The project investigates practices relating to vernacular religion practiced by Jews in a Muslim society within a post-colonial context. The objective of this historical ethnography is to articulate the dynamics of a Jewish-Muslim cultural translation of practice, and tounderstand how reflecting on folklore fuel processes of exoticization and apologetics. The project comprises three sections corresponding to the tentative chapters in the projected book. Section one reflects chapters that deal with the emic interpretations of Yemeni Jews and Muslims to folk religion. Section two reflects chapters that focus on cases of ethnographic representations and their dynamics. Section three returns to the emic interpretation of contemporary practitioners in Israel. The methodological contribution of the expected monograph lies in its interdisciplinary approach that illuminates a broader investigation of the historiography of Jewish folklore in a Muslim context.

Tom Fogel is a Folklorist, specializing in the History of ethnographic research of Yemen, and Jewish culture in Judeo-Arabic languages. His research interests include ethnographic perspectives of craft and music, and he is a board member of the SIEF Working Group on Tradition Archives. Tom wrote his PhD in the program for Folklore and Folk Culture Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and is currently a research fellow at the Department of Jewish History, Tel Aviv University. Previously, he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at The Department of Jewish History and The Center for the Study of Conversion and Inter-Religious Encounters, Ben Gurion University of the Negev.