“I thought that Jesus Christ was the same person as Moses, son of Queen Esther,” one woman told the Inquisition.

You don’t hear that everyday.

Last Century of a Sephardic Community: The Jews of Monastir, 1839-1943, is an original history based on new research into archives in Europe, North America, and Israel. Excerpts have appeared in scholarly journals. The book tells the story of the Spanish-speaking Sephardim of Monastir (today’s Bitola, Macedonia) during its last century, when tradition gave way to innovation. The volume includes 80 rare illustrations, new translations of Sephardic folktales and songs, and the names of the Monastir Jews killed in the Holocaust. The Forward called it “an important addition to the study of Sephardic Jews.”

Articles

“Disaster and Change in an Ottoman Sephardic Community: Moses Montefiore and the Monastir Fire of 1863.” Journal of Jewish Studies (Spring 2004). Peer reviewed.

“How the West Won: The Arrival of the Alliance Israélite Universelle to the Community of Monastir.” The Sephardi Report (Spring 2004).

“Tower of Sephardic Faces.” US Holocaust Museum Website. Photographic exhibit on the Monastir Jews with text from Last Century of a Sephardic Community. Holocaust Museum.

“Foreword.” Bitola (Monastir) Holocaust Memorial Book (New York: National Yiddish Book Center, 2004).

“Early Photographs of Albania and Macedonia by Josef Székely.” History of Photography (Summer 2003).

“Monastir: Oasis of Civilization, 1839-63.” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin (Fall 2000). Peer reviewed.

Talks

Long Live the King: Women in Power in Sephardic Folktales. From Ulysses to James Bond, we love a hero with a trick up his sleeve. Nearly always, it is a role reserved for men. But in these three Sephardic tales, it is the women who get to do the lying, the spying, and the double-crossing.

How the West Won: Teaching French to Spanish Jews. Fights about Jewish education are fights about the Jewish future, and those fights can be ruthless. In 1863, Western reformers met Sephardic traditionalists for a showdown in the Ottoman Balkans.

What Can We Learn From this Story? A Personal History Lesson. Cohen’s research into his Sephardic past led him to the source of some unfortunate personal traits, and taught him that the burdens of history are sometimes offset by its consolations.