Sarah Bunin Benor is an American linguist and scholar of Jewish languages. She is a professor of contemporary Jewish studies and linguistics and vice provost of

Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion The Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion (also known as HUC, HUC-JIR, and The College-Institute) is a Jewish seminary with three locations in the United States and one location in Jerusalem. It is the oldest extant Jewish semi ...

Biography

Benor graduated from

Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School The Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, often referred to as CESJDS or JDS, is a private, pluralistic Jewish JK-12 school located in two campuses in North Bethesda ( Rockville postal address), Maryland, United States.

North Bethesda, Maryland North Bethesda is an unincorporated, census-designated place in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, located just north-west of the U.S. capital of Washington, D.C. It had a population of 50,094 as of the 2020 census. Among its neighb ...

. She received her B.A. from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in comparative literature in 1997 and Ph.D. from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in linguistics in 2004. While working at the

Columbia University Libraries Columbia University Libraries is the library system of Columbia University and one of the largest academic library systems in North America. With 15.0 million volumes and over 160,000 journals and serials, as well as extensive electronic resources ...

as a college student, she stumbled across references to rare languages such as

Judeo-Italian Judeo-Italian (or Judaeo-Italian, Judæo-Italian, and other names including Italkian) is an endangered Jewish language, with only about 200 speakers in Italy and 250 total speakers today. The language is one of the Italian languages. Some words ...

and

Judaeo-Spanish Judaeo-Spanish or Judeo-Spanish (autonym , Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew script: , Cyrillic script, Cyrillic: ), also known as Ladino, is a Romance languages, Romance language derived from Old Spanish language, Old Spanish. Originally spoken in Spain ...

, which led to her interest in studying linguistics, especially Jewish languages. Her research has focused on

Jewish languages Jewish languages are the various Language, languages and Dialect, dialects that developed in Jewish communities in the Jewish diaspora, diaspora. The original Jewish language is Hebrew, supplanted as the primary vernacular by Aramaic following th ...

, Yiddish, and American Jews. She directs the Jewish Language Project at

Hebrew Union College Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

, which runs the Jewish Language Website and the Jewish English Lexicon. Benor is author of ''Becoming Frum: How Newcomers Learn the Language and Culture of Orthodox Judaism'' (2012), which won the 2013 Sami Rohr Choice Award for Jewish Literature. In 2021, she received a

National Jewish Book Award The Jewish Book Council (Hebrew: ), founded in 1944, is an organization encouraging and contributing to Jewish literature.Ashkenazi Jew Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Benor, Sarah Bunin Living people Columbia College (New York) alumni Stanford University alumni Hebrew Union College faculty Jewish scholars Jewish linguists American Ashkenazi Jews Jewish American academics Year of birth missing (living people)