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13 July 2018

Mazal Tov/Mabrouk to Dr. Ronnie Perelis, Yeshiva University’s Chief Rabbi Dr. Isaac Abraham and Jelena (Rachel) Alcalay Chair in Sephardic Studies, on his appointment to serve as Director of the Rabbi Arthur Schneier Center for International Affairs
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Moroccan and other North African immigrants dancing, Dimouna, Israel
(Photo courtesy of Dimouna Twist, which was shown at the 20th NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival
The Vital Energies, Especially Musical, of Israel's Desert Towns” 
By Aryeh Tepper, Mosaic
 
The ASF’s Director of Publications, Aryeh Tepper, examines how Moroccan-Jewish communal memory that has been preserved in Israel’s “peripheral” towns is animating Israeli culture as a whole, including the flowering of the Israeli Andalusian Orchestra: “The orchestra’s achievement of official recognition does not signify some token affirmative-action gesture toward Israel’s ethnic ‘diversity.’ It rests on the same basis of scholarship, exacting performance standards, and generations of musical excellence that are to be demanded of any high art worthy of the name.”
Feature of the Week: Umahalalo (“And his praise”)

 
Ofer Callaf, International Oud Festival, Jerusalem, Israel
(Photo courtesy of Youtube

 
In this charming performance from Jerusalem’s 2015 International Oud Festival, Tom Fogel, Ofer Callaf and Hila Tam put an old-new Yemenite spin on a letter written 1,000 years ago from Yossef Even Hasdai to his famous Andalusian friend, Shmuel HaNagid. The song is called Umahalalo (“And his praise”).
Two grandsons offer a musical glimpse of their ancestral Yemenite history” 
By Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel
 
Tom Fogel is a 32-year-old Israeli grandson of Yemenite Jews on his mother’s side. A PhD student researching the work of Shelomo Dov Goitein, the great German-Jewish ethnographer who extensively studied Yemenite Jewry, Fogel is also a musician who performs Yemenite music. How does Fogel understand his fascination, and dedication, to his grandmother’s culture? “It’s the third generation syndrome, and it’s very real.”

Tom Fogel (Photo courtesy of Branica Schneider/Times of Israel)

Sol “Solly” Amon, Pure Food Fish Market, Pike Place, Seattle, WA (Photo courtesy of Jonathan Wanderweit/Via Magazine)  
A Sephardic Link To Seattle’s Pike Place Market” 
By George Medovoy, The Jerusalem Post
 
89 year-old Sol “Solly” Amon has been selling fish in Seattle’s Pure Food Fish Market since he was fifteen. With his grandkids running the shop, the family, Jews from Turkey and Rhodes, have owned the store for four generations. What do they call Solly? “The CodFather.”
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Diarna: The Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life Presents:


Passport to Jewish History:

Thursday, 19 July at 7:00 PM
A Pilgrimage to Morocco's Jewish Saints 

Wednesday, 25 July at 7:00 PM
Expedition to Egypt: Results of a Recent Research Trip
Featuring Diarna's Lead Photographer/Outreach Director Josh Shamsi


Wednesday, 8 August at 7:00 PM
Beyond Tunis: A Comprehensive Mission to Tunisia
Featuring Diarna photographer Chrystie Sherman


Diarna “Situation Room” at ASF 
Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street 
New York City


Please click here to make a reservation
Passes to all three sessions are available
Space is limited



Join Diarna researchers for a three-part passport series exploring Jewish historical sites and stories:

Over a million Jews once lived in the Middle East and North Africa, spanning from synagogues on the edge of the Sahara Desert in Morocco to abandoned Jewish fortresses in Saudi Arabia and the traditional shrines of Biblical personalities in the Kurdish regions of Iraq and Iran. The profound Jewish imprint on the region could be experienced in major cities and diffuse villages. 

Now, decades since communities have disbanded, synagogues, schools, cemeteries, and other structures left behind are suffering from natural decay or being deliberately targeted for destruction, while political strife has stymied visiting, no less preserving, thousands of sites. In recent years the Iranian regime has threatened to destroy the purported shrine of Esther and Mordechai at Hamadan; the storied Eliyahu HaNabi Synagogue in the Jobar neighborhood of Damascus was reduced to rubble (a consequence of being caught in the crossfire of the Syrian Civil War); and ISIS exploded the traditional tomb of Jonah, which had been located within one of Mosul’s oldest mosques.

Diarna: The Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life--an independent initiative of Digital Heritage Mapping, a spacial humanities non-profit organization--is working to digitally preserve the physical remnants of Jewish history throughout the region. We are in a race against time to capture site data and record place-based oral histories. Diarna pioneers the synthesis of digital mapping technology, traditional scholarship, and field research, as well as a trove of multimedia documentation. All of these combine to lend a virtual presence and guarantee untrammeled access to Jewish historical sites lest they be forgotten or erased. 


We look forward to seeing you!


Yemenite Faces and Scenes & Episodes in Yemenite History

The Teimani Experience, which closed on 5 June, continues in part with a photographic exhibit in our Leon Levy Gallery and an art exhibit in the Myron Habib, A"H, Memorial Display.

On view until September

Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street 
New York City
 

Yemenite Faces and Scenes: Photographs by Naftali Hilger

Intrepid photographer and photo-journalist Naftali Hilger traveled extensively in Yemen in the late 1980s and early 1990s photographing structures, street scenes, and the last remnants of Jewish life. These images—including of Yemenite children learning to read Torah upside-down in their father’s shop and a family relaxing in their diwan (salon)—depict an existence that has faded into history as the ever-shrinking community has found refuge in a government compound at Sana’a.



Episodes in Yemenite History: Paintings by Tiya Nachum

A series of eight paintings by the artist and sculptor Tiya Nachum of Encino, CA. The paintings reflect the tragedies and triumphs of Yemenite Jewish history, from the Mawza exile to the founding of the Inbal Dance Troupe by Sara Levy. Each painting tells a story and each story is a history onto itself.

 and your tax-deductible contribution will help ASF preserve and promote the Greater Sephardi history, traditions, and culture as an integral part of the Jewish experience! 

Contact us by email to learn about giving opportunities in honor or memory of loved ones

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The American Sephardi Federation is located at the Center for Jewish History (15 West 16th Street, New York, New York, 10011).

www.AmericanSephardi.org | info@AmericanSephardi.org | (212) 548-4486

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