Dr. Sarah Abrevaya Stein — Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century
Historian Sarah Abrevaya Stein discusses her archival research into family documents and what they reveal about Jewish migration, identity, and memory.
Why we picked this
One family's papers, scattered across continents, become a lens onto a century of Sephardic life — archival detective work at its most human.
Dr. Sarah Abrevaya Stein traces a single Sephardic family’s trajectory across the twentieth century through the documents they left behind — letters, photographs, identity papers, and records that together form an intimate portrait of displacement and belonging.
Stein is a professor at UCLA and a National Jewish Book Award winner whose work sits at the intersection of archival research and narrative history. Her approach treats family papers not as mere records but as artifacts that reveal the emotional and political currents of their time.
The lecture at Temple Emanu-El is free and available both in person and virtually, offering a chance to see how the most personal documents can illuminate the largest historical forces.