Internal Otherness: Being Sephardi in White, Ashkenazi New England and in Broader American Jewish Society

My thesis aims to diversify the general understanding of Judaism in America today, with a particular focus on Jews of Sephardic heritage. There is a certain investment today in Judaism looking and practicing a typical way, one that often appears White and following “mainstream” American values. Being Sephardic does not always fit this category, as was evident through my many interviews. Yet it is easier to be Sephardic in some parts of America than others. My research focused on the internal “othering” of Sephardic Jews in a primarily white, mainstream, Yiddish and English-speaking Jewish American landscape today, with a particular fieldwork focus on the Sephardic communities of New England.

My research seeks to highlight a topic not academically understood or written about in much depth before, which is why it is so important today. Although Sephardim were some of the very first Jews to settle in the United States starting in the 1400s, most of them first settling in the New England and New Amsterdam (New York area, today) regions, the Sephardic population in New England has proven both successes and failures, has not seemingly grown much, and was soon surpassed by Ashkenazi immigrants of the 19th and 20th centuries. A goal of mine was to understand these issues by interviewing Sephardic Jews in the region, attending Sephardic institutional events nearby as a participant-observer, and learning more about the Jewish, religious, racial, and linguistic history of the area, with the underlying motive of better understanding the experience of otherness felt by Sephardic Jews across America today. With such a prominent beginning to American Jewry stemming from Sephardic immigrants across New England, I felt a particular need to focus my research on where these Sephardic Jewish settlers of New England went and why. By hearing the experiences of Sephardic Jews in the New England region today, I could better understand how Sephardic Jews feel that they fit into the general and Jewish landscape of mainstream America, if at all, and if this feeling is a cause for such a stagnant population of Sephardim in places like New England today