Ronnie Perelis

Ronnie Perelis is the Chief Rabbi Dr. Isaac Abraham and Jelena (Rachel) Alcalay Associate Professor of Sephardic Studies at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies of Yeshiva University. He has taught the history of the Jews of Spain and their diasporas in academic and popular settings throughout the world. His research investigates connections between Iberian and Jewish culture during the medieval and early modern periods, especially the dynamics of religious transformation among crypto-Jews (Jews who continued to practice Judaism in secrecy after conversion to Catholicism). Perelis was awarded an NEH grant for his project Translating the Americas, together with Flora Cassen. As part of this project he will prepare a critical edition, English translation, and historical study of the rediscovered manuscripts of Luis de Carvajal, a sixteenth-century Mexican crypto-Jewish thinker.