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Adjunct Assistant Professor of History
Assistant Professor of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Spanish and Portuguese
Office: Herter 731
Telephone: (413) 577-0649
Fax: (413) 545-5876
E-mail: aben-ur@judnea.umass.edu
Degree: Ph.D., Brandeis University (1998)
Field(s) of interest: U.S. Jewish history, Ladino and Sephardic
Studies, Latin American Jewish history, Latino/Jewish relations
Courses taught recently
Undergraduate: Jewish People II (Jewish History, Medieval to Modern
Times); Sephardic Literatures and Cultures of the Spanish Diaspora;
New Views on the Jews: Ethnic and Racial Identity and Interaction
in U.S. Jewish History; Jews, Christians and Muslims in the Medieval
World
Graduate: Sephardic Literatures and Cultures of the Spanish Diaspora
is cross-listed as a graduate course in the Departments of History,
Spanish and Portuguese, and Comparative Literature.
Research Interests and Professional Activities
Professor Ben-Ur is currently writing a history of the Jewish community
of Suriname, titled Jews in the Jungle: The Creation of a Caribbean
Plantation Community. Her co-authored Remnant Stones: The
Jewish Cemeteries of Suriname, South America-Reading Life Through
Death, is forthcoming from Hebrew Union College Press. She has
also published A Ladino Legacy: The Judeo-Spanish Collection
of Louis N. Levy (2001). Future book projects include The
Hispanic/Sephardic Connection: Jews, Latinos and the Legacy of Spain
in Early Twentieth Century America, which received the support
of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a study of Sephardi/Ashkenazi
relations in New York, 1880-1950, an expansion of her doctoral dissertation.
She has published several articles in the field of U.S. and Latin
American Jewish history and Sephardic Studies, including "'Distinguished
From Other Jews:' The Sephardim of the Caribbean," "Jews
in Latin America," "Funny, You Don’t Look Jewish!:
‘Passing’ and the Elasticity of Ethnic Identity among
Levantine Sephardic Immigrants in Early Twentieth Century America,"
and "In Search of the American Ladino Press: A Bibliographical
Survey, 1910-1948."
Professor Ben-Ur has held fellowships from the National Endowment
for the Humanities, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation,
the University of Washington, the National University of Ireland,
Galway, the Lucius Littauer Foundation, the American Jewish Archives,
the New York Jewish Historical Society, the Mitrani Family Foundation,
Temple University Center for American Jewish History, and the UMass
Office of Research. She will be on leave during the Spring 2004
semester as the Touro National Heritage Trust Fellow at the John
Carter Brown Library at Brown University.
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