February 14, 2025
February 15, 2025
Congregation Emanu El is pleased to welcome Sarah Bunin Benor for the weekend as the next Scholar in Residence. Sarah Bunin Benor is Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies and Linguistics Director of the Jewish Language Project at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion. Dr. Benor is founding co-editor of the Journal of Jewish Languages and directs the HUC-JIR Jewish Language Project, which features the Jewish Language Website and the Jewish English Lexicon.
Friday, February 14
6:00 p.m., Kabbalat Shabbat featuring Sarah Bunin Benor on History of Jewish Personal Names
Saturday, February 15
9:00 a.m., Special Torah Study (with bagels and coffee!), led by Sarah Bunin Benor on Jewish Languages: Commonality and Diversity – Click here to register
10:30 a.m., Shabbat Morning Service with special guest Sarah Bunin Benor on They Didn’t Change their Language: An American Jewish Language?
Sarah Bunin Benor at Yom Limmud 2025
Sunday, February 16
Yom Limmud 2025- The Jewish Federation of Greater Houston’s Day of Jewish Learning, at Congregation Beth Yeshurun
12:45 p.m., Sarah Bunin Benor will present Jewish Languages Today: Endangerment and Resilience
Sarah’s participation in Yom Limmud is supported by Congregation Emanu El
Description: Over the past two centuries, migrations and other historical events have led to major changes in Jewish languages. Yiddish is thriving in Hasidic communities, while its use is diminishing elsewhere. Several longstanding Jewish languages have become endangered, including Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, Jewish Neo- Aramaic, and Jewish Malayalam (Southern India). At the same time, Jews are engaging with these languages in post-vernacular ways, such as through song and food, and new Jewish language varieties are developing, including Jewish English, Jewish Latin American Spanish, and Jewish Russian. This talk explains these developments and makes the case for the urgent need for documentation and reclamation.
About Sarah Bunin Benor:
Professor in the University of Southern California Linguistics Department. She received her B.A. from Columbia University in Comparative Literature in 1997 and her Ph.D. from Stanford University in Linguistics in 2004. She is the author of Becoming Frum: How Newcomers Learn the Language and Culture of Orthodox Judaism (Rutgers University Press, 2012) and Hebrew Infusion: Language and Community at American Jewish Summer Camps (Rutgers University Press, 2020), as well as many articles about Jewish languages, Yiddish, and American Jews. Dr. Benor has received several fellowships and prizes, including the Dorot Fellowship in Israel, the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, the Sami Rohr Choice Award for Jewish Literature, and the National Jewish Book Award in Education and Jewish Identity. She is founding co-editor of the Journal of Jewish Languages and co-editor of Languages in Jewish Communities, Past and Present (De Gruyter Mouton, 2018) and We the Resilient: Wisdom for America from Women Born Before Suffrage (Luminare Press, 2017). She founded and directs the HUC-JIR Jewish Language Project, which runs the Jewish Language Website and the Jewish English Lexicon. She is currently working on a project analyzing the names Jews give their children and their pets.
