Event Details - Plagues, Famines, and Natural Disasters in the Ottoman Empire: An Environmental History of the Middle East. Lecture by Yaron Ayalon

Examining epidemics, famines, and earthquakes in the Ottoman Empire in the 17th and 18th century, Yaron Ayalon will discuss how disasters affected Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities. Ayalon asserts that religious identities and communal cooperation were always present in the Ottoman Empire, but the boundaries between confessional communities were porous. Indeed, religion was “neither the sole nor the primary social divider in Ottoman society at large.” The presentation provides a historical lens into natural disasters that affected Jewish communities in the Middle East and offers lessons on how we can approach current environmental challenges, climate change, and natural disasters.

Ayalon is a social historian of the Middle East, Ottoman Empire, Sephardic Jews, and Israel, and author of two books: Natural Disasters in the Ottoman Empire: Plague, Famine, and Other Misfortunes (Cambridge University Press, 2015), and Ottoman Jewry: Leadership, Charity, and Literacy (Brill, 2025). He has published over 20 articles on Jewish and Muslim charity, rabbinic leadership, and natural disasters in the Ottoman Empire and Middle East. Dr. Ayalon is Director of the Bennett Center for Judaic Studies at Fairfield University where he also serves as the Carl and Dorothy Bennett Chair in Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies. He has taught Middle Eastern, Jewish, and Israeli history, and courses such as The Arab-Israeli Conflict, Sephardic Jews in the Diaspora and Israel, and Thinking Outside the Box in the Jewish Tradition.

This presentation is part of the Jacob Perlow Series sponsored by the Office of Special Programs and co-sponsored by the departments of Environmental Studies & Sciences, Political Science, and History.

Free and open to the public.