A book talk by Sarah Abrevaya Stein (UCLA) in conversation with Aomar Boum (UCLA)

Thursday, February 27, 2020

Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Professor of History and Maurice Amado Chair of Sephardic Studies at UCLA is author or editor of nine books. Her most recent book, Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux: Macmillman, 2019), explores the intertwined histories of a single family, Sephardic Jewry, and the dramatic ruptures that transformed southeastern Europe and the Judeo-Spanish diaspora. This book also traces the history of a collection, reflecting on how one family archive came to be built and preserved, and how it knit together a family even as the historic Sephardi heartland of southeastern Europe was unraveling. Family Papers has been named one of the Best Books of the Year by The Economist. The New York Times writes: "Stein, a UCLA historian, has ferocious research talents [...] and a writing voice that is admirably light and human… All of this has produced a superb and touching book about the frailty of ties that hold together places and people.”

Sponsor(s): Center for Near Eastern Studies, Department of History, UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies, UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library