Ashkenazi Medical professionals in the Arab Middle East
Rethinking the stories we know. Please join us for a talk with Yair Wallach for the Annual Howard Rein Memorial Lecture
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About
Rethinking the stories we know. Please join us for a talk with Yair Wallach for the Annual Howard Rein Memorial Lecture
The modern migration of Ashkenazim – central and eastern European Jews – to the Middle East is often assumed to be synonymous with Zionism. However, this retrospective reading ignores the fact that many Ashkenazi Jews arrived in the region in the 19th and even 20th century as migrants rather than as Zionist pioneers. While most settled in Palestine, many settled in Egypt, Lebanon, and elsewhere in the region. There is evidence of meaningful integration in in Arab societies and cultures. Among the striking examples of this Ashkenazi integration we find the stories of Ashkenazi medical professionals. Ashkenazi medical professionals – doctors, nurses, and pharmacists across the region. The lecture will follow these trajectories, and their eventual erasure from collective memory.
Image:
Dr. Wilhelm Sachs and Dr. Deborah Sachs, Cairo, 1944. The Dalia and Edna Sachs collection, Haifa University Library
Speaker
Yair Wallach is a Reader in Israeli Studies, and the head of the SOAS Centre for Jewish Studies. His first book A City in Fragments (Stanford University Press, 2020) won the Jordan Schnitzer book prize in Jewish Studies in 2022.
Event information
This event will be held in-person and online.
If you have any questions about this event please contact parkes@soton.ac.uk
Location: Lecture Theatre C, Avenue Campus & online via Zoom
Date and time: 5th May 2026 at 6pm BST