IAS/SIR Speaker Series: Thread of a Community - The Zerrouf beyond Tlemcent, 1962-1973

Dr. Sara Jay is interested in the cross-section of Jewish, Christian and Islamic life in the British and French Imperial, Ottoman and wider Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and North African settings.  Her current research project focuses on the Algerian Jewish communities that settled in France and Israel after Algerian independence in 1962.  Rather than focusing on the dramas of assimilation and integration into a new host society, her work examines the maintenance of communicative ties across national boundaries, among members of what was once a single community.  Émigrés remained in contact with and visited family members, neighbors, and friends while often simultaneously forming business partnerships. Markets for unique goods and services produced by Algerian Jews were cultivated in France and Israel within and outside of the Jewish community. Remaining a mobile community throughout the 1960s, Algerian Jews continually imported, exported and adapted musical, clothing, and food trends that they discovered and developed through their participation in trans-Mediterranean economic and personal networks.

This event is offered by IAS/SIR Speaker Series.