8 April 2016 In honor of António Baptista Ribeiro, Mayor of Almeida, Portugal, who spoke at last night’s opening of “Portugal, The Last Hope: Sousa Mendes’ Visas for Freedom,” a new exhibition on view in ASF’s Leon Levy Gallery through September at The Center for Jewish History
21 year-old Yityish Aynaw’s journey to becoming Miss Israel began in a small Jewish village in Northern Ethiopia. Orphaned by age 12, she made aliyah with her brother, moved in with her grandparents, and was working in a clothing store following her mandatory army service when a friend entered Yityish into the Miss Israel competition. Her dream? “Having a big family, a big house and a lot of kids.”
The short stories in Ayelet Tsabari’s The Best Place on Earth explore, “the tug of war between Israel and abroad, no matter where you live.” The stories often treat Israeli culture in a distinctly Yemenite Jewish key, as Tsabai comes from a Yemenite Jewish family. But the main theme remains: “How does an Israeli write about the experience of leaving Israel behind?” According to critic Adam Kirsch, this remarkable book, “may be the herald of a whole new genre of Jewish literature.”
Itamar Borochov performed at the opening of “Sephardic Journeys: An Evening of Exploration,” celebrating the launch of the eponymous exhibit in The David Berg Rare Book Room. (Photo courtesy of Irina Tsukerman)
Watch as the Borochovim, featuring the young jazz lions Itamar and Avri Borochov and their legendary father, Israel Borochov, turn the traditional Bukharin melody for Kadesh Urchatz (“Sanctify and Cleanse”) from the Passover Haggadah into an avant-garde jazz workout
Sarah Aroeste is a Ladino musician who recently gave birth to her second daughter. Taking inspiration from her children, Aroeste’s fourth album, “Ora de Despertar” or “Time to Wake Up,” is “a kid-friendly collection focusing on the times of day, food, body parts, numbers, nature and more.” Aroeste’s latest offering is also animated by an educational imperative: “A lot of people think that Ladino is extinct, or at least on its way to a slow death. I want to make sure that people know this isn’t the case.”
Sephardi mom and Ladino musician, Sarah Aroeste (Photo courtesy of Sarah Aroeste)
Sunday, April 10 at 9:45AM Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun
125 East 85th Street, New York, NY 10028
From the organizers: “Overview
The Conference will explore the extraordinary history of Jews in Turkey. Following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, they were welcomed by the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II who gave new hope to the persecuted Sephardic Jews by ordering the governors of the provinces of the Ottoman Empire ‘not to refuse the Jews entry or cause them difficulties, but to receive them cordially.’
Program:
9:45 am – Introductory Remarks
Mr. Ertan Yalçın, Consul General of the Republic of Turkey in New York
Hon. Dan Donovan, Congressman representing the 11th District of New York
Hon. Ali Sarıkaya, Member of the Turkish Parliament, Chairman of the Turkey-United States Parliamentary Friendship Group, and Chief Advisor to the Prime Minister of Turkey
10:00 am – 10:40 am
Naim Guleryuz, ‘The Jews of Turkey – From the Quincentennial and Beyond’
10:40 am – 11:00 am – COFFEE
11:00 am – 11:40 am
Prof. Dr. Ozan Arslan, ‘The Young Turks and the Ottoman Jews at the Beginning of the 20th Century: Converging Interests and Common Threat Perceptions in a Polarized Europe and the Near East’
11:40 am – 12:20 pm
Prof. Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis, ‘Sephardic Houses in Ottoman Damascus in the Late 18th and 19th Centuries’
Note: ASF is not a co-sponsor of this conference, but our researchers have been invited to participate as honored guests of the Consulate General of Turkey in New York. We provide this information as a public service to our constituents who would like to attend
Nabucco, Opera by Verdi
April 10 (Sold Out), 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)
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.
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).
