09 June 2017
Mazel tov/Mabrouk to NY Jewish Week “36 under 36” honoree Cheri Srour, a disability advocate, “model of resilience,” alumna of the Yeshiva of Flatbush, and member of Brooklyn’s Lebanese Sephardi community
In this podcast, Stanford University’s Aron Rodrigue, Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and History, a member of ASF’s Advisory Board, and the dean of Sephardi Studies in the United States, discusses the rise and fall of Jewish Salonica. How did Jews arrive in Salonica? How did they organize communal life in the city? And how did it all end?
The Gabbay Family in Egypt (Photo courtesy of Solomon Gabbay/The Jewish Advocate)
At the start of the Six Day War, Solomon Gabbay, a then 26-year-old Cairo University medical student whom the rabbinate had declared the ‘physician to the Jewish community of Cairo,’ was arrested. Imprisoned without ever being charged, Gabbay was part of the discriminatory round-up of all of Egypt’s Jewish men between the ages of 18 and 60, who were subsequently either expelled or held for up to three years in the Abu Za’abal and Liman Tora prisons.
“‘For the next six months,’ Gabbay said, ‘we remained in the cell, packed so tightly that we slept on the floor squeezed together, lying head to toe on the bare floor like sardines, with no room even to roll over. At night, the guards would wake the prisoners up and force them to yell slogans like, ‘Down with Israel,’ and ‘Arabic Palestine.’ In the morning, we were taken into the hallway and made to walk on our elbows and knees like dogs. A prisoner with mental development issues would laugh when the guards made them do this, and his laughter prompted beatings.’”
Gabbay also described in a recent talk at the Boston Vilna Shul’s Havurah on the Hill, how “the sanitation was unspeakable, and food was scarce,” yet he and his brother, Moses, A”H, managed to keep kosher, by eating ful medames (cooked fava beans) and pita, as well as by trading meat rations for additional bread.
Special thanks to The Jewish Advocate for granting ASF permission to share this important and timely article with Sephardi World Weekly readers.
Please note: If you wish to share The Jewish Advocate article, please either link to the original here or forward this complete newsletter.
Manny Dhahari on the YU Israel Winter Mission, Samarian Hills, Israel , 2016
(Photo courtesy of The Jewish Press)
Manny Dahari is a Jew who lived in Yemen until 2006, when, as a young teenager, he fled for the United States. Dahari spent ten years trying to get his parents and siblings out, finally succeeding between October 2015 and March, 2016, when they landed in Israel. Now reunited with his family, Dahari is renegotiating life with his parents after years of independent living in the West: “There’s a big culture difference and sometimes I find myself wondering what to talk about. I also have to get used to having a mom and dad again and having them tell me what to do… And yet, despite it all, this is a dream come true.”
Sunday, June 11
2:00 - 7:00 p.m. The Sephardic Jewish Center of Forest Hills
67-67 108th Street
Forest Hills, NY 11375
We are thrilled to announce the first Celebration of Judeo-Spanish in New York on Sunday, June 11, 2017! Judeo-Spanish, also known as Ladino, Judezmo, and Haketia, is the native language of Jewish communities from Greece, Turkey, the Balkans, and parts of North Africa.
To help preserve this beautiful language for the next generation, the Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America is partnering with the Department of Judaic Studies at Binghamton University to create a day devoted to learning Judeo-Spanish and celebrating our common Sephardic culture.
The Celebration is open to individuals of all ages and backgrounds and will include lectures from prominent Judeo-Spanish academics, Sephardic community leaders, a Sephardic Community Panel, and our special Ora de Alegria (social hour), featuring delicious Sephardic food, wine, and traditional music.
Wednesday, June 21
5:00 - 7:30 p.m. Coolidge Auditorium
Thomas Jefferson Building
10 First Street, SE
Washington, DC 20540
The program is a mock appeal of Shylock’s case from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, taking place after the play itself ends. Actor Edward Gero will portray Shylock. The appeal will be heard by five judges including Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsburg; Professors Suzanne Reynolds and Richard Schneider of Wake Forest University Law School; former U.S. Ambassador to the OECD Connie Morella; and Micaela del Monte from the European Parliament. The case will be argued by Michael Klotz of Jones Day; Law Librarian and Professor Teresa Miguel-Stearns of Yale Law School; and Eugene D. Gulland of Covington LLP. Assistance will be given by James Shapiro of Columbia University and Michael Kahn of the Shakespeare Theatre Company. This event is the last of three events hosted by the Law Library to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the founding of the Jewish Ghetto in Venice.
The event is made possible by a generous donation to the Library of Congress from the American Sephardi Federation. The Library also gratefully recognizes a contribution received through the Friends of the Law Library of Congress from Thomson Reuters. Additional support was provided by Mr. Robert S. Roth, Jr.
Please click here to make a complimentary registration*
*Registration is not a guarantee of admission. Seating is available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Tickets are limited to one per person.
When Baghdadi Jews Baruch and Ellen Bekhor (née Cohen) succumbed to the camera’s gaze for their denaturalization pictures in 1951, they became stateless. Ellen was in her eighth month of pregnancy. Permitted to bring no more than a few kilos of belongings out of Iraq, Ellen carried their wedding picture and ketubah in her pocketbook. Laissez-Passer, Royaume D’Irak by Leslie Starobin (2016)
Through September 2017
in ASF’s Myron Habib Memorial Display
Center for Jewish History 15 W 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
The American Sephardi Federation proudly presents excerpts from The Last Address, a multi-year, photo-montage series and oral history and book project by award-winning artist Leslie Starobin that explores the enduring texture of memory and culture in the lives of Greater Sephardic families from dispersed Jewish communities in Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Iran, and Lebanon.
Leslie Starobin is a Boston-area photographer and montage artist. Her work is in the permanent collections of many academic (Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University) and public (Jewish Museum, MoMA) museums. Starobin is the recipient of numerous grants, including from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New England Foundation of the Arts/Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture. Most recently, she received two Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Research Grants for this series, The Last Address.
Her exhibition in ASF’s Myron Habib Memorial Display is sponsored in part by CELTSS: The Center for Excellence in Learning, Teaching, Scholarship and Service at Framingham State University in Massachusetts, where Starobin is a Professor of Communication Arts.
Please click here for additional information and viewing hours
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The American Sephardi Federation is located at the Center for Jewish History (15 West 16th St., New York, New York, 10011).