Yemeni Jewish migration to Palestine/Israel began as early as the 1880s and continued until recent years. Throughout this period, Yemeni Jews employed strategies to maintain a connection with Yemen, and to resist assimilation, while also working to integrate into Jewish society in Palestine and Israel. This lecture uses Yemeni Jewish foodways, music, and dance to consider the ways that diasporic communities use cultural practices to negotiate the contradictory pressures migration places on identity.
Ari Ariel is an Associate Professor of Instruction in History and International Studies at the University of Iowa. His work focuses on Jewish communities in the Arab world and Mizrahi communities in Israel, and he is particularly interested in the impact of migration on foodways and other cultural practices.
Supported by the Thomas and Diann Mann Symposium Fund.
