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11 October 2019

 Mazal Tov to our friends and partners, Editor-in-Chief Dovid Efune and COO Chana Yemini on the success of the Algemeiner’s 6th Annual “J100” Gala. 

Click here to dedicate a future issue in honor or memory of a loved one. 
The Sephardi World Weekly is made possible by generous readers like you. Now there is a new way to show your support. Become a Patron of the Sephardi World Weekly via Patreon and your name will appear in each edition along with timely, thought-provoking articles on Greater Sephardi history, the arts, and current affairs. Thanking you in advance! And thank you to Sephardi World Weekly Patrons Maria Gabriela Borrego Medina and Gwen Zuares!
“Yerus, This is the Land of Israel: To a Disaffected Ethiopian-Israeli” 
By Sharon Shalom, The Tel Aviv Review of Books
 
Sharon Shalom is an Ethiopian-Israeli scholar and rabbi who heads the International Center for the Study of Ethiopian Jewry at the Ono Academic College. Shalom advocates for the authenticity of the Ethiopian tradition and argues for the relevance of that tradition for Israeli society. In his open letter to a young, proud but disaffected Ethiopian-Israeli, Shalom counsels against assuming a victim’s perspective: “We must carry on the tradition of our ancestors in Ethiopia. They cherished a positive outlook on life. Ethiopian culture has imbued us with the sense that reality, in and of itself, is good. But it does not result from naivety, weakness or helplessness—it is our prerogative, exercising our agency as empowered players.”
 
Rabbi Dr. Sharon Shalom, Distinguished ASF Board Member Dr. Ephraim Isaac, and UN Secretary-General’s Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide Ambassador Adama Dieng, Jewish Africa Conference, Leo and Julia Forchheimer Auditorium, Center for Jewish History, 29 January 2019
(Photo courtesy of Bizu Riki Mullu/Facebook)
Special Feature: Sukkah ve’Lulav: Moroccan Text, Iraqi Melody, and One Electric Bass
 

David Menahem, East-West House, Jaffa, Israel, 18 September 2013 
(Photo courtesy of Shmulik Balmas/Youtube)

Sukkah ve’Lulav is a piyyut written by Moshe Ben Yahakov Adahan, an 18th century Moroccan Rabbi and Payytan. In this video, the contemporary Israeli Rabbi and Payytan, David Menahem, performs an alternatingly spirited and meditative version of the piyyut according to the traditional Iraqi melody. The performance takes place at the East-West House in Jaffa, Israel, and R’ Menahem is, fittingly enough, backed by an eight-piece band that ranges from an electric bass to four (!) Middle Eastern flutes.

Cover of Gene Milgrom’s Recipes of My 15 Grandmothers
(Photo courtesy of the author) 
“Cache of Crypto-Jewish recipes dating to Inquisition found in Miami kitchen” 
By Renee Ghert-Zhand, The Times of Israel
 
Say Miami, Florida, and what image comes to mind? Maybe Palm Trees, or the beach, or, with 20th-century history in mind, perhaps Cuban refugees. One of them is Genie Milgrom, the award-winning author and advocate, who found in her mother’s kitchen pages of scribbled notes that took her back to Medieval Spain and Portugal. Milgrom, you see, descends from Crypto-Jews (Anusim), and those notes preserved, in her prosaic Miami kitchen, generations of Crypto-Jewish recipes. Her new kosher cookbook, Recipes of My 15 Grandmothers: Unique Recipes and Stories from the Times of the Crypto-Jews during the Spanish Inquisition, tells, in culinary terms, the amazingly delicious story.
Sephardi Gifts:
Recipes of My 15 Grandmothers: Unique Recipes and Stories from the Times of the Crypto-Jews during the Spanish Inquisition
by Genie Milgrom 

Recipes of My 15 Grandmothers  is a collection of recipes and stories from the times of the Crypto-Jews who were hiding and pretending to be Catholic during the Spanish Inquisition while practicing their Judaism underground through the present. The grandmothers of the family devised clever ways to disguise the fact that they were still keeping kosher while appearing to be eating pork. Until modern times, the family pretended to be devout Catholics, yet passed many of the Jewish customs on, sometimes in the form of these recipes, their true legacy. For several hundred years they hid their fasts and celebration of Jewish holidays, revealing them only via their recipes and some kosher kitchen customs. This collection was found recently, hidden away at Genie Milgrom's mother's house.
Saving the Lost Tribe: The Rescue and Redemption of the Ethiopian Jews
by Asher Naim

For nearly three thousand years, the black Jews of Ethiopia maintained their faith and their identity in the face of drought, famine, and tribal warfare. They were indeed a lost tribe, tracing their ancestry to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Then, in May 1991, these Ethiopian Jews staged a miraculous exodus. With Ethiopia exploding around them in brutal civil war, some fourteen thousand were safely airlifted to Jerusalem by the Israeli Air Force over the course of twenty-five harrowing hours. Told by the Israeli ambassador who helped make it happen, this spellbinding book is the story of that incredible rescue–as well as an extraordinary history of the Ethiopian Jews, the remarkable people whose faith never waivered, even when confronted with enormous atrocities.

