Sephardic studies: Grants available

UCLA Maurice Amado Program in Sephardic Studies at the school's Center for Jewish Studies invites applications for faculty incentive grants to encourage scholars of any rank to deepen or develop their scholarship and teaching on Sephardic history or culture.

Grants may be used to develop or transform a course or to conduct research on or engage in the writing of a scholarly project with significant Sephardic content. Funding will not exceed $5,000 for any single applicant; typical grants will be in the range of $3,000. The work is expected to be conducted by the end of the 2009-2010 academic year; funds may not be used for the purchase of technology.

Applicants must submit by March 2, a cover letter (750 words maximum)detailing the project, its feasibility, and its contribution to the field of Sephardic Studies; a detailed budget; and contactinformation for two references. Send questions to Vivian Holenbeck.

For more information on the Maurice Amado Foundation, click here.

A major focus of the Maurice Amado Foundation is to ensure that Sephardic heritage is woven into the fabric of American Jewry. The Foundation has a special interest in integrating information about the religious life and culture of Sephardic Jews whose ancestors originated in the Iberian Peninsula into the education of all American Jews, with a special emphasis on reaching leaders, both present and future, of American Jewry. The heritage of Sephardic Jews includes a) the history and contributions to Jewish thought of the Spanish Jews before the Inquisition, b) the effects of the Inquisition on Jewish religious, cultural and intellectual life, c) the history of the Sephardim in the lands of their dispersion after the Expulsion, and d) modern Sephardic cultural and religious contributions to Jewish life.

Maurice Amado established the foundation in 1961. He was a descendant of Sephardic Jews who settled in the Ottoman Empire after the 1492 Expulsion from Spain. He immigrated to New York from Izmir, Turkey in 1903 and moved to Los Angeles in 1940. He supported organizations that perpetuated Sephardic heritage and culture.