While the Middle East is being overrun by a tidal wave of intolerance, Iraqi-Kurdistan has emerged as a beacon of diversity. In the latest example of Kurdish pluralism, Holocaust Remembrance Day was observed in the Kurdish capital city of Erbil. Most Kurdish Jews left the country in 1948, but some claim that “hundreds in the Kurdish region of Iraq chose to convert to Islam to be able to stay.” However, “Since the fall of the regime of Saddam Hussein, many have begun to open up about their Jewish ancestry.” Some of the participants at the ceremony in Erbil openly wore kippot.
The Jewish community of Crete was destroyed during the Second World War, but Jewish life has not completely disappeared from the island. Reconstruction of the Etz Hayyim synagogue, the only remnant of the island’s Jewish Quarter, began in 1996, and the synagogue reopened in 1999. Anti-Semites torched the synagogue twice in 2010, but this summer Etz Hayyim “will host both its annual memorial service for the hundreds of Crete’s Jews lost during WWII, as well as an exhibit marking the 20th anniversary of the reconstruction.”
Footage of the legendary Israeli vocalist Ahuva Ozeri singing her classic, “Kol Kore’li Ba’Midbar” (“A Voice Calls Me from the Desert”), which captures the spiritual depth of Mizrahi music at its best, and the harsh difficulty of Israeli life during the poor, government rationed early years of the new state.
The post-Passover holiday of Mimouna took on a political twist this year in North Africa as hundreds of Moroccan Jews used the holiday to protest the U.N.’s characterization of Western Sahara as “occupied” by Morocco. According to Sam Ben Chetrit, a resident of Israel and president of the World Federation of Moroccan Jewry: “Moroccan Jewry in the kingdom and outside stand united in defense of Morocco’s claim on Sahara, and against those who try to portray Morocco as a foreign occupier in its own land.”
Moroccan Jews in America joined other Moroccans in a similar protest at the UN, 21 March 2016 (Photo courtesy of Morocco World News)
May 19th at 6:30PM Center for Jewish History 15 West 16th Street, New York City
Presented by the Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute at Center for Jewish History and American Sephardi Federation
Sarina Roffé, founder of the Sephardic Heritage Project and an expert on Brooklyn’s Sephardic Jewish community, traces the journey of the Kassins, a rabbinic dynasty with rumored Converso heritage, from Spain to modern Brooklyn, using traditional genealogy methodology as well as DNA testing. Roffé also explores the claims that some descendants are rabbis who serve a secret Jewish community in Ireland. The last descendant of the Kassins is currently serving as Chief Rabbi of Brooklyn’s Sephardic community.
May 24th at 7PM Center for Jewish History 15 West 16th Street, New York City
Presented by the Sousa Mendes Foundation and American Sephardi Federation
Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese Consul-General in Bordeaux, France, courageously rescued thousands of refugees, many of them Jews, from the Nazis in the spring of 1940 by issuing visas contrary to the strict orders of his government. In June 2013, filmmaker Semyon Pinkhasov followed a group of visa recipient families, along with members of the Sousa Mendes family, as they embarked on a pilgrimage retracing their families’ footsteps after 73 years. They were “searching for Sousa Mendes” – looking for traces and clues of a lost history.
Screening $5; tickets are available at the door.
Guided tours of the exhibition will be given prior to and following the screening.
May 22nd from 12-6PM
Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue & Museum
280 Broome Street (between Allen St and Eldridge St on the Lower East Side of Manhattan)
Join ASF at the Greek Jewish Festival as we celebrate the unique Romaniote and Sephardic heritage of the Lower East Side. Experience authentic kosherGreek foods and homemade Greek pastries, traditional Greek dancing and live Greek and Sephardic music, an outdoor marketplace full of vendors, arts and educational activities for kids, and much more!
June 2nd-9th Manhattan JCC 334 Amsterdam Avenue at 76th Street
New York
Celebrate the best new movies coming out of Israel's thriving industry at the Israel Film Center Festival, New York's leading festival for Israeli film. Join actors, directors, and more for a week of great cinema at JCC Manhattan, June 2-9.
And join the American Sephardi Federation for a focus on Sephardi and Mizrahi culture, with an Opening Night screening of Baba Joon, winner of the 2015 Ophir Award for Best Picture and Israel's first Persian-language film, as well as Encirclements (Hakafot), a touching and complex portrait of a Mizrahi family starring Lior Ashkenazi (Walk on Water) and Assi Levy (Aviva, My Love).
Purchase tickets here starting May 18th with discount code "SEPHARDI"
June 16th, 23rd, 26th, 28th, and 30th Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street, New York City
ASF’s theatrical season (Merchant of Venice, Nabucco) concludes with David Serero’s Othello, a Moroccan adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic play about love and war, reason and race, fortuna and virtù. The production features Serero (as Othello), a diverse cast, and traditional music.
April 7th through September 9th Center for Jewish History 15 West 16th Street, New York City
The American Sephardi Federation, Portuguese Consulate of New York, the Sousa Mendes Foundation, and the Municipality of Almeida, Portugal proudly present a new exhibition in the Leon Levy Gallery honoring Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the courageous and creative Portuguese diplomat who saved Salvador Dali, the authors of Curious George, and thousands of other Holocaust refugees.
Please click here for additional information and viewing hours
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The American Sephardi Federation's Sephardi House is located at the Center for Jewish History (15 West 16th St., New York, New York, 10011).