For Asher Naim the rescue of the Ethiopian Jews became a kind of personal quest–a quest not only to free his fellow Jews from tyranny but also to uphold the sacredness of human life. In helping the Ethiopian Jews realize their three-thousand-year-old dream of returning to Jerusalem, Naim came to a profoundly new understanding of the nature of faith, identity, and the struggle to endure. Saving the Lost Tribe is a magnificent achievement, a story of hope in the face of chaos and redemption on the brink of disaster.
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Upcoming Events or Opportunities:


The American Sephardi Federation and Chassida Shmella Ethiopian Israeli-Jewish Community present:

The 10th Annual Sigd Celebration*
Join us for the Authentic Ethiopian Jewish Weekend!  

Friday, 1 November at 7:00PM
Traditional Kosher Ethiopian Shabbat Dinner with ASF Young Leaders
Professor Ephraim Isaac and special guests from Israel: Kes Eli Vanda Menntessnout and Revital Iyov (who recently appeared in Netflix’s Red Sea Diving Resort)

Saturday, 2 November at 7:30PM
Congregation Beit Simchat Torah
130 W 30th Street
New York City
Screening followed by a Q&A with Professor Ephraim Isaac and special guests from Israel.
Light refreshments will be served

Sunday, 3 November at 5:00PM
Special guest:
Gili Yalo! Ethiopian-Israeli singer 
Kessouch reading in Ge'ez ምህልላ, Ethiopian Music and Shoulder
Dancing, Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony, traditional Kosher food and entertainment

Please register here
*Early Bird full weekend SIGD celebration passes are available for limited time only!

~Contact Yves Seban to learn more about sponsorship opportunities~

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

Chassida Shmella Ethiopian Israeli-Jewish Community hosts an annual SIGD Celebration, marking this celebratory Ethiopian Jewish community event.
For the past eighth years, Chassida Shmella, the Ethiopian Jewish community of North America, has taken on the challenge and exciting experience, of bringing the SIGD ceremony to New York!

The overarching idea is to bring diverse people together to experience the beauty of this festival. Ethiopian Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardi Jews attend and even others in the community who just want to experience- this amazing celebration.

This day commemorates both the giving of the Torah and the communal gatherings held in Jerusalem in the days of the prophets Ezra and Nehemiah.
Thousands of Jews traveled on foot every year in Ethiopia from Gondar Province to the village of Ambober where the joyous celebration included prayer and fasting.
In modern times, the celebration commemorates the return of Ethiopian Jewry to Israel, our ancient homeland.

The day is a national holiday in Israel!

In New York, SIGD occurs approximately a week following the festival in Israel when a weekend is set aside for a SIGD in the Diaspora.

The festival is a full weekend event and includes celebratory meals, traditional Ethiopian music, dancing, and crafts. Here in NYC, the event comes alive through music, dancing, traditional food, dress and chanting, and through photos. Ethiopian Jewish Qesim (priests) and rabbis who live in Israel join us for the SIGD so the spirit of this festival can be authentic. Historical photos bring the viewer to experience the event as if they are there in time and place - in Ethiopia in times past, and in Israel in recent years.

The American Sephardi Federation Presents:

The New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival’s (NYSJFF)
23rd Anniversary Edition

SAVE THE DATE
18-27 February 2020!
Please click here to reserve your Festival Passes now!


The American Sephardi Federation/ASF Young Leaders are partnering with Germany Close Up for the first-ever trip for Sephardi young professionals to Germany!

Dates:  4-12 May, 2020
Total cost: $900
(includes airfare, hotels, sightseeing, and meals)

Please here to apply

Travel to Germany with the American Sephardi Federation - ASF Young Leaders and Germany Close Up this spring! This will be Germany Close Up’s first-ever partnership with a Sephardic group – join us and make history! This trip has been tailor-made just for us to connect with our past.  We’ll interface with what remains of the Portuguese Jewish community in Hamburg, dive into artifacts of the Turkish Jewish community in Berlin, and explore other Sephardic histories on our journey.  We will find out how Germany is relevant to a more diverse Jewish story – including Sephardic Jews!

