In this episode of Protean View, Muftah editor in chief Riad Alarian sits down with Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, a political theorist and professor of modern culture and media at Brown University. They discuss her latest book, The Jewelers of the Ummah: A Potential History of the Jewish Muslim World (Verso, 2024), which examines how French colonialism in the Maghreb and Zionist colonization in Palestine effaced a vibrant “Jewish Muslim world.”

Azoulay explores the history of Jews and their integral place within the Muslim ummah by focusing on the forgotten legacy of Algeria’s Jewish jewelers. She also shares her personal journey of embracing her identities as a Palestinian Jew, Algerian Jew, and Muslim Jew, and offers a powerful challenge to the boundaries of modern national and political identity.

This conversation uncovers the deep connections between identity, colonialism, and belonging in a world shaped by historical erasures.

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