What does an understanding of Jewish history contribute to the study of the Mediterranean, and what can Mediterranean studies contribute to our knowledge of Jewish history?Jews and the Mediterranean considers the historical potency and uniqueness of what happens when Sephardi, Mizrahi, and Ashkenazi Jews meet in the Mediterranean region. By focusing on the specificity of the Jewish experience, the essays gathered in this volume emphasize human agency and culture over the length of Mediterranean history. This collection draws attention to what made Jewish people distinctive and warns against facile notions of Mediterranean connectivity, diversity, fluidity, and hybridity, presenting a new assessment of the Jewish experience in the Mediterranean.

Jessica Marglin is assistant professor of Religion and the Ruth Ziegler Early Career Chair in Jewish Studies at the University of Southern California.

Matthias Lehmann is Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine, where holds the Teller Family Chair in Jewish History.

Seth Schwartz is the Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Classical Jewish Civilization, and Professor of History and of Classics, at Columbia University.

Jonathan Ray is the Samuel Eig Professor of Jewish Studies at Georgetown University.

Andrew Berns is Assistant Professor of History at the University of South Carolina.

Daniel Hershenzon is an Associate Professor in the Department of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages at the University of Connecticut.

Corey Tazzara is assistant professor of history at Scripps College.

Francesca Bregoli is Associate Professor of History at Queens College and The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and holds the Joseph and Oro Halegua Chair in Greek and Sephardic Jewish Studies at Queens College.

Constanze Kolbe is a visiting scholar at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle and recipient of the Ephraim Urbach Postdoctoral Fellowship by the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture.

Devi Mays is an Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies and History at the University of Michigan.

Clémence Boulouque is the Carl and Bernice Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies at Columbia University.

Introduction: Jewish History in the Mediterranean, the Mediterranean in Jewish History / Jessica Marglin and Matthias Lehmann

1. Globalization or Culture: The Ancient Jews and the Mediterranean / Seth Schwartz

2. The New Melting Pot? Mediterraneanism and the Study of Jewish History / Jonathan Ray

3. Can we Speak of a Geographical Axis in Medieval Jewish Culture? / Andrew Berns

4. Jews and the Early Modern Mediterranean Slave Trade / Daniel Hershenzon

5. Religious Boundaries in Italy during an Era of Free Trade, 1550-1750: The Case of Livorno / Corey Tazzara

6. A Father's Consolation: Intra-Cultural Ties and Religion in a Trans-Mediterranean Jewish Commercial Network / Francesca Bregoli

7. Soap and the Making of a Short Distance Network in the Nineteenth-Century Adriatic / Constanze Kolbe

8. A Guide to the Jewish Mediterranean: Le Guide Sam and the Shaping of an Interwar Mediterranean Diaspora / Devi Mays

9. A New Myth of Coexistence? The Jewish Mediterranean Dream and the Three Ages of Nostalgia / Clémence Boulouque

Index