Jane Gerber


Jane S. Gerber is a professor of Jewish history and director of the Institute for Sephardic Studies at the City University of New York.

Life and education

Gerber, né Jane Satlow was born in 1938 to Israeli mother Elise Kliegman and father David Satlow. Growing up in an observant family, she and her two sisters attended The Center Academy at the Brooklyn Jewish Center. In 1959, she finished highschool and enrolled at Wellesley College studying the works of French novelsit, Marcel Proust.
After receiving her undergraduate education, she continued on at Harvard University where she began to study the relationship between Jewish and Islamic history. Here, she would meet her future husband, Roger A. Gerber. She and Gerber would move to New York and marry in 1965. In New York, Gerber would continue her work on Jewish-Islamic History at Columbia University where she would earn her Ph.D. on the interactions between the local population of Fez, Morocco, and the recently immigated Megorashim.
Gerber has one daughter, Dina.

Academic career

Gerber teaches classes in Classics, History, and Masters level Liberal Studies in the Center for Jewish Studies at the City University of New York, specializing in Sephardic history. She is director of the Institute for Sephardic Studies.
Gerber's books include Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience and Jewish Society in Fez. Gerber served as president of the Association for Jewish Studies from 1981-1983.

Works

Her one-volume history of Sephardic Jews of Spain was described as "excellent" and a reviewer noted her strengths in synthesizing much recent research about this people.

Awards