Rethinking Jews and Race: A Multiracial Jewish Family in Early America

A free public lecture with Professor Laura Arnold Leibman of Princeton University. Part of the Bruce Greenberg Lecture Series. About the Lecture: An obsessive genealogist and descendent of one of the most prominent Jewish families since the American Revolution, Blanche Moses firmly believed her maternal ancestors were Sephardic grandees. In this talk, Professor Leibman overturns the reclusive heiress’s assumptions about her family history to reveal that her grandmother and great-uncle, Sarah and Isaac Brandon, began their lives as poor, Christian, and enslaved in Barbados. Leibman traces the siblings’ extraordinary journey around the Atlantic world, using artifacts they left behind in Barbados, Suriname, London, Philadelphia, and, finally, New York. While their affluence made them unusual, their story mirrors that of the largely forgotten people of mixed African and Jewish ancestry that constituted as much as ten percent of the Jewish communities in which the siblings lived. Speaker Bio: Laura Arnold Leibman is the Leonard J. Milberg ’53 Professor in American Jewish Studies and Director Judaic Studies at Princeton University. Her books on Jews in early America have won four National Jewish Book Awards and a Jordan Schnitzer Book Award. She is the immediate past President of the Association for Jewish Studies. This event is part of the Bruce Greenberg Lecture Series, which explores Jewish history and culture in the Atlantic and Caribbean. Additional Event Information: • This event will be held in person at Pugh Hall Ocora and also streamed live at THIS LINK. • The event is free to attend and open to all. • Light refreshments will be served beginning at 5:30 PM Parking Information: • Parking is available in the Murphree Lot. For directions and a map, click here: https://clas.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/08/Shorstein-Event-Murphree-Lot-Map.pdf. • You may drop off guests directly in front of Pugh Hall before proceeding to parking. Additional parking may be found in and around campus - please make sure you comply with posting parking regulations. Questions: email [email protected]