Ariella Aïsha Azoulay’s The Jewelers of the Ummah: Book Launch and Symposium

16 artists and scholars across departmental and disciplinary affiliations engaged with
the 16 open letters/chapters composing Ariella Aïsha Azoulay latest book The
Jewelers of the Ummah: A Potential History of the Jewish Muslim World (Verso,
2024), in the form of epistolary/theoretical responses, narrative and historical
speculations, anticolonial imaginaries, and more. The event was organized by Ahmad
Abu Ahmad, PhD Candidate in the Department of Comparative Literature, and Adel
Ben Bella, PhD Student in the Department of Modern Culture and Media.

Chapters:
0:00 - Introduction
16:22 - Panel 1
1:37:13 - Panel II
2:40:38 - Panel III
4:00:27 - Panel IV

Introduction (Ariella Aïsha Azoulay and Ahmad Abu Ahmad)

Panel I
Thangam Ravindranathan—Response to letter to Houria Bouteldja: “We have been
dispossessed of you”
Katerina Ramos-Jordan—Rehearsals of Erasure, Writing the Mother Tongue: A
Triptych (Response to letter to my mother, Zahava Azoulay, born Arie: Why didn’t
you love me in Ladino?)
Macarena Gomez-Barris—Response to letter to my beloved children: Lately, I have
been talking to my ancestors
Ahmad Abu Ahmad—“The Human is Nothing but an Inventor of Shelters”: Between
Haifa and Granada (Response to letter to Ghassan Kanafani: The granddaughters of
Sycorax)

Panel II
Sherena Razek—A letter written with the tools of the impossible to arab feminist
ancestors (Response to letter to Wassyla Tamzali: The jewelers of the ummah)
Kate Creasey—Response to letter to Benjamin Stora: We have not forgotten
France’s colonial crimes
Jill Jarvis—Response to letter to Frantz Fanon: “With all my being, I refuse to accept
this amputation”

Panel III
Zoe Samudzi—Response to letter to Sylvia Wynter: The disappearance of the
disappearance of Jews from Africa
Adel Ben Bella—Place-Names: The name (is Algeria) (Response to letter to my
father, Roger Lucien: Abba, why didn’t you call me Algeria?)
Ana Furtado—Seeding Bijou Miracles: Transnational Solidarity and Communal
Modes of Address (Response to letter to Hosni Kitouni: It is a miracle that we still
see clearly where the sun rises and where it sets)
Amelle Zeroug—Response to letter to my great-grandmother Marianne, umm Aicha:
Fuck you, France, my daughter is Islam

Panel IV
Yannis Hamilakis—Response to letter to Katya Gibel Mevorach: The amnesia of
Jews in the US is only half the story; the other half has never been told
Elizabeth Berman—Response to letter to Hannah Arendt: Between European Jews’
experience and ours
Harley Elias—Response to letter to Madame Cohen: Gold threads, embroidery, and
guilds
Jana Omar Elkhatib—Perhaps my ancestors have blessed my ears and not my mouth
(Response to letter to Samira Negrouche: Your earth mother is my earth mother too)
Conversation and Q&A with Ariella Aïsha Azoulay (Ahmad Abu Ahmad and Adel
Ben Bella)