30 June 2017 In memory of US Army SPC Daniel J. Agami, A”H, “a fearless, patriotic soldier who never hesitated risking his life for his fellow soldiers.” Dubbed “GI Jew” by his compatriots for proudly keeping kosher, Agami earned a Purple Heart, Bronze Star, Army Commendation Medal, and had been chosen to serve as a “poster boy” for Army promotional materials before being killed in the line of duty at Baghdad on 21 June 2007.
Magen David Congregation was the first Syrian Sephardi synagogue built in Brooklyn. In honor of its 1921 inauguration, Rabbi Moses Ashear, who would serve as the hazzan of the Congregation until his death, composed a piyyut. Incorporating verses and terminology from the Tanach, the song begins by praising the actions of the committee who built the synagogue and then goes on to glorify the building and its importance for the community that would grow around it.
While other songs were written for the occasion, only this piyyut was set to the Star-Spangled Banner. The reason is unknown. Perhaps Rabbi Ashear, as an immigrant to the United States from Syria in the early 1900s, wished to celebrate the community finding success in America by synthesizing an aspect of the Syrian tradition (the composition of piyyutim) with the National Anthem. He may also have wished to situate this event within the context of America’s ideas and ideals, especially our rights to Thought, Worship, Speech, and Assembly, as codified in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
Magen David Congregation, Brooklyn, NY
(Photo courtesy of At Home Studios)
The first American-English translation of the siddur by Isaac Pinto (who also has a Stratford connection), was one of the rare books and artifacts from the American Sephardi Federation’s collection on display in The Center for Jewish History’s David Berg Rare Book exhibit, Sephardic Journeys, which is now part of the Google Cultural Institute (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. Another brother Moses Seixas, a founder of the Newport Bank of Rhode Island, wrote the letter on behalf of the Touro Synagogue (as it is now known) to which President George Washington famously replied that all Americans, including Jews, "possess[ed] alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.”
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 terrified—besides I am so true an American—so warm a Patriot that I hold these mighty Armies—and their proud-arrogant-presumptuous and over-powering Nation as Beings that we have Conquered and shall Conquer again—this 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).
Francis Salvador was a Sephardi Jew whose family emigrated from mainland England to the American colonies in the 18th century. On 11 January 1775, Salvador became the first Jew to be elected to an American colonial legislature. Soon thereafter he became the first Jewish soldier killed in the American War of Independence, when ambushed by Cherokees and British Loyalists.
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 additional information please contact Jim Kaplan
Center for Jewish History
15 W 16th Street, New York City, 10011
Between 711 and 1492, Islamic governments ruled over varying swaths of the Iberian Peninsula. Muslim Spain, or al-Andalus, still holds a powerful grip on the modern imagination as a time and place of religious tolerance—a “golden age” in which Muslims, Jews, and Christians peacefully coexisted and culturally thrived. In this four-week course taught by Dr. Rachel Stein, students will explore this common perception of al-Andalus by examining primary sources produced by Muslims, Christians and Jews in medieval Iberia that bear witness to inter- and intra-faith relations: poetry, treatises, laws, chronicles, architecture, and manuscripts. What was the relationship between religion, language, and culture in the societies of al-Andalus? And to what extent should we use past societies like those of al-Andalus as mirrors or models to think through the present?
Presented by Brooklyn Institute for Social Research & Center for Jewish History > $315; 10% discount for ASF Pomegranate Card Holders
Center for Jewish History
15 W 16th Street, New York City, 10011
A short biography:
Rabbi Dr. Sharon Zaude Shalom is a Visiting Scholar at Brandeis University's Schusterman Center for Israel Studies. Born Zaude Tesfay in an Ethiopian village, Rabbi Shalom emigrated to Israel as an eight year-old in a rescue mission by the Mossad and the Jewish Agency, following two years in the Tawa refugee camp in Sudan. As a young Ethiopian immigrant in Israel, he struggled with questions of identity and his place in Israeli society. Those questions have influenced his scholarship and teaching. He served in the IDF as an officer in the infantry and later worked in the army educational system. Rabbi Dr. Shalom received his smicha from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and a doctorate in Jewish philosophy from Bar-Ilan University. He is the author of a book, From Sinai to Ethiopia, which examines the history, customs, and law of the Beta Israel, codifying the ancient cultural heritage of Ethiopian Jewry. He is also a lecturer at Bar-Ilan and Tel Aviv universities. In addition to his academic positions, he serves as rabbi of Kedoshei Yisrael, a community in Kiryat Gat established by Holocaust survivors.
The event will include a discussion of the Jewish immigrant experience in Israel, the US, and beyond.
Please come with your questions and personal stories! In addition, Rabbi Shalom's book will be available for sale.
Co-Sponsored by Chassida Shmella Ethiopian Israeli Jewish Community in collaboration with The American Sephardi Federation.
Click here to make a reservation (required) Complimentary
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).