hall, Room 220
1410 Northeast Campus Parkway
Seattle, Washington

Day Sessions: These will take place in the University of Washington Allen Library Petersen Room, #485. Click here to RSVP.

Additional support for this symposium has been provided by the Hanauer Outreach Fund of the University of Washington’s Department of History.