• Royce Fellowship
Evan
Pelz

Concentration 

History; Judaic Studies

Award Year 

2010
Jewish Internationalism and the Jews of Ethiopia in the Early Twentieth Century

Faculty Sponsor: Nancy Jacobs

Between 1904 and 1946, Jacques Faitlovitch worked with various Jewish organizations to try and aid the Ethiopian Jewish community. His efforts were extremely significant as these Jews were largely ignored by the rest of the Jewish world until their large-scale immigration to the State of Israel in the 1980s. Evan researched primary sources in Paris, France and Tel Aviv, Israel in order to better understand the perspective of Faitlovitch's Ethiopian students, as well as place these interactions in wider contexts of religious missionary work in Africa, European colonialism, inter-Jewish relations and their future immigration to Israel.

After Evan graduated in May 2011, he moved to Israel where he served in the Israel Defense Forces for two years as a Operations Sergeant at the Civilian and Liaison Administration to the Gaza Strip. Currently he is studying law at Georgetown University Law Center.