upcoming events & speaking engagements

October 9-13, 2023

Eleventh Annual Conference of the Society for Sephardic Studies, to be held in Izmir, Turkey, October 9-13, 2023.

Focus of the conference is: Sephardic Jews, between Messianism and Modernity

Due to the Israel/Hamas War of October 2023, this has been postponed to 2024.

January 4, 2024

(St. Louis, Missouri)

Dr. Amon will present “The Story of Antisemitism: From the Hebrew Bible to October 7th.” From antiquity to modern times, the world’s oldest hatred has adapted to every age. Jews have undergone discrimination, persecution, massacres, and expulsion. This presentation will provide an overview of both Jew hatred and Jewish resilience across time and space.

January 11 and 18, 2024

(Falls Church, Virginia)

Dr. Amon will remotely present two talks on the “History and Culture of Sephardic Jewry.” The first session will look at origins through the Expulsion in 1492. The second session will focus on the post-1492 diaspora, ranging from the New World to the Ottoman Empire, where Sephardic Jews blended with Jewish communities who had been in the Middle East and North Africa for centuries.

January 18, 2024

(Bologna, Italy)

Dr. Amon will participate in the 3rd Annual International Symposium on Heritage in War and Peace in Bologna, Italy. Founded in 1088, it is the oldest university in the western world. His talk, “A Link in The Chain of Generations: Jewish Experience & Cultural Memory” examines three major catastrophes in Jewish history; 1) the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E., 2) the Expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, and 3) the Holocaust in the 20th century. Notwithstanding these immense tragedies, Judaism continued and preserved ancestral memory via food, music, language, and storytelling.

February 29, 2024

(St. Augustine, Florida)

Dr. Amon will present “An Extraordinary Odyssey: The 3,000 Year Story of Sefarad.” This will cover the early arrival of Jews to the Iberian Peninsula, through the “Golden Age”, one of the greatest periods of Jewish history, followed by the tragedy of the massacres, Inquisition, and forced conversions, leading to the expulsion and exile of 1492. The saga culminates with the creation of a global Jewish diaspora which endures today.

February 29, 2024

(Jacksonville, Florida)

Traditional awareness of the Holocaust has long focused on Ashkenazi Jewry, or Jews in Central and Eastern Europe. By numbers, they certainly bore the brunt of the Nazi genocide. Nonetheless, well-known and vibrant Sephardic communities across Europe – from Amsterdam in the Northwest to Greece and the Balkans in the Southeast – were devastated while those in Denmark and Bulgaria were virtually saved en masse. Sephardim in North Africa and the Middle East were impacted as well. Join Dr. Amon for a timely overview of a long-neglected chapter in the annals of antisemitism, World War II, and 20th century Jewish and European history.

March 10, 2024

(Kings Place, London, England)

Dr. Amon is invited to participate on the panel, Jewish Unity Through Diversity, alongside Hen Mazzig and Lyn Julius, moderated by Jake Wallis Simons, editor of the Jewish Chronicle. He will speak on the Sephardic journey across time and space, especially Iberian Jewry.

May 9-11, 2024

(Kalamazoo, Michigan)

Hosted by the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University, this is an annual gathering of scholars interested in medieval studies. The Congress embraces the study of all aspects of the Middle Ages, extending into late antiquity and the early modern period. Dr. Amon will be on the Law as Culture panel, speaking on “A Lasting Medieval Legacy: Crypto-Judaism and Heresy in Catholic Iberia.”

June 24-26, 2024

(Edinburgh, Scotland)

Dr. Amon will present at the University of Edinburgh on the remarkable Jewish presence across the Mediterranean, which has witnessed repeated waves of forced conversion, expulsions, and simultaneously an extraordinary decree of sustained interconnectedness among Jews from antiquity through the Alhambra Decree of 1492, and even until today. His talk is titled, “The Other Mare Nostrum: Jewish Life, the Mediterranean, and Imagined Communities.”

July 1-3, 2024

(Leeds, England)

Hosted at the University of Leeds, this is an annual gathering of scholars interested in medieval studies. The Congress is a forum for the discussion of all aspects of medieval studies. Dr. Amon will be on the panel, Remembering in Times of Crisis. His talk is entitled, “1492 and Jewish Memory: The Timelessness of Crisis.”