Introduction: Special Issue on Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews in the Americas

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• Introduction:Special Issue on Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews in the Americas
• Devin E. Naar (bio)

The nascent field of Sephardic studies began to take shape in the 1930s. One of its pioneering figures, Albert Adatto, later reflected on his unconventional process as a scholar:

I do not consider myself a scholar in the normal sense. I am making a highly enjoyable volunteer reconnaissance among the documents that have been written about our people in the English language to determine how much is relatively true, how much is based on firsthand source material, and how much is bamyas [lies; literally "okra"] or bavajadas [nonsense]. The gr and project of mine is being carried out with the Sephardic spirit of kef [enjoyment] and reposo [calm].¹

While he completed his MA on the history of Sephardic Jews in Seattle at the University of Washington in 1939, Adatto did not continue with doctoral studies or become a professional scholar. Instead, he, like his sister Emma Adatto, who completed her MA on Sephardic folktales at the University of Washington in 1935, continued to follow the development of scholarship and popular writing about Sephardic Jews over the subsequent decades.² With his characteristic infusion of Ladino terms into his written English, Albert Adatto addressed a letter to David Sitton, a Sephardic leader in Jerusalem, in which he described his efforts to track as calmly and with as much good humor as possible what he perceived as the frequent misrepresentation of Sephardic histories and cultures in the United States and beyond.³

This special issue of American Jewish History, dedicated to Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews in the Americas, offers insight into both how much [End Page 509] the field has changed—in part, through its professionalization—and in some ways remained static over the past half century and more, both in dialogue with and as a reflection of broader trends in American Jewish and general culture and politics.⁴ During that time, Sephardic studies, a multidisciplinary and transnational field, has become a recognized area of interest within the broader field of Jewish studies, although the parameters of Sephardic studies—and the very meaning of "Sephardic"—remain contested.

SEPHARDIC STUDIES AND JEWISH STUDIES

The study of one constituency of Sephardic Jews—medieval "golden age" Spanish Jewry—has been at the center of the field of Jewish studies since its foundation with the Wissenschaft des Judentums in the nineteenth century.⁵ Harry Wolfson, who was the first chair of Jewish studies at an American university, established at Harvard in 1925, focused on the medieval Spanish-Jewish philosopher Hasdai Crescas, a rationalist like Maimonides, and on the use of reason in Spinoza's philosophy.⁶ Decades later, in 1966, when the scholar of Jewish literature Arnold Band famously noted "the spread of Jewish studies as an accepted academic discipline in the American liberal arts colleges and universities since the Second World War," medieval Spanish Jewry as well as figures like Spinoza remained part of the curriculum.⁷ But the emergent discipline of Jewish studies largely excluded the study of other kinds of Sephardic Jews, especially those who resided in Muslim-majority societies in recent centuries—perhaps necessarily so, in order to become mainstream.

Finally, the five-hundredth anniversary of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 led to a flurry of publications in 1992.⁸ In 1998, historians Aron Rodrigue and Aviva Ben-Ur initiated the formation of the [End Page 510] Sephardi/Mizrahi Caucus, which was modeled on the Women's Caucus and is now a recognized division of the Association for Jewish Studies; this marked another turning point. The growing number of scholars, books, and university courses dealing with the histories, cultures, and languages of Sephardim and Mizrahim mark a sea change—although not without obstacles along the way.⁹

The increased interest in so-called non-Ashkenazi or non-European Jews may be conceptualized as part of a broader trend of inserting into the historical narrative and curriculum those individuals and communities who have historically been on the margins: women, workers, racialized populations, LGBTQI+ communities, and others marked as "Other." This special issue on Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews may therefore be considered in dialogue...