Mazal Tov/Mubarak! Nassau County Legislator Ellen W. Birnbaum for organizing the legislature’s first official commemoration of Nowruz (Persian New Year) on 20 March 2018. Featuring traditional Persian music and poetry, the event also honored the Sephardic Heritage Alliance, Inc (SHAI), United Mashadi Jewish Community (UMJC), and Iranian Mother’s Association (IMA).
Seven weeks before Linor Abargil was crowned the Miss World in 1998, the young Israeli woman from a Moroccan-Jewish family had been brutally raped by her agent. Cecilia Peck tells Abargil’s story in the documentary film Brave Miss World, recently screened on Young Professional Night of the ASF’s 21st New York Sephardic Jewish Festival.”‘Linor comes from a very close, tightly knit Moroccan-Jewish family, who gave her a lot of support when she was raped, and the film goes into depth in her family relationships and background,’” says Ms. Peck.
Cecilia Peck with Sephardi student leader Gladys Bendahan at ASF Young Leaders Night, Center for Jewish History, 12 March (Photo courtesy of Zakaria Siraj)
Eden Mi Qedem (Image courtesy of Eden Mi Qedem/Youtube)
This plaintive, evocative version of Had Gadya (“One little goat”), the famous piyyut from end of the Passover seder, is sung in Arabic by Eden Mi Qedem according to the Syrian-Jewish (Damascus, to be precise) tradition.
Moment Magazine asked Sara Nodjoumi, the four-year, veteran Artistic Director of the ASF’s New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival, and Jason Guberman, the ASF’s Executive Director, for a list of their ten favorite films from the past four festivals, “with the caveat that, to cut it down to ten, many great films have been excluded!”
David A. Dangoor, a proud UK-based Iraqi Jew who longs to visit the land of his youth, offers a new perspective on the Iraqi-Jewish Archive stolen by Saddam Hussein and recovered by the United States. While the content of the archive is, “mostly private and community artifacts,” Dangoor urges that it be used “as a testament to the good relations that Jews and Arabs shared in the past, and serve as a point of entry in exploring how these ties could become strong and vibrant once again.”
Sunday, 25 March, at 3:00 PM Center for Jewish History
15 W 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
The American Sephardi Federation is proud to co-present The American Society for Jewish Music’s program featuring Sephardic music from the 16th to the 20th centuries, by Alonso Mudarra, Wolf Simoni, Alberto Hemsi, Roberto Pla, Zhul Levy, and Paul Ben-Haim. Performers include Heather Buck (soprano), Janice Meyerson (mezzo soprano), Valeriya Sholokhova (cello), Lorne Richstone (piano), with commentary by Dr. Raymond Scheindlin.
Please click here to RSVP or call SmarTix at 212.868.4444
Sunday, 25 March, at 6 PM Center for Jewish History
15 W 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
The American Sephardi Federation is proud to co-present Centro Primo Levi’s program on Italian novelist, essayist, and journalist Alain Elkann, who follows the flight from fascist Italy of an upper class Jewish family from Turin, the fictional Ottolenghis, through their arrival and settlement on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in 1939.
The plot, loosely inspired by the author’s maternal family, the Ovazzas, unfolds around the foresight of the matriarch, Olga Ottolenghi who, sensing that the family is succumbing to an inner centrifugal force, conceives of a will that will keep it together.
The gravitational center of the story is New York: the place of safety, new beginnings, mixing, and eventual return. Here, people who left behind everything re-invent themselves and at the same time reinforce their century-old attachment to their Jewish-Piedmontese origins.
The program includes a screening, for the first time in public, of a rare record of Italy’s Jewish elite’s daily life before the Shoah, part of the Ovazza family archive, and will be presented by Alain Elkann’s brother, Giorgio Barba Navaretti. The footage was filmed by Vittorio Ovazza starting in the early 1930s up to shortly before the promulgation of the Race Laws, and shows travels and festivities in Italy, France, Lybia and New York.
We look forward to having you join us!
Tuesday, 10 April, from 7–9:00 PM Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
A Special Book Launch The Fox Hunt by Mohammed Al Samawi A Refugee's Memoir of Coming to America
Featuring Mohammed Al Samawi
in conversation with Jonathan Alter
and the first-ever reunion of the team that orchestrated his evacuation
Followed by a reception of Yemeni cuisine and book signing
Co-sponsored by
Center for Jewish History
Muslim Jewish Advisory Council
The Museum of the Jewish People at Beit Hatfusot
Muslim American Leadership Alliance . We look forward to having you join us!
Wednesday, April 11 at 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM EDT Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
ASF Sephardi Scholars Series Lecture: Join French literary scholar Nina B. Lichtenstein as she "illuminates the shrouded histories and complicated... identities" of a multiply marginalized minority: Magrebi (Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian) Sephardic women writers. "Lichtenstein offers valuable perspectives on the Jewish experience...," says Ruth Knafo Setton. Norman Stillman praises her "intimately conversational and academically intellectual" style.