About Germany Close Up:
Founded in 2007, Germany Close Up introduces young Jewish professionals to modern Germany.  The Germany Close Up experience is administered by the Action Reconciliation Service for Peace, the New Synagogue Berlin Centrum Judaicum Foundation, and the German government’s Transatlantic Plan.



The American Sephardi Federation is proud to partner with Combat Anti-Semitism on its Venture Creative Contest - Round 1. The Contest’s Art Award is named in honor of Emma Lazarus, the Sephardi American patriot, poet, playwright, critic, journalist, campaigner against anti-Semitism, and champion of Zion.

Venture Creative Contest – Round 1

Anti-Semitism is once again on the rise, just 75 years after the Holocaust. This irrational hatred of Jews and the world’s only Jewish State harms both innocent victims and perpetrators infected by bigotry. The resurgence of anti-Semitism poses a challenge to all people of conscience:
How can we work together to stop anti-Semitism?

This contest is crowd-sourcing new solutions to help end “the world’s oldest hatred.” The contest is sponsored by the CombatAntiSemitism.org Coalition.

People of all ages, backgrounds, and nationalities are encouraged to participate by creatively addressing one of the categories. 

Round 1 Deadline: 1 December 2019
Future Rounds Coming Soon

Please click here to submit your contest entry 

Contest Rules – Contest Judges – FAQ – Contact

Specific contest awards co-sponsored by Coalition Members, including:

American Sephardi Association logo
Israel on Campus Coalition logoGaliaArtists


Centro Primo Levi and the Rhodes Jewish Historical Foundation in partnership with Kehila Kedosha Janina and the American Sephardi Federation present:

Los Corassones Avlan*
The Hearts Speak
*from a Sephardi saying

Conversations on Jewish Life on the Island of Rhodes
A multimedia pop-up installation

On view 29 October through 24 November, 2019

Opening hours: 
Sunday through Thursday: 1:00PM to 9:00PM
Friday: 1:00PM to 4:00PM
Saturday: 5:00PM to 10:30PM 
Bourekas, sweets, coffee and tea will be served during opening hours

West Village
148 West 4th Street
New York City

Los Corassones Avlan is dedicated to centuries of Jewish life in Rhodes. It expands the ideas of the Rome Lab, a 2017 installation created by Centro Primo Levi and the Jewish Museum of Rome, which challenged traditional museum narratives by playing on the tension between personal memory, official history and ongoing research debates.

Conceived as an old funhouse, made up of objects, projection and rotating soundscapes, the new installation will juxtapose ambiguities, uncertainties and discontinuities onto linear representations of the past. It will invite the public to imagine a world that was profoundly different from ours and to question stereotypes and prepackaged depictions of other cultures that increasingly restrict the way in which we experience the present.

The project will be installed in a 19th century carriage house on West 4th street that shares the courtyard with the historic night bar named after Antoine Saint-Exupéry’s novel Vol de Nuit. The bar was once a popular eatery and cabaret called The Samovar, which the photographer Jessie Tarbox Beals seized in one of her legendary images of lower Manhattan and where Al Jolson is believed to have performed in his early career.

During the month of November, the carriage house, which is usually closed, will become home to the exhibition and to roundtables, readings, talks, film and music presentations, where the public will experience the little-known story and traditions of the “Rodeslis,” the Jewish community living on the island of Rhodes for an unknown number of centuries until its destruction in 1944.

*Centro Primo Levi’s public program is made possible in part through the generous support of the Viterbi family. The Rhodes installation was made possible through the generous support of Peter and Mary Kalikow and Bruce Slovin.


The Philos Project and the American Sephardi Federation present:

Nosotros 3.0: Strengthening Bonds Between Jewish and Latino Communities

On view until May 2020

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

The Philos Project and the American Sephardi Federation cordially invite you to the third edition of our Latin American classic art exhibit: Nosotros 2019. 

This years exhibit explores the Judtice of Zionism through the lens of Jewish and Latino national liberation struggles for independence from European colonialism. A new collection of art pieces will be revealed, including pieces from master artists Norma Lithgow and Deyvi Pérez. It will be a night of celebration of the shared history and culture of the Jewish and Latin communities.

 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
Copyright © 2019 American Sephardi Federation, All rights reserved.

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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) 294-8350

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