Sephardim are the descendants of the Jews expelled from the lands of the Iberian Peninsula in the years 1492-1498, who settled down in the Mediterranean basin. The identifying sign of the Sephardim has been, until the middle of the twentieth century, the language known as Jewish-Spanish. The history, identity and memory of the Sephardim in their Mediterranean dispersal are analysed by the author with a special reference to the Sephardi community of Jerusalem and to the cultural and social changes that characterized the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. However, because of the crucial changes related to modernization and the political circumstances that came into being at the turn of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, the Sephardim lost their unique identity.

In Jewish Questions, Matt Goldish introduces English readers to the history and culture of the Sephardic dispersion through an exploration of forty-three responsa--questions about Jewish law that Jews asked leading rabbis, and the rabbis' responses. The questions along with their rabbinical decisions examine all aspects of Jewish life, including business, family, religious issues, and relations between Jews and non-Jews. Taken together, the responsa constitute an extremely rich source of information about the everyday lives of Sephardic Jews. The book looks at questions asked between 1492--when the Jews were expelled from Spain--and 1750. Originating from all over the Sephardic world, the responsa discuss such diverse topics as the rules of conduct for Ottoman Jewish sea traders, the trials of an ex-husband accused of a robbery, and the rights of a sexually abused wife. Goldish provides a sizeable introduction to the history of the Sephardic diaspora and the nature of responsa literature, as well as a bibliography, historical background for each question, and short biographies of the rabbis involved. Including cases from well-known communities such as Venice, Istanbul, and Saloniki, and lesser-known Jewish enclaves such as Kastoria, Ragusa, and Nablus, Jewish Questions provides a sense of how Sephardic communities were organized, how Jews related to their neighbors, what problems threatened them and their families, and how they understood their relationship to God and the Jewish people.

The dramatic one-thousand-year history of Jews in Spain comes to life in Exiles in Sepharad. Jeffrey Gorsky vividly relates this colorful period of Jewish history, from the era when Jewish culture was at its height in Muslim Spain to the horrors of the Inquisition and the Expulsion. Twenty percent of Jews today are descended from Sephardic Jews, who created significant works in religion, literature, science, and philosophy. They flourished under both Muslim and Christian rule, enjoying prosperity and power unsurpassed in Europe. Their cultural contributions include important poets; the great Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides; and Moses de Leon, author of the Zohar, the core text of the Kabbalah. But these Jews also endured considerable hardship. Fundamentalist Islamic tribes drove them from Muslim to Christian Spain. In 1391 thousands were killed and more than a third were forced to convert by anti-Jewish rioters. A century later the Spanish Inquisition began, accusing thousands of these converts of heresy. By the end of the fifteenth century Jews had been expelled from Spain and forcibly converted in Portugal and Navarre. After almost a millennium of harmonious existence, what had been the most populous and prosperous Jewish community in Europe ceased to exist on the Iberian Peninsula.

Between Jerusalem and Europe: Essays in Honour of Bianca Kühnel analyses how Jerusalem is translated into the visual and material culture of medieval, early modern and contemporary Europe, and in what ways European encounters with the city have shaped its holy sites. The volume also demonstrates methodological shifts in the study of Jerusalem in Western art by mapping the diversity of concepts that underlie imaginations of the city as an earthly presence and a heavenly realization, as a physical and a mental space, and as a unique location which is multiplied and re-imagined in numerous copies elsewhere. Contributors are Lily Arad, Pnina Arad, Barbara Baert, Neta B. Bodner, Iris Gerlitz, Anastasia Keshman Wasserman, Katrin Kogman-Appel, Ora Limor, Galit Noga-Banai, Robert Ousterhout, Yamit Rachman-Schrire, Bruno Reudenbach, Alessandro Scafi, Tsafra Siew, and Victor I. Stoichita.

Napoleon’s invasion of the Middle East marks the beginning of the modern era in the region. This book traces the developments that led to the making of a new and separate geographical-political entity in the Middle East known as Eretz Israel and the establishment of the State of Israel within its bounds. Thus, its time frame runs from Napoleon’s invasion of Eretz Israel / Palestine in 1799 to the establishment of Israel in 1948–1949. Eretz Israel as the formal name of a separate entity in the modern era first appeared in the early translations into Hebrew of the Balfour Declaration, while in the original document the country was referred to as “Palestine.” During the period of Ottoman rule the territory that would in time be called Eretz Israel / Palestine was not a separate political unit. Among Jews, use of “Eretz Israel” increased only after the beginning of Zionist aliyot. Had the Zionist movement not arisen, it is doubtful whether the development to which this study is devoted would have occurred. The motivating force behind that process is without doubt the Zionist element. That is why Jews are the major protagonists in this book.

What were/are angels and what was/were their purpose(s) still agitates many readers of the many documents in which they are mentioned. This topic proved to both interest and challenge the presenters at the Seminar in Biblical Characters in Seoul, South Korea, from which this book is derived. Communication between the heavenly realms and the earth were/are at the core of the human consideration of, and openness to the existence of beings from the heavens who can and have visited us humans. Humans have constructed a taxonomy of types of what we employ with the catch-all term angels. Some are identified with warfare, others with healing, yet others with informing. Even others are associated with the role of guardian and teacher. These, however, do not exhaust the possibilities. What, apparently, humans volunteer is to acknowledge in their experiences is that extra or ultra-beings have, and continue to influence their lives and destinies. The essays contained in this volume reflect some of the thoughtful responses to this abiding concern.

Sephardic Jews have contributed some of the most important Jewish philosophers, poets, biblical commentators, Talmudic and Halachic scholars, and scientists, and have had a significant impact on the development of Jewish mysticism. Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry brings together original work from the world's leading scholars to present a deep introductory overview of their history and culture over the past 1500 years.