We also express deep gratitude to the committees who dedicated their time and expertise to evaluating the submissions. As an all-volunteer endeavor, we couldn’t do this work without the help of our members! The committees for this year are:
Book Award Committee
Yael Siman Druker (Chair), Mirna Vohnsen, Romina Yalonetzky, and Darrell Lockhart
Dissertation Award Committee
Laura Limonic (Chair), Mariusz Kalczewiak, and Michael Rom
Winner in the category of single-authored manuscript
Aviad Moreno, Entwined Homelands, Empowered Diasporas: Hispanic Moroccan Jews and Their Globalizing Community. Indiana University Press, 2024.
Based on the study of diasporic process of a Jewish group that migrated from Spain to Morocco, and from northern Morocco to Israel, Europe, Latin America, and the United States—as well as the “local empowerment” of this minority in different national hubs, such as the case of Venezuela—this book breaks with traditional “methodological separations” and integrates various geographies, historical moments, and cultural spaces of Jewish life. In Entwined Homelands, Empowered Diasporas, Aviad Moreno shows how Spanish-speaking Jews from northern Morocco construct nostalgic narratives about Spain and Morocco as intertwined homelands. At the same time, they connect with multiple centers, giving rise to a Moroccan-Sephardic diaspora of Spanish origin, whose roots lie in a colonial context but which is reconfigured in a postcolonial key. LAJSA recognizes this book not only for its theme and innovative approach, but also for its proposal to identify intersections and encounters among various disciplinary fields, such as Latin American Jewish studies, Israel studies, and Middle Eastern and North African studies, through categories like multi-sited diaspora, exile, Zionism, transnational hub, and the global Hispanophone paradigm.
Winner in the category of edited volume
Favela, Tania, Coordinadora. Este es el testimonio del oyente: Aproximaciones críticas en torno a Migraciones de Gloria Gervitz. Bonilla Artigas Editores, 2024.
Este es el testimonio del oyente: Aproximaciones críticas en torno a Migraciones de Gloria Gervitz brings together twelve essays that, from various perspectives, engage with the poetic voice of Gloria Gervitz through attentive, profound, and committed listening. The diversity of approaches—literary, philosophical, historical, and cultural—offers a kaleidoscopic view that enriches the understanding of a work that is fundamental both to contemporary Mexican poetry and to Latin American Jewish literature. LAJSA’s recognition of this volume celebrates not only its unquestionable academic value but also its ability to open new paths of reading that honor and critically engage with essential themes of the Jewish experience in Latin America, such as identity, diaspora, and memory.
Winner in the category of doctoral dissertation
Hernández Cruz, Anayeli. Características del ídish de los judíos ashkenazíes mexicanos en contacto con el español de México. Centro de Estudios Lingüísticos y Literarios, Colegio de México, 2024.
The committee is pleased to announce that the Best Dissertation Award in Latin American Jewish Studies has been awarded to Anayeli Hernández for their work titled “Characteristics of Yiddish of Mexican Ashkenazi Jews in Contact with Mexican Spanish,” an insightful linguistic analysis of language contact among Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants in Mexico. This dissertation examines the preservation and adaptation of Yiddish within the Mexican Ashkenazi community across several generations, focusing on how specific lexical items function as markers of ethnic and cultural identity. The originality of this research lies in its detailed exploration of intergenerational linguistic changes, providing a nuanced understanding of how minority languages persist through selective lexical retention, even amidst significant language shift toward Spanish and Hebrew. The findings significantly contribute to linguistics and Latin American Jewish Studies by documenting previously understudied linguistic interactions, offering a deeper comprehension of identity maintenance in diasporic contexts through language. The committee commends this dissertation for its rigorous scholarship and clarity of writing.
