Social Sciences in Question: Leading Epistemological and Methodological Controversies

Lundi 30 septembre 2024
5 - 7 pm CEST
On Zoom (the link will be sent to registered participants)

Black Jews in America: a retrospective ethnography approach

Jews are generally seen as white and the notion of “black Jews” may seem a paradox. Yet, whether born Jews, converted, or tracing their historical Jewish roots to Africa or the Caribbean, the number of self-identified black Jews of African descent is in constant rise. Mixing in-depth interviews, historical records and retrospective ethnographic observation, the American sociologist Bruce Haynes retraces the diversity of their origins, outlining the complexity of their identities, and challenging the very boundaries of blackness and Jewishness. 

Speaker: Bruce D. Haynes (University of California, Davis) 

Bruce D. Haynes works on racial and ethnic relations and urban communities. He has recently published: The Soul of Judaism: Jews of African Descent in America, New York University Press, 2018;  Down the Up Staircase: Three Generations of a Harlem Family, Columbia University Press, 2017 (with Syma Solowitch) and “A member of the club? How Black Jews negotiate Black anti-semitism and Jewish racism”. Pp. 147-166 in Race, Color, Identity: Rethinking Discourses about the "Jews" in the 21st Century. Efraim Sicher (Ed.), Berghahn Books.

Chair & Discussant: Nonna Mayer (Sciences Po, CEE, CNRS)