by Dr. Sarah Bunin Benor

Monday, October 9, 5:30-7:00pm, B-342 Wells Hall

Using quotes and images, this talk highlights the diversity of American Jews by focusing on the diverse uses of “Jewish American English” – enriched primarily by words from Yiddish and Hebrew, but also, in particular ancestral groups, Ladino, Russian, Farsi, Judeo-Arabic, and other languages. Jews of various stripes use subtle variation in language to signal their textual knowledge, religious denomination, generation from immigration, ancestral origin, and orientation toward Israel. In short, “Jewish language” serves not only to distinguish Jews from non-Jews but also to distinguish Jews from Jews.

Dr. Sarah Bunin Benor is Vice Provost and Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies at HUC-JIR (LA) and Adjunct Professor in the University of Southern California Linguistics Department. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford University in Linguistics in 2004. Her books include Becoming Frum: How Newcomers Learn the Language and Culture of Orthodox Judaism (Rutgers University Press, 2012) and Hebrew Infusion: Language and Community at American Jewish Summer Camps (Rutgers University Press, 2020). Dr. Benor is founding co-editor of the Journal of Jewish Languages and directs the HUC-JIR Jewish Language Project, which features the Jewish Language Website and the Jewish English Lexicon.