Avraham “Al” Gindi, the legendary co-founder and co-owner of the Century 21 Stores that “dot the landscape of the Northeast,” passed away in late July. Known among his Syrian Jewish compatriots for his charitable giving, dedication to education, moral uprightness, and active participation in the life of the community, R’Elli Mansour eulogized his longtime friend: “This man, Al Gindi… had great values and principles. But never will you meet a man who more faithfully lived by his values. He did not only preach them, but first he fulfilled them himself.”
Al Gindi at the re-opening of lower Manhattan's Century 21 after 9/11
(Photo courtesy of Jeff Zelevansky/NY Magazine)
Joseph J. Sitt at Syrian Night of the 21st NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival, 6 March 2018
(Photo courtesy of Zakaria Siraj)
The American Sephardi Federation celebrated the screening of Executive Producer Joseph J. Sitt's Episode VI of The Syrian Jewish Community: The Jews of Syria, 1937-1967 at The 21st New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival with an Arabic Music Ensemble led by Maury and Josh Blanco, mazza by SY Cuisine, and special performance by Steven Chera and the Bob Kaye Quartet. Joseph J. Sitt was presented with an ASF 21st NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival Award “with gratitude and appreciation for his beautiful, essential, and significant historical contribution to the community.” Also recognized that evening: Murray Mizrahi, Executive Director of the Sephardic Community Alliance - SCA Updates, who received an Award for being one of the ASF 2018 Broome & Allen Fellows.
R’Haim Jachter introduces one of the great Sephardi scholars and rabbinic leaders of the 20th century, Rav Mordechai Eliyahu (1929-2010). R’ Eliyahu fought in Israel’s War of Independence, remained an ardent Zionist throughout his life, and served as the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1988-93. He remains a dominant influence in religious-Zionist circles today, despite following the stringent legal approach of the Ben Ish Hai.
Professor Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis will present new research on the remarkable courtyard houses of the Farhi and other important Sephardic families in late 18th/early 19th century Damascus.
Her analysis of architecture and décor offers a lens into the Damascene Jewish community and its interaction with Ottoman culture.
Professor Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis, an active archaeologist and architectural historian, is the author of Bayt Farhi and the Sephardic Palaces of Ottoman Damascus in the Late 18th and 19th Centuries(American Schools of Oriental Research, 2018). She currently teaches at The Graduate Center, The City University of New York (CUNY), where she also serves as the Acting Executive Officer in M.A. in Liberal Studies and directs the M.A. in Liberal Studies concentration in Archaeology of the Classical, Late Antique, and Islamic Worlds. She is the Deputy Director of Manar al-Athar, an open-access digital humanities resource for the study of the Middle East, co-director of the Upper Egypt Mosque Project, serves on the governing board of the Archaeological Institute of America, and is both Smarthistory’s Governing Board Chairperson and Contributing Editor for Art of the Islamic World. Professor Macaulay-Lewis has a DPhil in Classical Archaeology from Oxford University.
We look forward to seeing you!
Image Credit: "Old Damascus, Jew's Quarter" by Frederick Leighton, 1874 (Photo courtesy of Museum Syndicate)
The Jewish Genealogical Society and The American Sephardi Federation Present:
Branching out from Sepharad: Solving a Converso Mystery with Sarina Roffé
Sunday, 21 October, at 2:00PM Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street
New York City
Ticket Info:
For non-members: $5 at the door
Free for JGS, ASF, NYG&B members
Sarina Roffé, professional genealogist, founder of the Sephardic Heritage Project, and author of Branching Out from Sepharad: A Global Journey of Selected Rabbinic Families with Biographies and Genealogies (Forward by Professor Walter P. Zenner, Sephardic Heritage Project, 2017), outlines the history and expulsion of Jews in Spain, their history in Syria, and immigration to the Americas.
She discusses the Kassin rabbinic dynasty from the 12th century through the 50-year leadership of Rabbi Jacob S. Kassin in Brooklyn, and solves a Converso mystery.
Professor Mohammad Gharipour will discuss his research and recently published book, Synagogues of the Islamic World: Architecture, Design, and Identity (Edinburgh University Press, 2017), which explores how the architecture of synagogues in Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain responded to contextual issues and traditions, as well as how these contexts influenced the design and evolution of synagogues. The book considers patterns of the development of synagogues in urban contexts in connection with urban elements and monuments, while revealing how synagogues reflect the culture of the Jewish minority at macro and micro scales.
This presentation is being made possible by the generous support of The Cahnman Foundation.
Mohammad Gharipour is Associate Professor at the School of Architecture and Planning at Morgan State University at Baltimore, Maryland. He obtained his Masters in Architecture from the University of Tehran and a Ph.D. in Architecture and Landscape History from Georgia Institute of Technology. He has received several awards, including the Hamad Bin Khalifa Fellowship in Islamic Art, the Spiro Kostof Fellowship Award from the Society of Architectural Historians, the National Endowment in Humanities Faculty Award, and was recognized as "one of the twelve minority scholars in the US who are making their mark in academia" in 2016 by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education Magazine. Professor Gharipour's books include Bazaar in the Islamic City (American University of Cairo Press, 2012), Persian Gardens and Pavilions: Reflections in Poetry, Arts, and History (I.B. Tauris, 2013), Calligraphy and Architecture in the Muslim World (co-edited with Irvin Schick, Edinburgh University Press, 2013), The City in the Muslim Word: Depictions by Western Travelers (co-edited with Nilay Ozlu, Routledge, 2014), and Sacred Precincts: The Religious Architecture of Non-Muslim Communities across the Islamic World (Brill, 2014). He is the director and founding editor of the International Journal of Islamic Architecture (www.intellectbooks.com/ijia)
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).
