St. Augustine Jewish Historical Society receives award

Leonard Stein, PhD, of the University of Toronto's Centre for Comparative Literature and President of the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies has announced the awarding of a 2018 "Mini-Conference" to the St. Augustine Jewish Historical Society. 

The one-day Conference, to be held on Sunday, Dec. 9 at the World Golf Village Renaissance St. Augustine Resort will focus on "Telling the Story of Crypto-Jews in the Southeast US." Scholars from many disciplines are expected to share in their research to help develop a common understanding of the presence of the descendants of Jews in the continental southeast Colonial Spanish America under the Inquisition and in the years since.

Dr. Stein is a Connaught International Doctoral Scholar for the Centre for Comparative Literature in a collaborative program with the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto. His research compares medieval Jewish-Iberian identity with modern literature from the Sephardic diaspora. He currently serves as the President pro tem and program chair for the Society for Crypto Judaic Studies and editor for the University of Toronto Journal of Jewish Thought. His newest publications include Jubanidad and the Literary Transmission of Cuban Crypto-Judaism for the forthcoming edited volume, Caribbean-Jewish Crossings: Atlantic Literature and Theory (University of Virginia Press), and The New Literature of Hip Hop Music for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Music Studies.

The Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies, an international academic and secular association, fosters research, networking of people and ideas, and the dissemination of information regarding the historical and contemporary developments involving crypto-Jews of Iberian origins and other hidden Jewish communities around the world.

The St. Augustine Jewish Historical Society promotes greater knowledge and understanding of the Jewish experience in the oldest European city in the United States, from the founding of St. Augustine in September 1565 to the present. SAJHS actively recruits partners to help tell the story of the rich history and heritage found on Florida's First Coast.