Maurice Roumani’s Jews of Libya comprehensively examines Jewish life in the country and the community’s subsequent flight to Israel. Recalling the first essay he wrote on Libyan Jewry fifty-five years ago, Roumani proudly asserts: “It may be said that I've been working on this book since 1960.”
Benjamin Kweskin celebrated Shavuot in Kurdistan at the traditional tomb of the Biblical prophet Nachum, a half-hour drive from ISIS-controlled territory. After reading aloud a prayer traditionally recited at the graves of tzadikkim (the righteous), Benjamin “thanked God we were able to travel in peace, and asked that we be returned safely as well… I wondered when I would return to such a holy place, and if the synagogue would last another year.”
Nestled at the base of the first mountain ridge-line of the northern Iraqi highlands lies the purported tomb of the Prophet Nachum. Shavuot was known locally as the “festival of the pilgrimage.” During the Shavuot season several thousand people—some sources say almost the entire Jewish population of Mosul and surrounding villages—would arrive en masse. Young and old came together in special holiday dress and camped in the compound’s guest houses or in tents spread out in the surrounding fields.
In 2012, a team of Diarna researchers documented the shrine as part of a 10 day expedition to Iraqi-Kurdistan. Today, the tomb and many of the sites they digitally preserved are threatened by ISIS, which has already exploded the mosque in which Mosul’s shrine to Jonah resided — a brusque reminder of the precariousness of physical preservation.
Every day the synagogues, schools, and other structures that once composed Jewish life in scores of countries are decaying or being destroyed, and the last generation who remembers them is passing on. We are in a race against time to capture site data and record place-based stories before even the memory of these communities is forever lost.
Contact us immediately by email or phone (212-548-4486) if you have documentation or stories to share, expertise to contribute, or are otherwise interested in supporting our work. Donations to ASF on behalf of Diarna will help ensure that Jewish historical sites in the Middle East and North Africa are digitally preserved and made accessible to this and future generations.
Perhaps Spain wants to shape a tolerant, open future. Perhaps the country could use an economic boost. Either way, “Half a millennium after expelling its Jews, Spain passed a law granting the right of citizenship to their descendants.”
“In returning Shylock to his Sephardic, Ladino roots, Mr. Serero has given him depth and history. When Shylock realizes that Jessica, his beloved daughter has betrayed him... he breaks into a tragic Ladino song of farewell.” ~ Chana Lieba Rosenbluth, Jewish Voice and Opinion
David Serero’s The Merchant of Venice June 22nd and 24th
at the Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street, New York, NY
The American Sephardi Federation invites you to the world première of David Serero’s Merchant of Venice. The French-Moroccan baritone opera singer directs and stars (as Shylock) in his own Sephardi adaptation of Shakespeare’s play about love, commerce, and bigotry.
On view through June 2015 in The David Berg Rare Book Room Sephardic Journeys A new exhibition at the Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street, New York, NY
The Sephardic Diaspora extends from Shiraz and São Paulo to Salonika, Seattle, and Sheepshead Bay. What unites the beautiful, complex, and diverse mosaic culture of Sephardim is a history of journeys—sometimes by choice, too frequently by force—that have driven Sephardi travelers and traders, publishers and philosophers, scientists and singers to transcend borders and barriers as they pioneered today’s globalized world.
The rare books and artifacts in this exhibit, Sephardic Journeys, reflect a rich tradition of scholarship and culture shaped by migrations, and they invite, in turn, reflection upon the physical, emotional and spiritual journeys of Jewish history.
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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).
Dar Bishi Synagogue, Tripoli, Libya, 2011 (Photo courtesy of 
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