Esther Azhari Moyal: Writer, Feminist, and Jewish Activist in the Ottoman Arab World, 1892-1913 with Lital Levy

Meet Esther Azhari Moyal, trailblazing intellectual and activist, who made her mark in the Arab Levant as the world entered the 20th century. Though few have heard of her today, she was a star of the 19th century Arab women's movement, a prolific literary translator and journalist, and the only Jewish woman active in the modern Arabic renaissance movement. Born in Beirut in 1873, her life and work took her to Cairo, Istanbul, Jaffa, and Marseille; she died in Tel Aviv in 1948. Through the prism of Moyal's life and work, this talk by Professor Lital Levy covers Sephardi intellectual life, Jews writing in Arabic, and historical Jewish-Arab relations.

About the Speaker:

Lital Levy is associate professor of comparative literature and a member of the program in Judaic studies at Princeton University, where she teaches in the areas of Hebrew literature, Arabic literature, comparative literature and theory, and Jewish studies. She specializes in contact zones of Hebrew and Arabic within literature, cultural studies, and intellectual history. She is the author of Poetic Trespass: Writing between Hebrew and Arabic in Israel/Palestine (2014), on the cultural politics of Hebrew-Arabic multilingualism and translations. Her other publications address Arab Jewish intellectual history and Mizrahi literature and culture.