New grant to shed light on Jewish view of discovery, conquest of the New World

(August 17, 2026)

Brandeis University

Flora Cassen, Lavine Family Director of the Brandeis Center for Jewish Studies and Director of the Study of Anti-Jewishness, has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to complete translations of texts offering a rarely seen Jewish perspective on the European colonization of the Americas.

Originally awarded in 2024, the three-year, $300,000 NEH grant is a partnership between Cassen and Ronnie Perelis of Yeshiva University to translate into English 16th century works by Joseph Ha-Kohen and Luis de Carvajal. The project will culminate with “Translating the Americas,” a two-volume book that will illustrate how Jews and conversos – Iberian converts to Christianity who held onto Judaism in secret – understood the existence of the new continent.

“These foundational humanities texts have been out of reach of most scholars and students,” Cassen said. “Translating them will bring cultural, ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity to studying the early Americas, European expansion, and post-expulsion Sephardi Jewry.”