At the Edges of the Jewish World Varieties of Experience

Foreword by Shalva Weil; Chapter 1: "A Conversation on Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Relations with Professor Tudor Parfitt" by Amanullah de Sondy; Chapter 2: "Footprints of the Ancestors: Select Contributions of Tudor Parfitt to Genetics and Jewish Identity" by Michael Scott Alexander; Chapter 3: "Israel's Immigration Policies and the Question of Genetic 'Evidence': The Problem of Regarding DNA as a Potential Component of Jewish Identity" by Nathan P. Devir; Chapter 4: "Navigating Belonging: Emerging Jews in Colombia and Israel" by Alicia Vergara; Chapter 5: "The North African Roots of Sephardic Descendants with Portuguese Citizenship Living in Portugal under the 2015 Law" by Marina Pignatelli; Chapter 6: "Kehimkar's A History of the Bene Israel as a Model for Emerging Jewish Communities" by Nathan Katz; Chapter 7: "A Sefer Torah Devoured by Jungle Dogs: Script and Identity Assertions in Ethnic Groups on the Indo-Myanmar Border" by Cécile Guillaume-Pey; Chapter 8: "Tudor Parfitt and the Bene Menashe" by William F. S. Miles; Chapter 9: "Indigeneity Politics and the Jewish Phenomenon in Sub-Saharan Africa" by Marla Brettschneider; Chapter 10: "The Lemba: A 'Lost Tribe' Finding a Home While Seeking Isolation" by Magdel le Roux and Elanij Swart; Chapter 11: "The Israelite Motif in Kenya: Judaization as a Claim to Israel's Biblical Identity" by Daniel Dossou; Chapter 12: "Jewish-Muslim Dialogue in Miami after October 7th: Building Bridges during American Realignment" by Iqbal Akhtar.

Biography

Nathan P. Devir, an interdisciplinary scholar of religion and culture, is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Utah, USA. His academic work is centered in ethnographic, qualitative research that bridges the humanistic, social, and applied sciences. He has published a number of studies on notions of religious belonging (especially among communities in Sub-Saharan African settings), the most recent of which is First-Century Christians in Twenty-First Century Africa: Between Law and Grace in Gabon and Madagascar (Leiden: Brill, 2022).