Abstract:

Through the experiences of a single Jewish family, this lecture charts how the law helped Jews to integrate into Muslim society. Drawing on previously untapped documents in Hebrew, Arabic, and European languages, Marglin offers a new perspective on Jewish-Muslim relations in the modern Islamic world.

Jessica Marglin is assistant professor of Religion and the Ruth Ziegler Early Career Chair in Jewish Studies at the University of Southern California.  She earned her PhD from Princeton University and her BA and MA (in Middle Eastern Studies) from Harvard University.  Her research focuses on the history of Jews and Muslims in North Africa and the Mediterranean, with a particular focus on law.  Her book, Across Legal Lines: Jews and Muslims in Modern Morocco, was published by Yale University Press in 2016.  Marglin is currently working on the legal disputes over the estate of Nissim Shamama, a trans-Mediterranean case from the late nineteenth century involving Italian law, Jewish law, Tunisian law, and Islamic law.  She has received numerous awards and fellowships: she is currently a Rome Prize fellow at the American Academy in Rome.  Next fall, she will begin a fellowship at the Institut d’Etudes Avancées in Paris.  Her publications have appeared in the International Journal of Middle East Studies, Jewish Social Studies, the Jewish Quarterly Review, and the British Journal of Middle East Studies.  She also has articles forthcoming in Comparative Studies in Society and History, Quaderni Storici, and Annales.