Sarah Frances Levin received her PhD in Jewish Studies with a Designated Emphasis in Folklore from UC Berkeley in 2017. Her current book project, “Poetry Duels, Tales, and Jokes: Moroccan Atlas Mountain Muslims and Jews Remember Each Other,” examines 20th-century Jewish-Muslim relations through 21st-century memories (from Muslims in Morocco and Jews who had immigrated to Israel in the 1950s and 1960s) of Amazigh (Berbe) oral traditions. These traditions, once integral to the daily lives of Atlas Mountain villagers, offer a unique framework for addressing issues of boundaries and difference, while simultaneously elucidating the shared cultural experiences of Jews and Muslims.
Levin’s publications include “The Aḥwash: Jewish and Muslim Articulations of a Shared Amazigh (Berber) Cultural Tradition in Morocco and Its Diaspora,” in Jews and Muslims in Morocco: Their Intersecting Worlds, 2021, and “Wit, Ruse, Rivalry, and Other Keys to Coexistence: Reflections of Jewish-Muslim Relations in Berber Oral Traditions,” in North African Mosaic: A Cultural Reappraisal of Ethnic and Religious Minorities, 2007.
In spring 2019 Sarah was a Fellow at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania, where the year’s theme was “Jewish Life in Modern Islamic Contexts.”
As a Lecturer in Jewish Studies, Levin teaches a course on Jewish folktales.
