Tuesday 13 October, 7 pm UK, 9 pm Israel. How does a community express its identity through sacred spaces? That question became the foundation of Dana Avrish’s doctoral research. She found a new way, beyond studying archives, of exploring what Jewish sites can tell us about a community’s history and status. She travelled to Morocco to examine the synagogues of Morocco as material expressions of Jewish minority identity under changing Muslim and colonial rule.

Our speaker Dr Dana Avrish’s interest in Moroccan Jewish architecture stems from a  longstanding passion for the history of Jewish communities in the Muslim world. She has written a book on the relationship between anti-Zionism and the history of these communities. A multidisciplinary artist, designer and lecturer, Dr Avrish has curated two major museum exhibitions in order to educate a wider audience about these Jews. “Leaving, never to return,‘ featuring artefacts and stories from 11 communities at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv in 2020, was widely acclaimed.

Dr Avrish is the third generation of a family whose roots are in Lebanon, Syria and Iran. The photo is of the Slat al-Azama synagogue in Marrakesh.