Final Session of the 2026 Sephardi Modernities Seminar Series
Angy Cohen
Dear colleagues of the Sephardi/Mizrahi Caucus,
We are delighted to invite you to the final session of the 2026 Sephardi Modernities Seminar Series, which will take place tomorrow, May 12, at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time. This will be the last meeting of this six-year adventure before we move on to our next project, through which we will continue exploring Jewish modernities beyond Europe. We will keep you posted.
The title of this final session is “The Long Way Home: Key Themes in Sephardi and Mizrahi Diaspora Studies.” It will bring Roy Shukrun and Sasha Goldstein-Sabbah into conversation around the making of Sephardi and Mizrahi diasporic identities across the twentieth century and into the present. Through the cases of Baghdadi Jewish communities in the Indian subcontinent and East Asia, and Moroccan Jewish communities in Morocco, Israel, Montreal, and other global hubs, the session will explore how diasporic identities are shaped by place, memory, hierarchy, mobility, and return.
Goldstein-Sabbah will trace the emergence of a global Baghdadi Jewish identity rooted in Baghdad and its environs, while also connected to Anglo-Jewry, broader Jewish frameworks, and imperial networks. Shukrun will examine “Moroccanness” as a fluid, transnational identity formed through pre-migration social distinctions, post-migration communal hierarchies, and strategic self-positioning in different diasporic settings. Together, their work will invite us to rethink diaspora not only as dispersal from a homeland, but as an ongoing process through which communities preserve, adapt, and rearticulate inherited attachments to place.
Here is the registration link:
https://ucalgary.zoom.us/meeting/register/MSjYTIqWT-CKof8vnSRl_A#/registration
We look forward to seeing you there.
All good wishes,
Angy Cohen and Yuval Evri
Instituto de Lenguas y Culturas del Mediterráneo y Oriente Próximo
Departamento de Estudios Judíos e Islámicos
CSIC, Spanish National Research Council
https://www.angycohen.com/