In 1987, literary scholar Diane Matza went in search of memoirs written by people of Sephardic heritage from the lands of the former Ottoman Empire. She identified only one main title (Leon Sciaky’s evocative Farewell to Salonica [1946]). 

 

In the decades since Matza’s research, the descendants of Sephardic immigrants have taken up the task of reflecting on their families' generational trajectories and what it means to be “Sephardic.” Some have written privately for their families, whereas others have written for the public, sharing memoirs or fictionalized accounts inspired by family tales. Two writers of Sephardic heritage have won Nobel Prizes for work that draws on family memoir (Elias Canetti [1981] and Patrick Modiano [2014]), but a wealth of stories are still waiting to be told and widely shared.

 

Organizations such as the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research have encouraged Jews–especially youth and those of Yiddish-speaking heritage–to write about the multifaceted intricacies, aspirations, histories and anxieties among Ashkenazi Jews. No comparable enterprise has emerged to cultivate storytelling for Sephardic Jews. 

 

Thus, the Sephardic Studies Program of the University of Washington in Seattle and the Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood Foundation are thrilled to partner in presenting the inaugural National Sephardic Essay Competition to open a new space for the telling of Sephardic stories.