In 2007, Israel issued a stamp honoring Rabbi Messas and featuring a salute to the Moroccan Royal Family on behalf of Moroccan Jewry (in Arabic, French, English, and Hebrew) (Photo courtesy of the Israel Philatelic Federation)
R’ Shalom Messas (1909-2003) was arguably the greatest Moroccan-Jewish legal scholar of the 20th century and celebrated by Jews and non-Jews alike: “In 1978, then-Israeli Chief Rabbi Chacham Ovadia Yosef asked Ribi Shalom to come to the holy city of Yerushalyaim and serve as its Sephardic chief rabbi… When he departed for Eretz Yisrael, Rav Messas was escorted to the airport by Morocco’s King Hassan [II] himself.” That said, many Ashkenazi scholars have never even heard of him, and R’ Messas’ legal decisions, “do not even appear on the Bar Ilan Responsa website!”
ASF’s Delegation
(Photo and video courtesy ofZakaria Siraj)
Watch the American Sephardi Federation add a Yemenite step to the 2018 “Celebrate Israel Parade.” ASF and ASF Young Leaders partnered with E’eleh BeTamar to lead a colorful and festive delegation through the streets of Manhattan that included Rechovot Teiman, the Mizmorey Teiman Choir, Lehakat Bat Nedivim, and the internationally renowned Yemenite-Israeli singer, Zion Golan.
Ruben Shimonov, a 2018 ASF Broome & Allen Fellow and VP of Education and Community Engagement for ASF Young Leaders, is a scholar whose diverse background informs his ability to bring diverse groups together. An Uzbekistan-born Russian-speaking Sephardic Jew, he grew-up in the Ladino-speaking Sephardic community of Seattle. Now, he finds himself in New York, where, amongst an array of activities, he conducts Shabbat dinners for “a minority within the minority within the minority” who want to experience Sephardi cuisine, customs, and comradery.
Ruben is one of this year’s NY Jewish Week “36 under 36” (Image courtesy of NY Jewish Week)
Hamsa by Anat Golan, Museum of Islamic Art, Jerusalem, Israel (Photo courtesy of Shai Ben Sphraim/Haaretz)
The palm-shaped, colorful amulet known as the ‘hamsa’ is found across Israel and the Middle East. In Israel the symbol is a cultural marker for Sephardim, but a Jerusalem-based exhibit at the Museum of Islamic Art is trying to expand that view by exhibiting the work of Israeli artists who play with the Middle Eastern symbol. Does the exhibit expand the perspective too much? “The Mizrahi theme is not an issue that’s dealt with. In fact, one senses a desire to deprive the Hamsa of its orientalism and to assimilate it into Jewishness and Israeliness. It’s as if discussion of the Mizrahi issue is a bit embarrassing and unpleasant, but primarily unimportant, raising questions that don’t need to be asked.”
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.
The Center for Jewish History Presents: Family History Today: Genealogy Lecture for Sephardi and Mizrahi Families
Thursday, 12 July, 6:30 PM - 8 PM
Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street
New York City
Curious about family history outside of the Pale of Settlement? The Center for Jewish History and American Sephardi Federation welcome you to a lecture on genealogy tools for those interested in researching Jewish community records and Jewish life in the Sephardi or Mizrahi Diaspora.
Open to all. No previous experience or preparation is necessary.
Presented by J.D. Arden, Genealogy and Reference Librarian at The Center for Jewish History and adjunct faculty member at the LIU-Palmer School of Library & Information Science.
An ASL interpreter may be made available if requested in advance.
Generously sponsored by The Center for Jewish History’s Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute
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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).