Search results for ""Author Judith Roumani""

Book SynopsisFrancophone Sephardic Fiction:Writing Migration, Diaspora, and Modernity approaches modern Sephardic literature in a comparative way to draw out similarities and differences among selected francophone novelists from various countries, with a focus on North Africa. The definition of Sepharad here is broader than just Spain: it embraces Jews whose ancestors had lived in North Africa for centuries, even before the arrival of Islam, and who still today trace their allegiance to ways of being Jewish that go back to Babylon, as do those whose ancestors spent a few hundred years in Iberia. The author traces the strong influence of oral storytelling on modern novelists of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and explores the idea of the portable homeland, as exile and migration engulfed the long-rooted Sephardic communities. The author also examines diaspora concepts, how modernity and post-modernity threatened traditional ways of life, and how humor and an active return into history for the novel have done more than mere nostalgia could to enliven the portable homeland of modern francophone Sephardic fiction.Trade ReviewJudith Roumani has once again shown her skills as a perceptive researcher and reader in this fascinating book focusing on Sephardi-Mizrahi francophone texts. She contextualizes the work not only of internationally known figures like Hélène Cixous, Jacques Derrida and Albert Memmi, but also less familiar writers who merit recognition, such as Albert Bensoussan, Annie Fitoussi, Claude Kayat, and Nine Moati. The themes she elucidates will be appreciated by scholars and aficionados of the broad field of Sephardic Studies as well as diasporic and postcolonial studies. -- Sandra M. Cypess, Professor Emerita, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, College Park, University of MarylandJudith Roumani writes so elegantly and investigates her materials so thoroughly that her work comes out in mint condition. I am delighted and honored to endorse this book on Sephardic fiction presented within a broad cultural and multilingual context. This study is particularly valuable in that it brings the previously little-known field of modern Sephardic fiction in French to an English-speaking readership. -- Yael Halevi-Wise, McGill UniversityWhat is particular in Roumani's approach is, first, her premise of a shared 'Sephardic' identity over a wide geographical area, common not only to the Jews of the Old Ottoman Empire but also to the Jews of North Africa and the Muslim Near East, and second, that the saving factor for Sephardic authors has been to abandon the original languages of their cultural matrix (Ladino, Arabic) in favor of a totally external Western language, French. Exposure to French language and culture in the 19th century provided Sephardic writers and intellectuals with a very welcome gateway into the modern world and a literary culture of great prestige. Roumani's study will thus provide substantive weight to the notion that there is a solid body of literature that can be called 'francophone Sephardic.' -- Ralph Tarica z"l, University of MarylandMigration, diaspora and nostalgic reflection on the vanished communal existence are themes of paramount importance in any approach to Jewish literature. Judith Roumani traverses them all to trace the modern history of Sephardic Jews. Rich and impressive in its comparatist scope and the depth of its analysis, this work is a wonderful addition to modern Sephardi and francophone studies and will be essential reading for a wide range of scholars engaged in these fields. -- K.E. Bättig von Wittelsbach, Cornell University

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe province of Grosseto in southern Tuscany shows two extremes in the treatment of Italian and foreign Jews during the Holocaust. To the east of the province, the Jews of Pitigliano, a four hundred-year-old community, were hidden for almost a year by sympathetic farmers in barns and caves. None of those in hiding were arrested and all survived the Fascist hunt for Jews. In the west, near the provincial capital of Grosseto, almost a hundred Italian and foreign Jews were imprisoned in 1943–1944 in the bishop's seminary, which he had rented to the Fascists for that purpose. About half of them, though they had thought that the bishop would protect them, were deported with his knowledge by Fascists and Nazis to Auschwitz. Thus, the Holocaust reached into this provincial corner as it did into all parts of Italy still under Italian Fascist control. This book is based on new interviews and research in local and national archives.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations AcknowledgmentsList of Sources List of PersonalitiesA Short Introduction Chapter One: Pitigliano and Other Cities of Refuge for Jews in Southern Tuscany over the CenturiesChapter Two: A Bolt from the Blue? Fascist Racial Laws of 1938 and their Effects in Southern TuscanyChapter Three: Town versus Country, Conformity versus Defiance: Contrasting Behaviors Involving JewsChapter Four: Hiding Like Animals, in Caves, Barns and Farms; and the Righteous Gentiles of Tuscany Who Risked their Lives Protecting JewsChapter Five: At the Mercy of the Church and the Fascists: The Obligingly Hospitable Bishop Galeazzi of Grosseto, and the Experience of Jews Who Turned Themselves InChapter Six: Foreign Jewish Refugees Who Fled to Tuscany: Early ExperiencesChapter Seven: Last Days at the Bishop’s Palace for Foreign and Italian JewsChapter Eight: Post War: The Search for a Return to Normal: For Jews, a Future of Virtual JudaismBibliographyAbout the Author

