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3 July 2015 
In Honor of David E.R. Dangoor, President of the American Sephardi Federation
Spain’s “Camp Kill-Jews” Gets a New Name” 
By Jonah Shepp, Slate
 
While the French citizens of La Mort aux Juifs (“Death to the Jews”) have twice resisted change, the Spanish citizens of Castrillo Matajudio (“Camp Kill-Jews”) recently voted for their villages name to revert to Castrillo Mota de Judíos (“Jews’ Hill Camp”). The original name change, which occurred in 1627, may have been due to conversos protesting their Catholic confession too much. 

Castrillo Mota de Judíos’s tumultuous connection to Jews is evident in its seal, which is adorned with the Star of David (Image courtesy of Wikimedia

The former Harat al-Yahud (Jewish Quarter), Cairo, Egypt, 2014 (Photo courtesy of Gamal/Diarna Geo-Museum
Reinventing Egypt’s Jews” 
By Steven A. Kook, Council of Foreign Relations

“In what can only be  described as a stunning turn of events, Jews—though not Israelis—have become ‘What’s Hot’in the [Middle East], and the Muslim Brotherhood has become ‘What’s Not.’”
Special Feature: A Sephardi-American Patriot’s Passion
 

 A first edition of another Stratford-connected Sephardi’s work, the first American-English translation of the siddur by Isaac Pinto, was one of the rare books and artifacts from the American Sephardi Federation’s collection on display in The David Berg Rare Book Room’s exhibit, Sephardic Journeys, which closed July 2nd (Photo courtesy of John Halpern/Center for Jewish History).
 
Grace Mendes Seixas Nathan (1752-1831) was born in Stratford, Connecticut, into a proud Sephardi family dedicated to the Patriots’ cause. Her brother, Gershom Mendes Seixas, preached persuasively on behalf of the principles of liberty. He convinced his congregation, Shearith Israel: The Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, to decamp New York rather than submit to saying prayers on behalf of King George III, after the city fell to the British in 1775 (see: “Unlocking a key to the Sephardic diaspora... in Stratford”). Seixas later served as one of the clergy at George Washington’s inaugural. 

Grace, a gifted writer, shared her family’s sentiments and poured her ardent love of America and the Jewish people into poems and correspondence. In celebration of this year’s Independence Day, we offer our readers a stirring passage from one of Grace’s letters to her niece, in which she proudly proclaims her Patriotism—and her contempt for British imperialist revanchism!—
during the War of 1812:
 
“...but I cannot for the life of me feel terrifiedbesides I am so true an Americanso warm a Patriot that I hold these mighty Armiesand their proud-arrogant-presumptuous and over-powering Nation as Beings that we have Conquered and shall Conquer againthis I persuade myself will be so. And may the Lord of Battles grant it may be so.”

(David de Sola Pool, “Some Letters of Grace Seixas Nathan, 1814-1821,” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, No. 37 (1947), p. 209. For a portrait of Grace and other members of the Seixas family, explore The American Jewish Historical Society’s Ambassador John L. Loeb, Jr. Database of Early American Jewish Portraits).
America’s Oldest Synagogue Wrestles With Court Battle — and Its Own Decline
By Paul Berger, Forward

Touro Synagogue was founded and sustained by waves of Sephardi immigrants until the beginning of the 19th century, after which it was home to Jews from Eastern Europe. Today, the Jewish community at Newport, Rhode Island, is fading, and there is a real possibility that America’s oldest synagogue will soon find itself without a congregation.   
Torah Ark, Touro Synagogue, Newport, Rhode Island (Photo courtesy of Touro Synagogue)  
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 “Religious Liberties and the Bill of Rights,” an online exhibit of the Ambassador John L. Loeb Visitors Center, Touro Synagogue, Newport, Rhode Island.

A Reading of George Washington’s Letter to the 
Jewish Congregation at Newport


3:15PM on The Fourth of July
in front of Fraunces Tavern
54 Pearl Street, Lower Manhattan 
 

The American Sephardi Federation proudly recommends joining Da’at Elohim: Temple of Universal Judaism for a meaningful Independence Day commemoration: a reading of George Washington’s August 1790 letter assuring “the children of the stock of Abraham” that every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree...." While addressed to Newport’s Sephardic community, Washington delivers a universal message:

The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy—a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

For further information contact: Jim Kaplan
Donate now and your tax-deductible contribution will help ASF “Connect, Collect, and Celebrate” Sephardi culture throughout the year with engaging programs and compelling publications. 
 


Contact us by email or phone (212-548-4486) to sponsor future issues of the Sephardi World Weekly in honor or memory of loved ones. 
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