18 September 2015
Dedicated to the great jurist, exegete, and patriot, Rabbi Akiva, who was martyred at the hands of the Romans on the 5th of Tishrei (this year, September 18th) 134 CE.
Earlier this year, after a Tunisian Jew was murdered in France, the small, 2,000 year-old Jewish community received an outpouring of condolences from fellow Tunisians. Despite such signs of solidarity, Jews still face discrimination: for example, Jewish men tend to wear baseball caps to cover their kippot in public.
Special Launch Party for The Sephardi Report Feature (Audio): “Ya’alah, Ya’alah”
The Honorable Consul General Manuela Bairos (Consulate General of Portugal at New York) and Honorable Consul Hiroyasu Tanigaki (Consulate General of Japan at New York) joined ASF’s President, the Honorary Consul General David E.R. Dangoor (Consulate General of Sweden at New York), and ASF’s Executive Director, Jason Guberman, for The Sephardi Report’s Launch Party (Photo courtesy of Chrystie Sherman).
Dignitaries and subscribers gathered on Wednesday (9 September) to celebrate the launch of The Sephardi Report, a magazine dedicated to shining a light on contemporary Sephardi creativity and excellence in the arts, scholarship, entrepreneurship, rabbinic thought, and philanthropy. The evening featured a performance by Samuel Thomas’ New York Andalus Ensemble. Click here to hear their rendition of R’ Yisrael Najara’s classic piyyut, “Ya’alah, Ya’alah.”
While employed by the American embassy in Cairo from 2012-2014, Seth Wikas moonlighted for the city’s tiny Jewish community by reading from the Torah on holidays, blowing the shofar on Rosh HaShanah, and, after finding a “how-to” guide online, serving as the local hevra kadisha (burial society), for two members of the community who passed away.
September 20th 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
Moroccan-Sephardi Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur
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
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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).