Rate My Professor Aomar Boum

Aomar Boum is Professor and Maurice Amado Chair in Sephardic Studies in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, with joint appointments in the Departments of History and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. A socio-cultural anthropologist with a historical bent, he earned his Ph.D. in socio-cultural anthropology from the University of Arizona in 2006, M.A. in applied humanities from Al Akhawayn University in Morocco, and B.A. in English language and literature from Cadi Ayyad University in Morocco. His ethnographic research examines the social and cultural representations of and political discourses about religious and ethnic minorities, including Jews, Baha’is, Shi’as, and Christians, in post-independence Middle Eastern and North African states. Much of his work focuses on the anthropology and history of Jewish-Muslim relations in Morocco from the nineteenth century to the present, alongside topics such as Moroccan Jewish historiography, the Holocaust in North Africa, migration, youth activism, music, sports, and anti-Semitism.

Boum is the author of Memories of Absence: How Muslims Remember Jews in Morocco (Stanford University Press, 2013) and Undesirables: A Holocaust Journey to North Africa, a graphic history illustrated by Nadjib Berber (Stanford University Press, 2023), which received a gold medal in the graphic novel/drawn work category from the Independent Publisher Book Awards. He co-edited The Holocaust and North Africa with Sarah A. Stein (Stanford University Press, 2018) and Wartime North Africa: A Documentary History, 1934–1950 with Sarah A. Stein (Stanford University Press, 2022). Additional key publications include A Concise History of the Middle East, eleventh edition, co-authored with Arthur Goldschmidt (Westview Press, 2016), and Historical Dictionary of Morocco, third edition, co-authored with Thomas K. Park (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). He has published numerous articles in journals such as The Journal of North African Studies, International Journal of Middle East Studies, and Ethnos. Previously Assistant Professor of International Studies and Islamic Studies at Portland State University, Boum held the Judith B. and Burton P. Resnick Fellowship at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2007 and was inducted into the National Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco on April 24, 2025.