Newswise — Brooklyn, NY -- Writer, historian and playwright Jane Mushabac has been named the 2011 Scholar on Campus at New York City College of Technology (City Tech).

She will perform and discuss her Sephardic short story “Pasha: Ruminations of David Aroughetti” on Monday, April 11, from 5 to 6:30 p.m., in City Tech's Atrium Amphitheater, 300 Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn. The public is invited to this free event.

Dr. Mushabac, associate professor of English, specializes in American literature, New York City history and Judeo-Spanish Ottoman-American culture. She wrote “Pasha” under the pen name Shalach Manot (which refers to the gifts of food given on the holiday of Purim to friends and family). It’s about a Turkish Jew in the deteriorating Ottoman Empire in the early 1900s who talks tough like a pasha, but it’s ironic because he has neither status nor money.

Dr. Mushabac wrote the story in Judeo-Spanish -- Ladino -- and translated it into English for publication in the Jewish journal Midstream. Ladino is the language spoken by Spanish Jews for well over 500 years, since their 1492 expulsion from Spain and migration to the Ottoman Empire. “The language includes many Turkish and Hebrew words,” she explains. This July, Sephardic Horizons, founded last year, will publish the original Ladino version of “Pasha.”

Professor Ahmet Doğan, whose 19-year-old son Furkan was killed aboard during the Israeli army raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla from Turkey in May, is in Washington in an attempt to convince American officials to open an investigation into the raid.

Furkan was an American citizen who was born in the U.S. His father will be meeting with Congress members Tuesday and on Wednesday speak with members of the State Department and the Ministry of Justice.

The Mavi Marmara was part of six-boat flotilla that was heading for Gaza from Turkey. Israeli naval troops boarded the boat on May 31, 2010. The activists on board the boat resisted, and nine people were killed.