Read more less

Book SynopsisFrancophone Sephardic Fiction:Writing Migration, Diaspora, and Modernity approaches modern Sephardic literature in a comparative way to draw outsimilarities and differences among selected francophone novelists from various countries,with a focus on North Africa. The definition of Sepharad here is broader than just Spain: itembraces Jews whose ancestors had lived in North Africa for centuries, even before thearrival of Islam, and who still today trace their allegiance to ways of being Jewish that goback to Babylon, as do those whose ancestors spent a few hundred years in Iberia. Theauthor traces the strong influence of oral storytelling on modern novelists of the twentiethand early twenty-first centuries and explores the idea of the portable homeland, as exile andmigration engulfed the long-rooted Sephardic communities. The author also examinesdiaspora concepts, how modernity and post-modernity threatened traditional ways of life,and how humor and an active return into history for the novel have done more than merenostalgia could to enliven the portable homeland of modern francophone Sephardicfiction.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Migratory Writing and the NovelChapter 1: From Orality to Writing: Storytelling in Sephardic Literature Chapter 2: The Portable Homeland: Ryvel and Koskas Chapter 3: The End of Symbiosis: Sephardic Novelists and the Sudden Ruptures of History Chapter 4: Migratory writing by Bensoussan (Algeria/France) , Bouganim (Morocco/Israel), Kayat (Tunisia/Sweden)Chapter 5: Modernity and BeyondChapter 6: A Return into HistoryConclusions

