Jews in Iraq spoke a variety of Jewish-Aramaic dialects, with the predominant language being Judeo-Arabic. Those languages and the Jewish-Iraqi culture they embodied and expressed began to disappear, however, with the mass expulsion of Iraqi Jewry in the early 1950’s. Is all lost? While the original cultural context is forever gone, courses in Judeo-Arab are being offered at Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion University, “The study of Iraqi Judeo-Arabic is a way of reclaiming a distinct Jewish experience before the remaining connections to it disappear forever.”
Feature of the Week: “Al Neharot Bavel” (“By the Rivers of Babylon”)
Rabbi Moshe Habusha playing the oud
(Photo courtesy of Emil Salman)
R’Moshe Habusha, who performed at the Iraqi Closing Night of the 21st NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival, sings a lamentation for the 9th of Av, Psalm 137, Al Neharot Bavel (“By the Rivers of Babylon”)
The tangy and pungent sauce known as amba made the journey with Iraqi Jews who moved to Israel in the early 1950’s. Today, it’s a regular staple with any purchase of falafel or shawarma. But the origin of this, “spiced, fermented mango topping,” popular throughout the Middle East, is actually India: “[amba] means ‘mango’ in Marathi—the language spoken in the Indian state of Maharashtra.”
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 the two remaining sessions are available
Space is limited
Join the Diarna 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.
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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).
