This lecture explores how one of the world's largest Sephardi communities dealt with the encroachment of modern borders. Rather than tracing a linear path "from empire to nation-state," the Jews of Edirne zigzagged between the Ottoman Empire and three nation-states—without moving a mile. And by maintaining interstate Sephardi networks, they resisted pressure to treat the shifting border as a limit to their zone of belonging. Ultimately, proximity to the border would undo this community, but the way this ending came about—local Jews were rarely killed or deported—challenges common assumptions about state borders and Jewish history. By studying Jewish encounters with the nation-state alongside the emergence of modern borders, this lecture sheds light on both phenomena.
Jacob Daniels is Assistant Professor of Instruction for Jewish Studies and Assistant Director of the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Texas, Austin. He received his PhD in History from Stanford University in 2022. In 2025, Stanford University Press published his book The Jews of Edirne: The End of Ottoman Europe and the Arrival of Borders.
Sponsor(s): The UCLA Leve Center for Jewish Studies