Devin Naar holding ketuba from the Ottoman EmpireIn just two years, Prof. Devin Naar has created a vibrant Sephardic Studies Initiative at UW that continues to gain recognition both locally and around the world. The most recent publication to profile Prof. Naar’s efforts to digitize valuable Ladino artifacts is the UW’s own College of Arts & Sciences Perspectives Newsletter.

Perspectives’ Nancy P. Josephs writes,

Naar developed the idea for SSI’s archive, Seattle Sephardic Treasures, after joining the UW faculty in 2011. Members of the local Sephardic community learned of Naar’s knowledge of Ladino and sought him out to translate documents. “Someone brought his grandfather’s Last Will and Testament from 1942,” Naar recalls.  “He’d never been able to read it.  Others brought postcards with little messages on them. I realized that people have held on to some interesting materials.”

Want to read the whole story? Click here to view this article in the September 2013 issue of Perspectives.

Interested in learning more about Ladino and Sephardic culture? Don’t miss visiting scholar David Bunis’ upcoming lecture, “Ladino/Judezmo as a Jewish Language,” Oct. 9th at Hillel UW. Click here for more info and to register.

And be sure to visit the Sephardic Studies Initiative homepage for info on other upcoming events, video clips, articles, and more! You can click here or paste this link into your browser: https://jewishstudies.washington.edu/the-sephardic-studies-initiative/

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⇒ Learn more about the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Washington, our Sephardic Studies Program, or our Israel Studies Program.
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