The History Department is pleased to announce a public talk by Dr. Jonathan Ray entitled “Merchants, Mystics, and Secret Jews: Sephardic Identities in the Age of Discovery,” in the lecture series sponsored by the Alexander Grass Chair in Jewish Studies. Dr. Ray will speak on Monday, 5 February 2018 at 5 pm in the Judaica Suite in the Smathers Library on the campus of the University of Florida.
The history of the Sephardic Diaspora is inextricably linked to the European Age of Discovery. The global networks created by Spanish and Portuguese Jews and Conversos became a hallmark of the early modern period, forming a bridge between the Old World and the New–and between Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Dr. Ray will explore three key facts of Sephardic identity during this fascinating, yet oft-overlooked chapter in Jewish history.
Jonathan Ray is the Samuel Eig Professor of Jewish Studies at Georgetown University, where he specializes in medieval and early modern Jewish history, focusing on the Sephardic world. His publications include The Sephardic Frontier: The Reconquista and the Jewish Community in Medieval Iberia (2006), The Jew in Medieval Iberia (2012), and After Expulsion: 1492 and the Making of Sephardic Jewry (2013).