Ben-Ur awarded study grant by Hadassah-Brandeis InstitutePosted in Articles, Caribbean/Latin America, History, Judaism, Media Archive, Religion on 2013-03-09 01:54Z by Steven |
Ben-Ur awarded study grant by Hadassah-Brandeis Institute
In the Loop: News for Staff and Faculty
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
2012-12-13
Associate professor Aviva Ben-Ur of the Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies has been awarded a Senior Grant in History from the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute for her book project “Eurafrican Identity in a Jewish Society: Suriname, 1660-1863.”
Ben-Ur’s book project focuses on slave society in the former Dutch colony of Suriname in South America, where Jews of Iberian origin were among the earliest colonists. She examines the ever-shifting boundaries and bridges of Jewish communal belonging in Suriname and focuses on the special role enslaved and free Eurafrican women played in expanding the definition of Jewishness and collapsing the social hierarchies that distinguished whites from non-whites. Ben-Ur argues that from the start of Jewish settlement in the colony in the 1650s, females of African descent were key to both Jewish community building and the transformative adaptation of Jewish culture to a multi-ethnic slave society…
Read the entire article here.