Last updated: Monday, November 2, 2009, 8:40 p.m.

Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies

Herter Hall, room 731

office: (413) 577-0649

fax: (413) 545-5876

Aviva Ben-Ur is Associate Professor in the Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Adjunct to both the Spanish and Portuguese Program and the Department of History. She earned her Ph.D. from Brandeis University (1998) and her M.A. and M.Phil. degrees from Columbia University (1992; 1994). Her most recent book is Sephardic Jews in America: A Diasporic History (New York University Press, February 2009). She is also author, with Rachel Frankel, of Remnant Stones: The Jewish Cemeteries of Suriname (Hebrew Union College Press, March 2009). For a list of errata click here. Her first book-length publication was A Ladino Legacy: The Judeo-Spanish Collection of Louis N. Levy (Alexander Books, 2001).

Reviews of Sephardim in America: A Diasporic History

For a review by Ruth Behar in Moment Magazine (March/April 2009), click here.

For a review by Simon Bonim in History in Review (4/17/09) click here.

For a review by Adam Kirsch in Next Book (4/27/09) click here.

For a review by Jay Levinson in The Jewish Magazine (August 2009) click here.

 

Reviews/Blogs on Remnants Stones:

Blog on International Survey of Jewish Monuments (6/7/09) click here.

 

Her current book projects include “Jewish Identity in a Slave Society: Suriname, 1660-1863,” and a study of Hispanic/Sephardic relations since 1492. Her articles and reviews have appeared in journals such as Journal of Southern History, American Jewish History, American Jewish Archives, Jewish History, Journal of Jewish Studies, and Studies in Bibliography and Booklore.

She is the recipient of fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies; the National Endowment for the Humanities; the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the Fulbright Program; the University of Washington, where she was the Hazel D. Cole Fellow in Jewish Studies; and the John Carter Brown Library, among others. She has taught at the National University of Ireland, Galway; the University of Washington; and Queens College.

She has served on the Advisory Boards of Sephardic House, the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Religious Heritage, and on the Academic Councils of both the American Sephardi Federation and the American Jewish Historical Society. She has been a Fellow of the UMass Five College Center for Crossroads in the Study of the Americas, a Lilly Teaching Fellow, and the recipient of both a University of Massachusetts Center for Teaching Course Enhancement Grant and Faculty Research Grant.

Professor Ben-Ur teaches “Transformation and the Jews” (Judaic 313); “Jewish Utopia/Dystopia” (Judaic 323); “Jews, Christians and Muslims in the Medieval World” (Judaic 325); “American Jewish Diversity (Judaic 343); “Sephardic Literatures and Cultures of the Spanish Diaspora” (Judaic 353); “Jewish Travelers: Exploration and Imagination, Medieval to Modern Times” (Judaic 373); “The Jewish Experience in America” (Judaic 375); “Jews in the Age of the Atlantic Slave Trade” (Judaic 390e); and “The Jewish People II: Medieval to Modern Times” (Judaic 102), the semesterly gateway course for Jewish Studies majors and minors.