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe province of Grosseto in southern Tuscany shows two extremes in the treatment of Italian and foreign Jews during the Holocaust. To the east of the province, the Jews of Pitigliano, a four hundred-year-old community, were hidden for almost a year by sympathetic farmers in barns and caves. None of those in hiding were arrested and all survived the Fascist hunt for Jews. In the west, near the provincial capital of Grosseto, almost a hundred Italian and foreign Jews were imprisoned in 1943–1944 in the bishop's seminary, which he had rented to the Fascists for that purpose. About half of them, though they had thought that the bishop would protect them, were deported with his knowledge by Fascists and Nazis to Auschwitz. Thus, the Holocaust reached into this provincial corner as it did into all parts of Italy still under Italian Fascist control. This book is based on new interviews and research in local and national archives.Trade ReviewThis fine gem of a study in local history by Judith Roumani is certain to be of great interest to a wide range of scholars in Italian and Jewish Studies, historians of World War II, and anthropologists. Anyone conducting research on the role of the Catholic Church and its hierarchy in the Holocaust will also find it of value, as will the general reading public. * Sephardic Horizons *Dr. Roumani is not only the director and founder of the Jewish Institute of Pitigliano, but she is also a member of a prominent Sephardic family. With her background, she brings to light with vivid expression the complex social condition of the region’s Jews through an examination of archival documents, published memoirs, and scholarly works from Italian sources not readily known to western researchers. So little is recognized of Italian Jewry that this segment, situated in the trauma of World War II, is worthy of wide attention. * Association of Jewish Libraries Reviews *‘Not very much happened in the province of Grosseto […] and yet everything happened in this corner of Italy.’ This is the tantalising micro-historical premise of Judith Roumani’s important new book, which navigates the stories of Southern Tuscany’s Jews with sensitivity and scholarly rigour. With subtlety and an almost literary eye for detail, gesture, emotion, Roumani recaptures the voices of a community somewhat neglected in the study of Italian Jewry. In the pages of this book, the ‘exceptional’ story of the Jews of the Maremma illuminates the ‘ordinary’ ambivalence of the Holocaust in Italy, defined by acts of courage and cowardice, discrimination and defiance. -- Giacomo Lichtner, author of Fascism in Italian Cinema: the Politics and Aesthetics of MemoryJudith Roumani’s impressively researched and beautifully crafted microhistory of the Italian Province of Grosseto—a place and time where, as she says, “Not very much happened...and yet everything happened”—will be of great interest not only to scholars of the Holocaust but also to a broad reading public. Her attention to telling detail, her gift of recounting stories, and her focus on far-reaching issues marries scholarship with a sense of the human. -- Sara Horowitz, The Centre for Jewish Studies, York UniversityA rich micro-history of the Jews of Grosseto, in southern Tuscany, during the Holocaust, this book sheds light on the larger question of how the Holocaust was experienced in Italy. Based on a wide variety of sources, from oral histories, to archival documents, to published memoirs and scholarly works, it confronts many of the major unanswered questions of the degree and nature of Italian collaboration in the attempt to exterminate Italy’s Jews, including the complex role played by the Roman Catholic Church. Not least, the book offers a good example of the postwar efforts in Italy to whitewash this history and turn Fascist collaborators in the roundup of Jews into heroic resisters. -- David I. Kertzer, Brown UniversityJews in Southern Tuscany During the Holocaust: Ambiguous Refuge is a necessary, detailed overturning of the official narratives of Italian treatment of the Jewish population during the Holocaust. Roumani’s research is comprehensive and well documented, and the volume will not only make a significant contribution to scholarship in the humanities, but also provide corrective history that is essential. -- Sandra Messinger Cypess, University of MarylandHistory needs multiple sources, the historian reconstructs and interprets thanks to the encounter between sources, in order to create his or her theses. The specific nature and thus the value of Judith Roumani’s study stems from her patient and broad research into the sources. Documents drawn from archives and oral sources are the basis of courageous research into a very complex theme: the persecution of the Jews in southern Tuscany. The difficulty of this research is due to the disappearance of archival sources. The entire documentation about the Camp of Roccatederighi produced by the Grosseto Prefect’s office was destroyed or made to disappear when the Fascists of Grosseto fled. It has not been possible to trace the personal archive of Paolo Galeazzi, the bishop of Grosseto, one of the several protagonists of this series of events. The merit of Judith Roumani’s study lies in its enriching the field with new sources. The complexity of the story is defined by an appropriate term: ambiguous. It is difficult, after so much time has passed, to explain the behavior of individuals, in such a context as Italian responsibility during the Holocaust. This study also benefits from being put in a more general context: while examining the events in southern Tuscany, the author bases her research on the historiography that has contributed to defining interpretations of persecution, deportation, the relations between Italian and German racism and antisemitism. We are looking forward to the publication of the Italian translation, but we are grateful for this promising initiative which brings an important piece of history to people’s attention in the United States, in a language that will allow for broader circulation. It is as important as any contribution to historical knowledge, but even more so today because of a return of racist and antisemitic impulses. This book will also help us Italians come to terms with a past that will not pass until we look deeply into it, without timidity, taking on the responsibility to not obscure the merits of those who have become ‘righteous gentiles’, but to recognize that these form part of a complicated mosaic. For this we are deeply grateful to Judith Roumani. -- Luciana Rocchi, Director, Grosseto Institute for Studies of the Resistance and the Modern AgeIn this invaluable book on the history of Jews in Tuscany, Dr. Judith Roumani provides a real sweeping overview of a period little or hardly known. More than seventy years after those dramatic times, this book discloses how Italian Fascists and possible Nazi sympathizers betrayed the idea of ‘good Italian people` by advertently or inadvertently sending their former Jewish neighbors to the ovens of Auschwitz. It also unveils the ambiguous story of a bishop who, the legend claims, helped Jews by hiding them from the Fascists and Nazis, while this author gathers witnesses` accounts of his behavior, showing him more than willing to help Fascists to intern his own fellow Italians, because they were Jews, in his seminary, then refurbished as an internment/transit camp. The pages of this book are magnetic. -- Regina Igel, professor of Portuguese, University of Maryland, College ParkTable of ContentsList of Illustrations AcknowledgmentsList of Sources List of PersonalitiesA Short Introduction Chapter One: Pitigliano and Other Cities of Refuge for Jews in Southern Tuscany over the CenturiesChapter Two: A Bolt from the Blue? Fascist Racial Laws of 1938 and their Effects in Southern TuscanyChapter Three: Town versus Country, Conformity versus Defiance: Contrasting Behaviors Involving JewsChapter Four: Hiding Like Animals, in Caves, Barns and Farms; and the Righteous Gentiles of Tuscany Who Risked their Lives Protecting JewsChapter Five: At the Mercy of the Church and the Fascists: The Obligingly Hospitable Bishop Galeazzi of Grosseto, and the Experience of Jews Who Turned Themselves InChapter Six: Foreign Jewish Refugees Who Fled to Tuscany: Early ExperiencesChapter Seven: Last Days at the Bishop’s Palace for Foreign and Italian JewsChapter Eight: Post War: The Search for a Return to Normal: For Jews, a Future of Virtual JudaismBibliographyAbout the Author

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less