Aomar Boum is a historian and anthropologist, currently a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a member of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco. Originally from Lamhamid, Foum Zguid, in the Tata province, a small Saharan community in southeastern Morocco, Aomar Boum holds the Maurice Amado Chair of Sephardic Studies in the Department of Anthropology, the Department of History, and the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA. He is also an associate professor at the International University of Rabat.
Mr. Boum is the co-editor of Souffles Monde, co-founder and co-editor of the Revue d’Études Tamazgha, co-editor of the series Maroc et son espace méditerranéen: textes et traductions, co-founder of the UCLA Amazigh Studies Initiative, and co-director of the UCLA Moroccan Jewish Studies Initiative. His research focuses on the role of religious and ethnic minorities such as Jews, Baha’is, Shiites, and Christians in the post-independence nation-states of the Middle East and North Africa.
Mr. Boum has published several works, including Memories of Absence: How Muslims Remember Jews in Morocco, Historical Dictionary of Morocco (with Thomas K. Park), The Holocaust and North Africa (with Sarah Abrevaya Stein), Wartime North Africa: A Documentary History, 1934-1950 (with Sarah Abrevaya Stein), and The Undesirables: A Holocaust Journey through North Africa (with Nadjib Berber). Aomar Boum will be attending the SIEL (Salon International de l’Édition et du Livre) to mark the publication of The Last Rekkas in English, Arabic, and French.
