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31 July 2020 

In Memory of Ebrahim Berookhim, HY”D, a young Persian Jewish businessman, who was summarily executed by the Iranian regime 40 years ago today. Berookhim, as Iranian-Jewish entrepreneurs and philanthropists Habib Elghanian and Albert Danialpour before him, was an Iranian patriot and blameless victim of Ayatollah Khomeini’s state-sponsored anti-Semitism. At least 11 Jews have been murdered by the Iranian regime since the executions of Elghanian (9 May 1979), Danialpour (5 June 1980), and Berookhim (31 July 1980), according to the LA-based Committee for Minority Rights in Iran
 
 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. Show your support by becoming a Patron 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. Click here to become a Patron today!. Thanking you in advance! And thank you to Sephardi World Weekly Patrons Maria Gabriela Borrego Medina and Distinguished ASF Vice President Gwen Zuares
 
The 11th Annual Axelrod Israel Jewish Film Festival  
Featuring 10 North American and regional premieres of award-winning films


Stream on All Devices, Including Your SmartTV

Sunday, 19 July - Thursday, 13 August 
 
Sign-up now!
Writing Between Tongues: The Calligraphy of Ruben Shimonov” 
By Ruben Shimonov, Zaman
 
2018 ASF Broome & Allen Fellow Ruben Shimonov has “designed an innovative interfaith Arabic-Hebrew calligraphy workshop” that aims to “create a space for these two Semitic languages to encounter one another in familiar and new ways.” Shimonov’s work draws inspiration and material from the Judeo-Islamic milieu of his Bukharian, Sephardic, and Mizrahi backgrounds to explore, “the ways in which these languages, their complex histories, and their rich ties to spirituality intersect and interact with each other.”

Ruben Shimonov’s art is on sale now at the ASF’s Sephardi Shop. 
Shimonov presenting one of his sold-out lectures, “Georgian Jews: at the Intersection of Sephardic, Mizrahi, and Russian-Speaking,” ASF Sephardi Scholars Center, Center for Jewish History, 16 April 2019
(Photo courtesy of Jonathan Rahmani

Performance at Invitation to Piyyut 
(Screenshot courtesy of Invitation to Piyyut/Youtube
 
The 15th of Av, the Jewish “holiday of love,” falls this year from sundown August 4th through sundown August 5th. In honor of the holiday, an all-star lineup of Israeli vocalists, including Shlomit Levy, Liat Tziyon, Sagiv Cohen, and Dvir Cohen, sing R'Shalom Shabazi's 17th century piyyut of exile and redemption, Ahavat Hadassah ("Love of Hadassah"). This piyyut is traditionally sung at weddings.

Elana Benjamin
(Photo courtesy of SBS


 
Growing up an Iraqi-Indian Jew in Australia” 
By Elana Benjamin, SBS

Elana Benjamin grew-up an Iraqi-Indian Jew in Australia. Belonging to a minority culture within the Jewish world, what Elana learned at her Ashkenormative Jewish school didn’t match what she experienced at home: “By the time I was at university, I realised that I hardly knew anything about the stories of my people… I began researching my family’s story, and the history of the Iraqi Jews that immigrated to India… And I’ve come to embrace, rather than resent, my dual citizenship of the Jewish world – of both the Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities.”
Sephardi Gifts:
Shana Tova in Hebrew 
(unframed) 
By Ruben Shimonov

Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew Custom Designed Art. Please inquire for custom designed and sized prints.

 
Beracha (blessing) in Hebrew and Arabic 
(unframed) 
By Ruben Shimonov

Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew Custom Designed Art. Please inquire for custom designed and sized prints.

 
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Upcoming Events or Opportunities:
 

The Axelrod Performing Arts Center and CHAI FLICKS present:

The 11th Annual Axelrod Israel Jewish Film Festival  
Featuring 10 North American and regional premieres of award-winning films!

Sunday, 19 July - Thursday, 13 August 
Stream on All Devices, Including Your SmartTV


Sign-up Now!


The Axelrod Israel Jewish Online Film Festival Includes:

10 Award-Winning Films
(Ticketholders will be emailed information on each film,
as well as how and when to view it) 

Zoom Talk-Backs 

Under the Stars Movie Event
(Planned Pending Approvals) 

30 Days CHAI FLICKS Streaming on all devices

Check back soon for the APAC Israel Jewish Film Festival's collaboration with the ASF's New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival

The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience and Kol Yisrael Haverim (Alliance Israelite/KIAH) present:

Teaching the Jewish Experience Mosaic - Egypt 

Wednesday, 19 August 12:00-3:15PM EDT 
Zoom workshops with educators from across the globe

Sign-up Now!


We are excited to launch a new initiative:
T-JEM, Teaching the Jewish Experience Mosaic.