Tuesday, April 24 at 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM EDT Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
The ASF and the Alliance Israélite Universelle-KIAH invite you to celebrate the launch of an incredible database featuring the lives and writings of over 500 Sephardi sages, who exemplify the classic moral, ethical, inclusive, and tolerant traditional Judaism of Greater Sephardi communities.
ASF’s Sephardi Scholars Center Center for Jewish History
15 W 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
The American Sephardi Federation’s Young Sephardi Scholars Series, in partnership with COJECO BluePrint Fellowship, is excited to host a three-part learning and cultural series about the Russian-speaking Jewish (RSJ) communities of the Greater Sephardic world. The cultures and histories of Bukharian, Georgian, and Kavkazi (Mountain) Jews are situated at the fascinating, yet lesser known, intersection of RSJ, Sephardic, and Mizrahi life. Led by Ruben Shimonov, this interactive multimedia learning series will provide a unique opportunity to explore the rich and multilayered stories of the three communities.
Ruben Shimonov, 2018 American Sephardi Federation Broome & Allen Fellow, was born in Uzbekistan and grew up in the vibrant Greek and Turkish Sephardic community of Seattle. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree in International Relations, Near Eastern Studies, and Jewish Studies from the University of Washington. As a Bukharian Jew—whose own multilayered identity lies at the intersection of Mizrahi, Sephardic, and RSJ—Ruben roots his work as an educator, social innovator, and community builder in a deep passion for the diverse cultural mosaic of the Jewish people. This has informed his active leadership and community organizing endeavors within organizations such as the American Sephardi Federation (where he is the Young Leadership Board’s VP of Education and Community Engagement), JDC Entwine, Moishe House, and OneTable. He has also brought this passion to his work at Queens College Hillel for the past four years—most recently as Director of Cross-Community Engagement and Education—where he had the unique role of engaging, empowering, and creating meaningful Jewish experiences for Sephardic and Mizrahi students. Ruben is currently pursuing Master’s degrees in both Public Administration/Nonprofit Management and Judaic Studies at New York University. Ruben was recently named a COJECO Blueprint Fellow and is working on community projects that highlight the intersectional identities of Russian-speaking Greater Sephardic Jews. He is also the founder of the Sephardic-Mizrahi LGBTQ Shabbat Dinner Series and annual retreats, which provide a one-of-a-kind platform for LGBTQ Jews from Sephardic and Mizrahi backgrounds to build a vibrant and supportive community.
Please click here to sign-up for updates on future events
A three day academic and cultural conference exploring the cultural heritage of Jews of Yemenite heritage and their joint cultural commonalities with the Muslims of Yemenite heritage. Learn more at: www.ASFYemenConference.org
Celebrating the culture and history of Yemenite Jews and the rich interactions between Yemenite Jews and Muslims. Topics include Jews and Muslims, spirituality, antiquity, modern culture, and Yemenite women.
Extended through April
in ASF’s Leon Levy Gallery Center for Jewish History
15 W 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
The Philos Project and American Sephardi Federation cordially invite you to “Nosotros," an art exhibit featuring the work of two renowned Latino artists, Angel Urrely (Cuba) and Carlos Ayala (Puerto Rico)--as a symbolic recognition and “step forward” to improving Jewish-Latino relations. We thank the Dominican artist, Juan Bravo, for exhibiting his pieces for the exhibit’s Opening Night. Each piece reflects the shared roots of Jewish and Latino communities and expresses hope for a more positive future from the perspective of each respective artist.
Each artist has displayed their works in hundreds of exhibits in both the US and Latin America, having many of them included in some of the most coveted collections in the world. We are very excited to bring them and their works to celebrate the importance of uniting us (or Nosotros), the Jewish and Latino communities, and having this art displayed in a very powerful way at the American Sephardi Federation at the Center for Jewish History. Artists:
Angel Urrely is to the point. This son of Cuba does not beat around the bush. At least not for what the brush comes to reveal—his theory is clear and sharp. Each frame creates a specific, assertive and brutal connection. The reading of his work is—from the perspective of the viewer—very simple, to the point that if you assume an interpretation of what you are reading, believe me: Urrely is addressing exactly what you are thinking. Urrely has something to tell you and will let you know one way or another.
Carlos Ayala presents himself as the “Benjamin” of the tribes, the youngest of them all. This son of Puerto Rico presupposes that his youth may seem an obstacle to you, so he shows you his clutched fists from the introduction. This young man is fierce. Carlos shows us the deepest pains experienced by man, and brings them to an entertained, distracted and ill-bred public. He does not sit down to dream on the Caribbean coast and wait for boats loaded with promises. He does not have the time for it, but rather wants to remind you that even at the best moments pain is present. And at any moment it can befall us.
We look forward to having you join us!
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 Street, New York, New York, 10011).