Ruth Cernea

Ruth Fredman Cernea (born 1934 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania ; died March 31, 2009 ) was an American anthropologist . Her research interests were the symbols and rituals of Jewish culture and the Jewish communities in South and Southeast Asia .

Ruth Cernea graduated from Temple University . After graduating in 1956, she withdrew from science for a time for family reasons. In 1982 she obtained her Ph.D. in anthropology. In the same year she published her study of the Sephardic community in Washington . From 1982 to 1996 Cernea headed the scientific department of the Hillel Foundation , for which she edited the Hillel Guide to Jewish Life on Campus .

In 1987 Ruth Cernea traveled to Rangoon in Myanmar . There she met a little-known, small Jewish community to which she devoted twenty years of intensive research. From 2001 to 2002, Cernea was President of the Washington Association of Professional Anthropologists .

At the University of Chicago , Ruth Cernea is known for the Great Latke Hamantash Debate , which is held annually on her initiative. The humorous debate deals with the question of whether the latkes of the Passover festival or the hamantaschen of the Purim festival are the better dessert. In 2006, Cernea published a selection of the funny lectures in the light of various scientific disciplines as an anthology.

Fonts

• The Passover Seder. Afikoman in exile. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 1981.
• Cosmopolitans at Home. The Sephardic Jews of Washington DC, 1982.
• The Great Latke – Hamantash Debate. University of Chicago Press, Chicago / London 2006.
• Almost Englishmen. Baghdadi Jews in British Burma. Lexington Books, Lanham 2007.

Web links

• Ruth Fredman Cernea in the Jewish Women's Archive (English)
• Literature by and about Ruth Cernea in the WorldCat bibliographic database