David Graizbord, Ph.D., associate professor of Judaic studies at the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies, will present “Kaballah, What is it, Really and What does it Matter (Especially if You are Not a Hasid or Neo-Hasid)” at a Hadassah Southern Arizona luncheon on Sunday, March 17 at noon at Skyline Country Club.
Graizbord, who received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, is a historian of early modern Jews, focusing on the Western Sephardi Diaspora of the 17th century. His writing approaches questions of religious, social and political identity in the lives of so-called “New Christians” or “judeoconversos” from the Iberian Peninsula who became Jews in exile. He has also written about Judeophobia and the culture of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions; marginality and dissidence in Jewish and Ibero-Catholic societies of the 17th century; ethnicity and religion among Sephardim from medieval times to the 1700s; and converso trading networks in the Atlantic. He has published numerous journal articles and chapters in edited volumes. He is the author of “Souls in Dispute: Converso Identities in Iberia and the Jewish Diaspora, 1580-1700,” published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. Graizbord teaches undergraduate courses on Jewish civilization, medieval and early modern Jewish history, modern Jewish history and Jewish mysticism.
The cost for the lunch is $18. To RSVP, call 529-1830.
