Ema Shah is a taboo-breaking, superstar vocalist from Kuwait who dresses as she pleases─no simple matter in a region rife with Islamists─and sings Hebrew songs. In recognition of Shah’s “interfaith approach to music and civil society activism,” the American Sephardi Federation (ASF) recently granted her the Pomegranate Award, and her opening night performance at the ASF’s 19th New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival included, fittingly enough, songs by 2014 Pomegranate Award recipient Enrico Macias and Ofra Haza.
“Oded Halahmy” By Rahel Musleah, Na'amat (pp. 12-17)
The art of Oded Halahmy─American Sephardi Federation Board Member, proprietor of the Pomegranate Gallery (in SoHo and Jaffa), and founder of the Oded Halahmy Foundation for the Arts─is rooted in Iraq, the land of his birth, but extends to Israel and New York City, the two places where he lives and creates today. Combining traditional religious forms, mythic figures, natural elements (especially pomegranates), and Halahmy's desire to create a world in which Iraq, Israel, and the U.S. live in harmony, Halahmy's work has been shown at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and in ASF's new gallery at The Center for Jewish History.
R’ Moshe Havusha, R’ David Menahem, and Yoni Sharon (Photo courtesy of YouTube)
With Passover less than a month away, SWW hopes to get you in the mood with a special collaboration between R' Moshe Havusha and R' David Menahem singing the Passover piyyut, "El Melech Go'el u'Mo'shiya” (“God is a King who Redeems”)
A 400 year-old copy of an Ethiopian Bible was recently donated to Israel's National Library in a festive ceremony. Written in Ge’ez and called the “Orit,” from the Aramaic word “Oraita” traditionally used to refer to the Torah, the scroll contains the five books of Moses, as well as Joshua, Judges, and Ruth.
April 6, 10, 12, 14, and 17 Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street, New York City
An opera by Giuseppe Verdi, adapted by and starring David Serero as Nabucco. Building on the biblical accounts of the Babylonian Exile found in Jeremiah and Daniel, Verdi’s Nabucco (Nebuchadnezzar) combines political and love intrigues with some of the greatest songs ever written (including Va pensiero, The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves).
Please click here to purchase tickets (General Admission $26; VIP $36)
Thursday, April 7 at 6:00PM Center for Jewish History 15 West 16th Street, New York City
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, will be honored on April 7 at The Center for Jewish History. Join the American Sephardi Federation, Portuguese Consulate of New York, the Sousa Mendes Foundation, and the Municipality of Almeida, Portugal, for a reception inaugurating a new Leon Levy Gallery exhibition, which will run through Friday, September 9, 2016.
The ‘Jerusalem of the Balkans’: The Rise and Fall of the Jews of Salonica
Wednesday, April 13 at 7:30PM Sephardic Temple in Cedarhurst
775 Branch Boulevard, Woodmere, NY
Once home to the largest Ladino-speaking Jewish community in the world, the Aegean port city of Salonica (Thessaloniki) provides a unique window into the broader Sephardic Jewish world. In this lecture, Professor Devin Naar, Isaac Alhadeff Professor in Sephardic Studies at the University of Washington and The American Sephardi Federation’s representative on The Center for Jewish History’s Academic Advisory Board, will explore the history of this “Jerusalem of the Balkans,” where Jews represented half of the city’s residents and the port closed every week in observance of Shabbat.
Drawing on original research materials in six languages that form the basis of Naar’s forthcoming book, Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece (Stanford University Press), the lecture will focus on the dramatic changes that accompanied the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of modern Greece in the 19th and 20th centuries. To what extent could Salonica’s Jews remain Jewish while also becoming Greek? Ultimately, the Nazi occupation of Salonica resulted in the complete destruction of the city’s Jewish community and few echoes of the memory of Jewish Salonica may be heard today.
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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).