SJCS CORE PROGRAMS Gale Collaborative Brings People from the Americas Together By Dr. Naomi Lindstrom, Director, Gale Collaborative on Jewish Life in the Americas The Gale Collaborative on Jewish Life in the Americas has been able to bring the Americas to UT in part through the longstanding and strong collaborative ties between Jewish Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and the Latin American Jewish Studies Association (LAJSA, founded in 1982 by Judith Laikin Elkin). The listserv of LAJSA was created in 1996 at UT and has been operating here continuously ever since. The participants in the list now number 421 and are spread out over the Spanish American countries, Brazil, Israel, the US, Canada, and Europe. Lajsa-list is published two or three times a week and includes bibliographic information on new publications, research queries, and news of Jewish life in the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world. Since the Gale Collaborative began to take form in the early 2010s, larger-scale cooperative activities have become possible. In 2013, the SCJS hosted the 16th International Research Conference of LAJSA, conducted in Spanish, English, and Portuguese. This event brought over a hundred scholars in the field to UT for three days of scholarly panels, musical performances, and readings from creative works.
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The Gale Collaborative hosted the website of LAJSA until the organization was able to establish an independent site. Two portions of the new LAJSA website are curated from UT. One is the continuously updated registry of doctoral dissertations and masters theses in Latin American Jewish Studies. The other is an archive of syllabi and descriptions of course offerings on Latin American Jewish themes and Sephardic topics. While universities have struggled to maintain their normal activities during the pandemic, reliance on
distance-learning technology has had some benefits. It has drawn LAJSA members closer to the Gale Collaborative as they are now able to attend our virtual public programming. Since the events have become accessible to scholars everywhere, they are announced over the LAJSA listserv and attract a sizeable international audience. When in Fall 2020 the distinguished Mexican poet Myriam Moscona spoke about her use of Ladino or Judeo-Spanish as a contemporary literary language, her talk was attended by both Co-Presidents of LAJSA as well as several colleagues who are well recognized for their scholarship on the Ladino language and Sephardic literature and culture. In Spring 2021, the Berlin-based researcher Mariusz Kałczewiak spoke about the cultural life of Yiddish-speaking Polish immigrants in Buenos Aires. His lecture was attended by many Argentines, including Perla Sneh, probably the most recognized expert on Yiddish Buenos Aires. The presence of these specialists has led to rich Q&A periods, with information about learning resources being freely shared. When it becomes possible to hold in-person events again, we plan to continue providing online access in order to continue to benefit from the stimulating participation of the far-flung LAJSA community.
