POSTPONED: Lew Nussimbaum aka Essad Bey aka Kurban Said – Wanderer Between Worlds

This event has been postponed due to the closure of the Center for Jewish History through the end of March 2020. When a new date is determined, we will update this space.

Born to a Jewish family in Kiev, raised in Baku, and converted to Islam in Berlin, Essad Bey’s orientalist writings reached a huge audience in the Weimar Republic. Although his novels and essays depicting life in locales such as Azerbaijan and the Caucasus helped shape notions of a mysterious and romantic East in the German public imagination, the Muslim community in Berlin and scholars of the region found his imagination was sometimes stronger than his command of history. His own incredible life may have been the most fantastical story he left us, however. Michael Lahr will give a lecture on Essad Bey’s life and times, followed by a dramatic reading of selected works (in German with English subtitles) by the actor Gregorij H. von Leitis.

Co-sponsored by the American Sephardi Federation and the Lahr & von Leitis Academy & Archive