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14 NOVEMBER 2014                                                 
In Honor of Shahram Yaghobzadeh and Elias Kalimian of the Iranian American Jewish Federation

Ma'alla Jewish cemetery in Aden, Yemen (Photo courtesy of Diarna Geo-Museum/Ben Ragsdale) 
New Novel Features Jewish Henna
By Miriam Steinberg-Egeth, Jewish Exponent

Inspired by her Yemeni-Israeli aunt, Nomi Eve’s second novel, Henna House, is
an intimate family portrait of Yemeni-Jewish life in the early 20th century that explores the peril of the Orphans Decree, which held that Jewish children under age 12 who lost their fathers could be taken from their families and converted.
 
Site of the Week: Cheikh Raymond’s Record Store in Constantine, Algeria 
By Diarna Geo-Museum
 

Enrico Macias is one of France’s most popular singer-songwriters. Entertaining audiences around the world for over 50 years, the artistry and the pain that drive Macias’ music lie buried across the Mediterranean, in his native city of Constantine, Algeria -- a city he has not seen in over five decades. His improbable journey to stardom begins with a small record store in the city’s casbah... and the murder of the store’s owner in 1961.
Is world Jewry ready for another holiday?” 
By Shai Afsai, Jerusalem Post

Once celebrated only in Ethiopia, the Jewish holiday expressing longing for Jerusalem, Sigd (“Prostration” in Ge’ez), is now an official state holiday in Israel. 

 

An Ethiopian Jew celebrating Sigd in Israel (Photo courtesy of the Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews) 

Unveiling of the memorial to Salonika's Jewish community 
Boutaris breaks silence on Thessaloniki’s hidden shame” 
By Stavros Tzimas, Kathimerini

Condemning both the eradication of Salonika’s Jewish community during World War II and subsequent decades of denial by city officials, Mayor Yiannis Boutaris recently unveiled a monument atop the former Jewish cemetery. Built by Sephardim in 1493, the cemetery was destroyed in 1942. 
 
Mumbai’s Muslim engraver at work in Jewish cemetery” 
By Agence France-Presse

Mohammad Abdul Yaseen has been tending to the Jewish tombstones of Mumbai’s central cemetery for over 40 years, inscribing memorials in English, the Indian language of Marathi, and Hebrew, a language in which this former temporary worker has become fluent.



 
Mr. Yaseen engraving a Jewish gravestone (Photo credit: AFP Photo/Indranil Mukherjee)
 

The 11th edition of Essouira's Festival des Andalousies Atlantiques
The Spirit of Essaouira at the Heart of Judeo-Arabic Culture” 
By Bernard Foccroulle, Huffington Post

The Moroccan city of Essaouria recently celebrated Morocco’s Jewish-Arab musical heritage with a festival organized by André Azoulay, a senior advisor to King Mohammed VI, and starring the Moroccan-Israeli payytan, Rabbi Haim Louk.  
Josephine Mairzadeh, ASF’s Director of Development, is featured in “Reading Tehran in Tel-Aviv,” a film that will be screened and discussed at Queens College’s Center for Jewish Studies (Rosenthal Library 230) on November 18th at 7:15PM. The event is being made possible by the generosity of Elsi and Leon (z’l) Levy. Watch the trailer here

Join us at the Center for Jewish History (15 West 16th Street) on November 20th at 7PM for “Mizrahi Music, Piyyut, and the Search for Israeli Identity,” a multimedia-rich lecture by Dr. Aryeh Tepper, ASF's Director of Publications and Online Educational Programming. Click here for more details and to RSVP. 

Class @ ASFs Sephardi House in the Center for Jewish History: The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research's Jews and the Colonial Project starts November 25th. Members receive a 10% Discount. Click here for additional information and to register
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The American Sephardi Federation is located at the Center for Jewish History (15 West 16th St., New York, NY., 10011). 

American Sephardi Federation | http://www.Sephardi.House | info@Sephardi.House | (212) 294-8350

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