Yiddish, Arabic, and the Search for Ancestral Voices with Karen Skinazi

This episode features Dr. Karen E. H. Skinazi, who explores her diverse linguistic heritage, tracing words and expressions from her Ashkenazi mother’s Yiddish-speaking background, including terms like “eggies” and “zei gezunt.” She also delves into her Sephardic Egyptian-Israeli father’s influence, discussing Arabic words like “do’a” and “howaga,” a French children’s rhyme, and Hebrew expressions.

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Dr Karen E. H. Skinazi is Associate Professor of Literature and Culture and Director of Liberal Arts at University of Bristol and soon to be Professor of Modern Jewish Literature and Culture at Hebrew Union College and Director of the Louchheim School for Judaic Studies at University of Southern California. She is the recent past president of the British and Irish Association for Jewish Studies. The author of the 2018 monograph Women of Valor, she is currently writing an academic book examining British Jewish and Muslim women’s literature; a memoir she’s calling The Nippleless Jewess; and Ness, a novel.