Dr Sara Byala

University of Pennsylvania

Bio

Sara Byala is a South African born historian of Africa. She teaches history and writing at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is also the Associate Director of the Penn Global Documentary Institute, which aims to tell global stories through local collaborations. This essay emerges from her work on African Judaism, broadly conceived, a research project that will eventually yield a book, in addition to documentary films.

Naming African Judaism: Notes from an Africanist

Abstract

In the growing field of studying Jews on the African continent, scholars tend to silo communities by race, investigating either white/normative/halachic Jews or Black Jewish communities that are either Judaizing or Lost Tribes, or both. Based upon fieldwork in Uganda, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, this essay suggests that the possibilities and limitations that come from foregrounding Jewishness over race as the primary analytical lens for the study of Jews in Africa.