Reading Group: The Jewelers of the Ummah

Program Description

Please join us for a discussion of the timely and provocative book by Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, The Jewelers of the Ummah: A Potential History of the Jewish Muslim World (Verso Books, 2024). What if the world of Maghrebian Jews and Muslims had not been disrupted by European colonialism, its archives distorted and/or destroyed, the identities “Jew” and “Muslim” made strange to each other by imperialism, nationalism, and settler-colonialism? In Azoulay’s astonishing new book—at once an anti-colonial counter-history, a feminist family memoir, and a collection of letters to intimates, poets, and historians—the material craft of jewelry-making practiced by generations of Azoulay’s Algerian Jewish ancestors becomes key to recovering Muslim-Jewish histories that need not stay in the past but can also liberate the future. This reading group is co-sponsored by the Peretz Centre and the UBC Jewish-Muslim Cultural Intimacies Project (conveners of the spring 2024 Hemon reading group and fall 2024 Muslim-Jewish diasporic translations panel). ***Times & Locations*** This reading group will meet monthly on Monday evenings (7-8:30pm) from May to December 2025, alternating between in-person meetings at the Peretz Centre's Kirman Library (6184 Ash Street, Vancouver) and Zoom (online). Please note dates may change: May 5 (in person), June 16 (online), July 7 (in person), August 4 (online), September 8 (in person), November 3 (online), December 8 (in person). ***Registration*** Registration is required and spots are limited. There are no fees for this community-run program. The book is available in paperback or ebook from the publisher (Verso) or through your local bookstore. As of April 2025, the UBC library and VPL have not yet purchased this book, but you can read it at the Kirman Library at Peretz. Contact the organizers for a PDF of the first reading. Purchase the book from Verso here: https://www.versobooks.com/en-ca/products/3026-the-jewelers-of-the-ummah ***Group Facilitators*** Mo Pareles (they+) is a medievalist and Associate Professor in the UBC Department of English Language and Literatures (pareles@gmail.com). Ervin Malakaj is an Associate Professor in the UBC Department of Central, Eastern, and Northern European Studies specializing in late-18th- to 21st-century German media and cultural history (ervin.malakaj@ubc.ca).