The families of the four Jews murdered in Paris — at least three of whom had roots in Tunisia and/or Algeria — decided to bury their loved ones together in Israel. This assertion of their particular identity contains a universal message: “The business of physical resistance to those who wish to destroy us begins with a proud and unyielding recalling and assertion of our own identity, history, and values.”
Dr. Aryeh Tepper, ASF’s Director of Publications and Online Educational Programming (including the Sephardi World Weekly and Sephardi Ideas Monthly), sat down with Voice of Israel Radio for a discussion about marrying into an Israeli-Yemenite family, the continuing relevance of Maimonides’ Arab-Islamic style of enlightenment, and how Mizrahi music, once on the margins of Israeli life, has come to dominate the mainstream.
Dr. Aryeh Tepper's interactive lecture, "Mizrahi Music, Piyyut, and the Search for Israeli Identity," Center for Jewish History, 20 November 2014
Recipe of the Week: Syrian Hamud By Marilyn Faham
Ingredients: 3 large potatoes (peeled and cubed); 3 stalks celery (cleaned and sliced); 3 carrots (peeled and sliced); 20 kibbe balls; vegetable oil.
Ingredients for Sauce: ½ glass water; ½ glass lemon juice; 2 tsp dried mint leaves; 2 cloves garlic (crushed or minced); 1 tsp. sugar; salt; pepper.
Directions: 1.) Mix all ingredients for sauce well and set aside, 2). Saute kibbe balls in vegetable oil, 3). Cover kibbe balls with sauce and simmer for 5 mins, 4.) Prepare vegetables and add into sauce, 5.) Cook for 1 hour on low heat; add 1 cup of water as liquid evaporates, 6.) Serve over rice.
Emil Zrihan (Photo courtesy of globalFEST). Click here to hear Zrihan preform Tunisian chanteur Salim Halali’s “Elli Galbou Safi” with the Israeli Andalusian Orchestra.
In New York for a rare stateside appearance Emile Zrihan, the Moroccan-Israeli payytan, recalls in an interview how “thousands of North African Jews like him arrived in Israel in the 1950s” to discover a “cultural world dominated by the Ashkenazim.... [t]here was little interest in [Mizrahi] music or arts.” In Israel from the age of ten, Zrihan returns to Morocco to perform Arabic mawal and Judeo-Andalusian songs: “‘Moroccan Arabs and Jews were all the time together,’ he says. ‘The Moroccan Arabs are not fanatics. They’re open....’”
In 1947, a group of Jewish fighters, including founding members of the Mossad, launched Operation Michaelberg, through which 100 Iraqi Jews made aliyah. The clandestine effort to subvert the British clampdown on Jewish immigration to pre-state Israel involved two American World War II veteran pilots flying a newly purchased Curtiss C-46 Commando transport aircraft into Iraq. All but forgotten, the plane was recently rescued from an Argentine scrapyard, and will soon be installed at the Atlit Detention Camp Museum.
Iraqi Jews disembarking from the transport aircraft during Operation Michaelberg (Photo courtesy of Israel HaYom).
Announcement: The polls are now open for the 37th World Zionist Congress (WZO) elections. The WZO decides on the allocation of funding for Jewish educational programs in Israel and around the world. ASF Board Member Rabbi Elie Abadi, M.D., is leading “Ohavei Zion - The World Sephardic Zionist Organization” slate, which is committed to “shar[ing] the beauty of our Sephardic Heritage with our Jewish brethren.” Josephine Mairzadeh, ASF’s Director of Development, is also an Ohavei Zion candidate. Click here to learn more about the WZO and Ohavei Zion.
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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, NY., 10011).