In 2020, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel and University of Washington professor of Sephardic studies Devin Naar, both descendants of Ladino speakers from Salonica (Thessaloniki) in Greece, had a conversation about what meaningful Sephardic representation might look like in the wake of near-total erasure. In this week’s episode, Angel and Naar join community leader and singer of Arab Jewish music Laura Elkeslassy and professor of Hebrew literature and Mizrahi studies Oren Yirmiya to deepen the discussion about Sephardi and Mizrahi reclamation work. What are the practical entry points to this identity today? What is the use of catchall caucuses that bring together Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews from many different countries and linguistic lineages, and does this identity have to homogenize in order to survive? What does it mean to do this work amid the genocide in Gaza? And how do we make sure reclamation work is not only backward-looking, but responsive to the present?

Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

Media Mentioned and Further Reading

“Are We Post-Sepharadim?,” Arielle Angel in conversation with Devin Naar, Jewish Currents

Ya Ghorbati: Divas in Exile by Laura Elkeslassy, live in concert and the artist’s reflections in Ayin on the songs she performs

Shirei Yedidut, book of Moroccan piyyutim and bakashot 

Translations of the writings of Hayyim Ben-Kiki by Moshe Behar and Zvi Ben-Dor Benite in Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought: Writings on Identity, Politics, and Culture 1893–1958

“Before the Law,” Franz Kafka

“Going Out on a Limb: Joha,” Jane Mushabac 

The story about Djohá and the land can be found in Bewitched by Soli­ka and Oth­er Judeo-Span­ish Tales by François Azar.

Devin Naar discusses Djohá in his introduction to the Moabet column in Ayin.