This book scrutinizes the hitherto-unchallenged idea of the Sephardic identity as a mix of Spaniard and Jew. Ojeda-Mata examines the processes by which this conceptualization of the Sephardim developed from the nineteenth century onward and the consequences of this conceptualization for Sephardic Jews during World War II and in the present day.

This book offers a comparative study of the Jewish response to identity structures in Eastern Europe and the United States from 1890 to 1930 in narratives by immigrant writers from the Pale of Settlement and Romania.