Kol Yisrael Haverim (Alliance Israelite/KIAH) and ASF Institute of Jewish Experience have joined forces to offer a series of teacher workshops. Each workshop will present  the Jewish dialectic as embodied in a different Jewish community with its culture, literature, philosophy, history, geography and Rabbinic sources. For the time being our workshops will be held via Zoom with educators from across the globe. 
This first session to be held Wednesday August 19 12:00-3:15 pm EDT for a select group of educators. The session will focus on Egypt.  
 
A tentative schedule for the workshop follows:

Virtual tour of Egypt and its Jewish sites
IJE teaching resources for Egyptian synagogues
Panel discussion - Multifaceted aspects of Jewish thought  - Egypt as a case study, with Prof. Zvi Zohar and others
KIAH Hacham Yomi as the basis for lessons – small group discussion
Applications and next steps

“The Torah scroll has no vowel symbols (nikkud) so that people may interpret as they wish. The letters, not being marked with vowels, tolerate different meanings, and can break up into many sparks. This is why we were instructed not to punctuate Torah scrolls with vowels” 
Hacham Haim Yosef David Azoulai

If you have any questions or to register please reach out to 
drora@americansephardi.org


The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:

The Crypto Experience
The Global History of Secret Jews

An online course presented in 10 minute episodes.
Learn at your own pace.


Please sign-up now!
Total cost of the course is $75.00

The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience is proud to present “The Crypto Experience,” an online course on Crypto-Jews. It is part of a series of online courses on a variety of topics that make up the robust Jewish experience.

For hundreds of years there have been descendants of Crpto-Jews, who have covertly kept some of their traditions while maintaining a very different public persona. It is a question of identity, be it Huegenot, Catholic, Sephardi, or Mashadi. Professing one faith on the outside and another on the inside speaks to our quest for defining identity today.

These questions of identity that we think are so new and so relevant are really rather old questions under different circumstances. In this course Dr. Hilda Nissimi (Bar Ilan University) presents an overview of crypto societies historically and in the context of today. She challenges the participants to ask themselves difficult questions like: What defines identity? If I project this outer self, how do I keep my real me? Who is the real me? Am I the me before the expression of an outer facade? Is it a new me?

The course discusses these questions as they pertain to Jews, specifically. What does it mean to be a Jew? What do I have to keep if I want to call myself a Jew? Am I allowed to change? Am I the person to decide? Who will decide? How can anyone decide under such circumstances?

In order to understand this in historic and cultural contexts, world-renowned scholars and experts in the field have joined Dr. Nissimi and will be presenting the challenges facing a range of crypto societies: 

Huegenots – Dr. Hilda Nissimi
Spanish-Portuguese Crypto Society – Dr. Ronnie Perelis (Yeshiva University)
Bildi’in of Morocco – Professor Paul Fenton (Sorbonne Université, Paris) 
Mashhadi Jews of Iran – Dr. Hilda Nissimi
Tracing Jewish Roots – Genie and Michael Milgrom
Growing Up Mashhadi– Reuben Ebrahimoff


For more information and other ASF IJE online course offerings visit: https://courses.instituteofjewishexperience.org/


The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:

The Greek Experience
Explore the world of Greek Jewry from the ancient Romaniote to the Sephardim and others who made it to and through Greece.

An online course presented in 10 minute episodes.
Learn at your own pace.


Please sign-up now!
Total cost of the course is $75.00

Jews have been in Greece since before the Temple was destroyed. They were in Greece upon the founding of the Greek Orthodox Church. Community members, known as Romaniote, made their way through Venice, Byzantium, Spain, across the Ottoman Empire, and beyond.
 
Dr. Yitzchak Kerem provides an overview of the unique languages, liturgical nuances, and communal life of Jews across Greece. Dr Kerem spent significant time living in Greece and researching Greek and Sephardic history. Photographs, maps, and personal accounts provide course participants with a full picture of the unique nature of the Jews of Greece and its surroundings.
 
In the course, participants will look at major influential points in Greek Jewish history. They will explore The Golden Age of Salonika, a time when Greece’s northern city was a hub of Jewish scholarship. Kerem introduces the tension arising in the Greek Jewish community because of Shabtai Tzvi and the Sabbateanism movement that brought with it false messianism and conversion to Islam, at least outwardly.
 
The course looks at when the Alliance Israélite Universelle moved in and the Sephardic culture in Greece developed a rich secular culture with its own novels, theater, and music. 
 
This is part of the greater Jewish heritage and history that is often overlooked. ASF IJE online courses will bring to life all parts of the greater Jewish Experience.

For more information and other ASF IJE online course offerings visithttps://courses.instituteofjewishexperience.org/

 and your generous tax-deductible contribution will empower the ASF to fight for Jewish unity and champion the Sephardi voice in Jewish communal affairs at home and abroad, as well as in our programs, publications, and projects. 

Contact us by email to learn about giving opportunities in honor or memory of loved ones

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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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