11 September 2015
Dedicated to the heroes of Flight 93 and those who, 14 years after al-Qaeda’s atrocity at New York, continue to courageously “confront the blood-stained face [of] history (Camus).”
Jews lived on the Greek island of Rhodes for 2,000 years, “up until July 23, 1944, when the last among them were deported to Auschwitz.” Memorial services have been held on the island in recent years for the original Jewish community. According to long-time ASF supporter Stella Levi, a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor, “we were all one family, and that’s what we are trying to pass on to the new generation.”
The great Jerusalem payytan Moshe Habusha gives a heart-rending, virtuoso vocal performance of R’Yehuda Ibn Abas’ 12th century Rosh HaShanah piyyut, “Eyt Sha’arei Ratson Lehitpa’tayyach (When the Gates of Mercy Open),” a plea for God “to remember on my behalf, on the day of judgment, the one who bound (Abraham), the one who was bound (Isaac), and the altar.”
Dr. Edy Cohen of Bar-Ilan University left Lebanon with his family at the age of 23. In a remembrance that he recently penned for Al-Wattan, “ From a Judeo-Arab Heart to the Gracious Kuwaiti People,” Cohen recalls a more tolerant Middle East: “as Christians, Muslims, and Jews, we would play together in the alleys. School benches joined us together without distinguishing among us on the basis of differences in religious affiliation.”
King David Nursing Home & Rehabilitation Center 2266 Cropsey Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, 11214
Join the Payytan R'Avram Amar for Moroccan-style Sephardi Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur services at the former Sephardic Home in Brooklyn. Complimentary full Kiddush meals and housing will be provided.
Please call to confirm: (347) 556.2276
Alexandrian Summer
September 10th at 7PM at the Center for Jewish History 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY
Before King Farouk’s fall in 1952, Egypt “was a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-sexual, multi-everything society where Coptic, Jew, Muslim, Catholic, and Greek Orthodox lived tolerably well together and where multilingualism was the order of the day.” Egypt’s Jews expected that co-existence would last forever.
Join the American Jewish Historical Society with American Sephardi Federation for a multi-faceted look at Yitzhak Gormezano-Goren’s recently translated novel, Alexandrian Summer, which explores how it all fell apart.
The evening will feature a reading with the book’s author, a première screening of Amit Goren’s film, Alexandrian Summers Again and Forever, and lively discussion.
$10 general; $7 AJHS / ASF/ CJH members; $5 students and seniors
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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).