Latin American Jewish Studies Association Best Edited Volume This volume explores the local specificities and global forces that shaped Jewish experiences in the Americas across five centuries. Featuring a range of case studies by scholars from the United States, Brazil, Europe, and Israel, it explores the culturally, religiously, and politically diverse lives of Jewish minorities in the Western Hemisphere. The chapters are organized chronologically and trace four global forces: the western expansion of early modern European empires, Jewish networks across and beyond empires, migration, and Jewish activism and participation in international ideological movements. The volume weaves together into one narrative the histories of communities and individuals separated by time and space, such as the descendants of Portuguese converts, Moroccan immigrants to Brazil, and U.S.-based creators of Yiddish movies. Through its transnational focus and close attention paid to local circumstances, this volume offers new insights into the multicultural pasts of the Americas’ Jewish populations and of the different regions that make up North, Central, and South America. Contributors: Lenny A. Ureña Valerio | Elisa Kriza | Raanan Rein | Adriana M. Brodsky | Lucas de Mattos Moura Fernandes | Katalin Franciska Rac | Zachary M Baker | Neil Weijer | Hilit Surowitz-Israel | Isabel Rosa Gritti | Tamar Herzog | Jose C Moya | Sandra McGee Deutsch | Dana Rabin Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

With descriptions of more than 12,000 newsletters in 4,000 different subject areas, this comprehensive resource is an invaluable research tool.

Judith Laikin Elkin has been credited with creating a new field of scholarship, Latin American Jewish Studies. This book traces her paths from childhood in Jewish Detroit to the United States Foreign Service in Asia and Europe, to scholarly research in South America, and the founding of LAJSA, an academic association with members in more than 20 countries. Her experiences as vice consul at the American Embassy in London, as a lone traveler in Spain and Latin America, teaching at American universities at home and abroad, are described with humor, enthusiasm, and relevance for todays world. Judith earned a BA in English, MA in International Affairs, and while raising two daughters returned to the University of Michigan to earn a Ph.D. in history. She is the author of Krishna Smiled: Assignment in South Asia; The Great Lakes Colleges Association: Twenty-One Years in Higher Education; and The Jews of Latin America, the foundational text for this subject. She has taught history and political science at Wayne State University, Albion College, Ohio State University, and The University of Michigan, where she is presently associated with the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies in Ann Arbor.