Dr. Zvi Keren was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, and is a member of Kibbutz
Kfar Menahem. For over 25 years, Zvi has been studying Bulgarian's Jews,
including photographing, mapping and documenting the old cemeteries
there. He led the documentation and photographing over 200,000
documents from the main archives in Sofia and the province cities. Dr.
Keren is responsible for the editing and complementing the "electronic
sheets" of 34 communities in Bulgaria in the Jewish Diaspora Museum
(Beth Hatefutsoth) in Tel Aviv.
Since 2004 he has been head of the "Bulgarian Section the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Givat Ram, Jerusalem, where thousands of documents, photographs, newspapers, cassettes and DVDs with recorded stories are stored, in addition to over 600 books in many languages, about the Bulgarian Jews.
Dr. Keren published two books which was translated to English:
The Jews of Rus uk, Istanbul 2011;
The Jews of Karnobat, Sofia 2014.
Dr. Zvi Keren is married with three children and nine grandchildren.In this superb collection of articles, Zvi Keren explores different aspects of Jewish lives in the small towns of Northern Bulgaria from the 16th century until the end of World War II. This study reflects Keren's commitment to study the diversified history of those mostly Sephardi communities and theirrelations with the surrounding societies. Keren painstakingly worked in private archives, libraries in Bulgaria, France, Israel, UK and Turkey and surveyed sites and locations that the Bulgarian Jews left behind in his constant search for written, oral and visual testimonies shedding light on Jewish lives in Bulgaria. This research was conducted with much attention, love and dedication. The volume, therefore, is a tribute to the range of Keren's scholarship and his devotion for the studying the history of Bulgarian Jewry.
This impressive collection of insightful essays and carefully curated primary materials is based on decades of exhaustive research into Sephardic Jewish life in the territories that constitute modern day Bulgaria. Zvi Keren has unearthed and provided and vital documentation on diverse aspects of Jewish life in this region under Ottoman and Bulgarian rule, with a focus on the important (primarily) Sephardic Jewish communities that inhabited the port cities of the Danube - Bulgaria's northern border. He interprets with grace and verve the complexity of Jewish life, with a temporal focus on the nineteenth century, a fascinating period of reform and transformation in this region.
This book is a treasure trove for the historian or enthusiast of Jewish and/or Bulgarian history, as it not only incisively interprets, but also provides or offers a road map to a myriad of sources--archival documents, a detailed personal journal from the period (provided in translation), secondary sources, archival and more recent photographs of important existent (as well as endangered or destroyed) places and monuments. Finally this work is an enlightening as it is delightful to read, offering a nuanced picture of a fascinating ethnic community on the Balkan Peninsula."
