Conference: "The Sephardic Jews of Spain and Portugal: Resourceful, Resilient, Resurgent"

Dolores Sloan will speak on The Sephardic Jews of Spain and Portugal: Resourceful, Resilient, Resurgent, at a salon of Congregation Avahat Torah in West Los Angeles, CA, Sunday, March 21, 1-3 p.m.

RSVP and Info: Rena, 310–450-5225

The event is open to the public and there is no charge.

Ms. Sloan is the author of The Sephardic Jews of Spain and Portugal: Survival of an Imperiled Culture in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries and Editor of the Journal of Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian Crypto Jews.

For further information see www.doloressloan.com, click on Events.

Dolores Sloan

In 1996, Sloan trav­eled through Spain and Por­tu­gal for five weeks, by train, bus and by foot, always look­ing for the foot­prints left by the remark­able Jews who had cre­ated a golden age of learn­ing and dis­cov­ery in the Mid­dle Ages and Early Mod­ern Period. When she returned from her trip, hun­gry to learn more, she searched library and book­store shelves for works for the gen­eral reader. There were his­tor­i­cal overviews, but no details on the stel­lar nota­bles Sloan had learned of or on the every­day lives of the Sephardim—how the fam­i­lies edu­cated their chil­dren and the place of the syn­a­gogue in their lives; how they main­tained them­selves eco­nom­i­cally; what travel was like and the role of poetry and the arts; how they cared for the sick and buried the dying, pro­vided for the impov­er­ished widow and assured the poor girl’s dowry.

The Sephardic Jews of Spain and Por­tu­gal: Sur­vival of an Imper­iled Cul­ture in the Fif­teenth and Six­teenth Cen­turies is the result of research in Spain, Por­tu­gal, Mex­ico and the United States to fill this infor­ma­tion gap.

Sloan brings one half-century of exper­tise as writer, jour­nal­ist, edi­tor, speaker and pro­fes­sor to her diverse pub­li­ca­tions and pre­sen­ta­tions. She is Edi­tor of the Jour­nal of Span­ish, Por­tuguese, and Ital­ian Crypto Jews and for­mer Edi­tor of HaLapid, jour­nal of The Soci­ety for Crypto-Judaic Stud­ies. A knowl­edge­able and skill­ful speaker, she has addressed audi­ences at muse­ums and cul­tural cen­ters, reli­gious and com­mu­nity orga­ni­za­tions, on the sub­ject of her book and related top­ics. She teaches pub­lic speak­ing and Eng­lish at Mount St. Mary’s Col­lege, Los Ange­les, where she also offers “Women in Jew­ish His­tory and Culture.”