Professor
Maurice Amado Chair in Sephardic Studies
UCLA Department of Anthropology
UCLA Department of History
UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures
Resident Member of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco
Faculty Fellow, Université Internationale de Rabat, Morocco
AOMAR BOUM is a Resident Member of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco, holder of the Maurice Amado Endowed Chair in Sephardic Studies at UCLA, and Professor in the Department of Anthropology, the Department of History, and the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles. Boum is also a Faculty Fellow at the Université Internationale de Rabat, Morocco. A historical anthropologist, Boum, a specialist of Moroccan and Middle Eastern Jewries, is interested in the place of religious and ethnic minorities such as Jews, Baha’is, Shias, and Christians in post-independence Middle Eastern and North African nation-states.
A native of Lamhamid oasis, Foum Zguid, Province of Tata, a small Saharan community in southeastern Morocco, Boum earned a PhD in Cultural Anthropology with two concentrations in Middle Eastern Studies and History from the University of Arizona, Tucson (2006), an MA in Applied Humanities with a concentration in Islamic Studies from Al Akhawayn University, Ifrane, Morocco (1997) and a BA in English Language and Literature with a concentration in Directing and Script-Writing from Cadi Ayyad University, Marrakesh, Morocco (1993). Boum has interdisciplinary training in anthropology, history, Islamic studies, theater, Middle Eastern and North African studies, and Judaic studies.
Boum is a member of the Academic Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum He is the co-founder of the Moroccan Jewish Studies Program at UCLA, co-founder of the Amazigh Studies initiative at UCLA, co-founder of UCLA-UIR ACCESS (America-Asia-Africa Center for Environment, Society and Sustainability), co-editor of Tamazgha Studies Journal, co-founder and co-editor of Souffles Monde Journal. Boum is the current interim director of the Center of Near Eastern Studies, UCLA. Since 2015, Boum has served as a board member of the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies, the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies, the UCLA Center of African Studies, and the UCLA Program of Islamic Studies. He initiated a series of agreements between American and Moroccan universities, including UCLA, the University of Arizona, Université Moulay Ismail, Meknes, Université Internationale de Rabat, and Al-Akhawayn University. He has served as a cultural consultant for Walt Disney for Wish and participated in the production of several documentaries. With a background in theater, cinema, directing, and scriptwriting, he has launched a series of comics and illustrated books titled Inside the Margins for K-12 and the public.
In addition to Memories of Absence: How Muslims Remember Jews in Morocco (2013) and The Holocaust and North Africa (2019), he has (co)-authored 11 books and more than 160 articles, encyclopedic entries, and essays, among many other works. Boum is co-editor of Wartime North Africa: A Documentary history, 1934-1950 (Stanford University Press, 2022); author, with artist Nadjib Berber of the graphic history Undesirables: A Holocaust Journey through North Africa (Stanford University Press, 2023), and author, with his daughter Majdouline Boum-Mendoza, of The Last Rekkas: Chronicles of a Foot Courier in Southern Morocco (2024). He is also currently completing Morocco and the Holocaust: The Story of Mohammed V Saving Jews during WWII, 1940-2020 (co-authored with Daniel Schroeter), a book project provisionally entitled Moroccan Kaftans and Hollywood Billboards: Tracing the Histories of Jewish Fashion Houses in Paris, Montreal, and Los Angeles, and a number of illustrated books.
Office: 316b Haines Building, UCLA
Email: aboum@anthro.ucla.edu