Biography

I was born in Jerusalem to a family originated in Iran. After military service in the IDF I started studying archeology and Jewish history in the Hebrew University.

During my third year I was drawn to the history of Ottoman Jewry. Once I decided to specialize in this field I studied Ladino, Arabic, Turkish and Ottoman Turkish, and started reading primary sources. Prof. Joseph Hacker became my instructor, and also showed me what does being a true scholar mean. I taught in Tel Aviv University, and returned to Jerusalem as a Scholion scholar, and immediately after that joined the Jewish history department. In my research and in my classes I try to reveal new sources, and teach my students how to read a source, any source, in a critical way, and how to use it in order to learn more about our history.

 

Areas of Interest

Social and cultural history of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire, material culture, consumption and daily life, various literary jenres as sources: response, Ladino coplas, egodocuments, historiography, Palestine in the Ottoman period, the Sephardi community of Palestine and especially Jerusalem in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, historic photography of Jews in Islamic countries.

 

Curriculum Vitae