New York: Sephardic lecture, Sept. 7

I was just made aware of this opportunity for Sephardic researchers to hear Devin E. Naar's program on Sephardic immigration to the US, at 2pm, Sunday, September 7.

The venue is the Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue and Museum, 280 Broome St., on the Lower East Side.

Despite the late notice, I hope that some Tracing the Tribe readers may be able to attend "Between Old World and New: Sephardic Jews in New York during the Early Twentieth Century," which focuses on those from Salonika, Greece.

Naar was born in New Jersey to a Sephardic family. His great-grandfather, Rabbi Benjamin Haim Naar emigrated from Salonika in 1924 to New Brunswick, New Jersey and was rabbi of the Etz Ahaim Sephardic congregation.

Impassioned with learning about his Sephardic heritage, Naar has become a promising young scholar. He majored in history at Washington University (St. Louis, Missouri) where he was an Undergraduate Honors Fellow and graduated summa cum laude (May 2005).

He spent summer 2005 - with grants from the Maurice Amado Foundation and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum - cataloguing a collection of archives from Salonika at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York. Before beginning his studies as a PhD candidate in history at Stanford University, he spent a year in Greece as a Fulbright Scholar.

He is the author of "From the Jerusalem of the Balkans to the Goldene Medina: Jewish Immigration from Salonika to the United States," to be published in the next issue of "American Jewish History."

The program is free and is open to the public. Refreshments will be served.