Mizrahi Jews (Jews from the Middle East and North Africa) have long served as cultural and linguistic mediators—translators, go-betweens, and interpreters—straddling the boundaries between Jews and Arabs, Hebrew and Arabic. While often seen as a "bridge" between cultures, they were also viewed with suspicion, accused of dual loyalties, assimilation, and even treason. This class will explore how Mizrahim both connected and enforced divisions. By tracing these entanglements across national and linguistic divides, this class will offer a fresh perspective on identity, belonging, and the shifting role of Mizrahim—challenging historical narratives and reimagining possibilities for coexistence in a deeply divided region.

Yuval Evri is Assistant Professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and Marash and Ocuin Chair in Ottoman, Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish Studies at Brandeis University. He is a cultural historian who specializes in Sephardi/Arab-Jewish modern history and culture. He is particularly interested in Palestine during the first half of the 20th century.

His current book project traces the invention of the Mizrahim/Sephardim as go-betweens and mediators on the borderline that emerged between the Jew and the Arab and between Hebrew and Arabic and explores how the fluidity inherent in this position became a source of resistance to the dominant national and monolingual forces. His last book, titled: The Return to Al-Andalus: Disputes Over Sephardic Culture and Identity Between Arabic and Hebrew, was published by Magnes Press in 2020. The English edition of Evri's book, titled The Return to Sepharad and the Erasure of al-Andalus, is scheduled for publication by Indiana University Press in 2026.