On the Trail of Tears: Sephardic Judaism and the Holocaust

Traditional awareness of the Holocaust has long focused on Ashkenazi Jewry, or Jews in Central and Eastern Europe. By numbers, they certainly bore the brunt of the Nazi genocide. Nonetheless, well-known and vibrant Sephardic communities across Europe - from Amsterdam in the Northwest to Greece and the Balkans in the Southeast – were devastated while those in Denmark and Bulgaria were virtually saved en masse. Sephardim in North Africa and the Middle East were impacted as well. Join us for a timely and meaningful overview of a long-neglected chapter in the annals of antisemitism, World War II, and 20th century Jewish and European history. Dr. Isaac Amon, a descendant of Jews who fled Spain for the Ottoman Empire in 1492, is Director of Academic Research at Jewish Heritage Alliance, an educational organization dedicated to preserving and promoting the legacy of Sepharad, or Jews of the Iberian Peninsula. He earned a J.D., LL.M in dispute resolution and J.S.D. (PhD in Law) in comparative criminal procedure from Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. A former legal fellow at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague and an investigator of ISIS atrocities, he often speaks on criminal justice issues, antisemitism, and Jewish history and memory.