Sarah Abrevaya Stein

Sarah Abrevaya Stein, 2020

Sarah Abrevaya Stein is an American historian of Sephardic and Mediterranean Jewries. ^[1] She is Distinguished Professor of History and holder of the Viterbi Family Chair in Mediterranean Jewish Studies at UCLA. ^[1]

Biography

Stein received her Ph.D. from Stanford University and her B.A. from Brown University.

She is the author or co-editor of more than ten books, including Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century (2019), ^[2] which was selected as one of The Economist's "Books of the Year," ^[3] and Plumes: Ostrich Feathers, Jews, and a Lost World of Global Commerce (2008), which won the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. ^[4] Her scholarship has also expanded historical understanding of the Holocaust in the Middle East and North Africa, ^{[5] [6]} and she has edited and translated memoirs and documentary histories that illuminate lesser-studied Jewish experiences in the region. ^{[7] [8]} Her work has been translated into multiple languages, including Spanish, French, Hebrew, Russian, and Arabic.

Stein has received many awards including the Salo W. and Jeannette M. Baron Senior Award for Scholarly Excellence in Research of the Jewish Experience from the University of Vienna, the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, two National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Jewish Book Awards, three National Jewish Book Award Finalist Awards, Best Historical Materials Award from the American Library Association, Judaica Reference Award from the Association for Jewish Libraries, and the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award. Her work has been lauded for both its innovation in research and its artistic craft, as noted by The New York Times contributor Matti Friedman who wrote that "Stein, a UCLA historian, has ferocious research talents....and a writing voice that is admirably light and human." ^[9]

She has served as consultant, advisor, and board member for institutions as varied as The Walt Disney Company, Pixar, The World’s Jewish Museum of Tel Aviv, the Skirball Cultural Center, Jewish Story Partners, Facing History & Ourselves, the Amazon Prime television series I Love Dick, and universities around the world. She is a frequent speaker and writer on Jewish diversity.

Books

• Salonique Juive et Ottoman: Les mémoires de Sa’adi Besalel a-Leviv, French translation of A Jewish Voice by Löic Marcou (Lior Editions, 2024).
• Wartime North Africa: a Documentary History, 1934-1950 co-edited with Aomar Boum (Stanford University Press with the cooperation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2023)
• Papeles de familia Spanish translation of Family Papers by Inglés de Vicente Campos González (Galaxia Gutenberg), 2021.
• Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019)
• The Holocaust and North Africa co-edited with Aomar Boum (Stanford University Press with the cooperation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2019)
• Sephardi Lives: A Documentary History, 1700-1950, Julia Phillips Cohen and Sarah Abrevaya Stein, editors (Stanford University Press), 2018).
• Ninette of Sin Street, co-edited with Lia Brozgal and Sarah Abrevaya Stein with translation by Jane Kuntz (Stanford University Press, 2017).
• Extraterritorial Dreams: European Citizenship, Sephardi Jews, and the Ottoman Twentieth Century (University of Chicago Press, 2016)
• Saharan Jews and the Fate of French Algeria, (University of Chicago Press, 2014)).
• A Jewish Voice from Ottoman Salonica: The Ladino Memoir of Sa'adi Besalel a-Levi co-authored with Aron Rodrigue and Isaac Jerusalmi (Stanford University Press, 2012) ^{[10] [11]}
• Plumes: ostrich feathers, Jews, and a lost world of global commerce (Yale University Press, 2008)
• Making Jews modern : the Yiddish and Ladino press in the Russian and Ottoman Empires (Indiana University Press, 2004)

Awards

• 2025: Salo W. and Jeanette M. Senior Scholar Award for Scholarly Excellence in Research on the Jewish Experience, University of Vienna ^[12]
• 2023: Best Historical Materials, American Library Association, Awarded for Wartime North Africa ^[13]
• 2023: Best Reference Award, Association for Jewish Libraries, Awarded for Wartime North Africa ^[14]
• 2019: National Jewish Book Award Finalist for Family Papers ^[15]
• 2018: National Jewish Book Award Finalist in the Sephardic Culture category, for The Holocaust and North Africa ^[16]
• 2017: National Jewish Book Award in the Sephardic Culture category for Extraterritorial Dreams: European Citizenship, Sephardi Jews, and the Ottoman Twentieth Century ^[17]
• 2014: National Jewish Book Awards in the Sephardic Culture Category for Sephardi Lives: A Documentary History, 1700-1950 ^[18]

References

1. Rudin, Marcia R. (15 November 2019). "Book Review: Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century". ReformJudaism.org. Reform Judaism. Retrieved 7 January 2020.
2. "An intimate chronicle of Sephardic Jewish history". The Economist. 2 January 2020. Retrieved 7 January 2020.
3. "Our books of the year". The Economist. 7 December 2019. Retrieved 10 December 2024.
4. "2010 Sami Rohr Prize Winners Announced". Jewish Book Council. 26 January 2010. Retrieved 11 November 2013.
5. Aomar Boum; Sarah Abrevaya Stein, eds. (2022). Wartime North Africa: A Documentary History, 1934–1950. Stanford University Press.
6. Aomar Boum; Sarah Abrevaya Stein, eds. (2019). The Holocaust and North Africa. Stanford University Press.
7. "A Jewish Voice". Salonique juive et ottoman: Les mémoires de Sa’adi Besalel a-Levi (in French). Translated by Löic Marcou. Lior Éditions. 2022.
8. Lia Brozgal; Sarah Abrevaya Stein, eds. (2017). Ninette of Sin Street. Translated by Jane Kuntz. Stanford University Press.
9. "Meet the Levy Family. Their History Is Our History". The New York Times. 19 November 2019. Retrieved 12 September 2023.
10. Goldman, Corrie (21 February 2012). "Rare Judeo-Spanish memoir gives a voice to the people of a lost culture". Stanford News. Retrieved 7 January 2020.
11. Wiens, Kathleen. Musica Judaica, vol. 22, 2018, pp. 196–200. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26783863. Accessed 7 Jan. 2020.
12. "Senior Awards" . Retrieved 10 December 2025.
13. "Best Historical Materials" 2022". American Library Association. Retrieved 10 December 2025.
14. "Wartime North Africa, Edited by Sarah Stein and Aomar Boum, Wins Reference Award by AJL" . Retrieved 10 December 2025.
15. "Sarah Stein's "Family Papers" Named Finalist for 2019 National Jewish Book Award" . Retrieved 10 December 2025.
16. "Book Co-edited by Sarah Stein and Aomar Boum Named National Jewish Book Award Finalist" . Retrieved 10 December 2025.
17. "Past Winners". Jewish Book Council. Retrieved 2020-01-25.
18. "Sephardi Lives: A Documentary History, 1700-1950 wins 2014 National Jewish Book Award for Sephardic Culture" . Retrieved 10 December 2025.