Mazal Tov/Mabrouk to Elliot Jebreel, Sarah Pinch, Julia Gazdag, and the entire Limmud UK team for a spectacularly successful Festival, including the most Sephardic programming (including the first Spanish & Portuguese minyan) in the flagship Limmud’s nearly 40 year history. ASF was represented by Ruben Shimonov (an ASF Broome & Allen Fellow and VP of Education and Community Engagement for ASF Young Leaders) and Jason Guberman (ASF’s Executive Director)
Anna Monahemi was born and raised in Iran, but fled the country after the Islamist Revolution. She arrived alone and lived with a foster family, but that didn’t stop her from mastering the language and graduating from Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women and the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law. Now, Anna Kaplan, newly elected to the New York State Senate, has become the highest-ranking Persian-Jewish state official: “My undying gratitude to this great country for taking me in during my most desperate hour is what compels me to public service.”
Ravid Kahlani is an Israeli vocalist and musician who was born into a traditional Jewish-Yemenite family. Today he’s the leader of Yemen Blues, a World Music sensation that’s making Jewish-Yemenite culture come alive. Ravid’s mind-bending, personal journey of discovery passed through Orthodox Serbian church music and African music before leading him back to Yemenite-Jewish sounds.
David Tzuberi reading a Hebrew text, upside down, Sa’ada, Yemen, 1988
(Photo courtesy of Naftali Hilger)
One of the leading lights of the religious Zionist world, R’ Eliezer Melamed, celebrates the many ways in which Yemenite Jews have maintained 2,000-year-old traditions that have been lost to the rest of the nation. For instance, “Yemenite immigrants, to this day, still practice the ancient custom in which every person reads the portion when he is called-up to the Torah. The observance of this custom is one of the reasons for the proficiency of many Yemenite immigrants in Torah and grammar.” [Translated from the Hebrew]
A tourism program launched by the Spanish government that, according to Spanish officials, is intended to help atone for the expulsion of Spanish Jewry is proving to be problematic. Take the artwork on sale in the gift shop of Toledo’s 12th C. Ibn Shoshan synagogue (now a church): “In Toledo’s Jewish Quarter… [n]ext to a strikingly beautiful 12th-century synagogue, the Catholic Church has permitted an enterprising Euro-mystical version of Jews for Jesus to sell paintings, drawings and books by a man who was born Jewish, then converted to Catholicism. It seemed, at the very least, tone-deaf on the part of the Spanish Church.”
CONTEXT
Since Biblical times, from Abrahams journey to Egypt and the later Israelite captivity under the Pharaohs, the Jewish People have had close ties with Africa. Some Jewish communities in Africa are amongst the oldest in the world, dating back more than 2,700 years (Morocco, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria). Today, Jews and Judaism in Africa show an ethnic and religious diversity and richness almost unparalleled on any other continent.
CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
Our Conference will bring together a circle of emerging African leaders and researchers who will analyze a broad spectrum of issues pertaining to the history and contemporary situation of Jewish Africa, including the role of Jews and the need for Jewish voices in African civil society, the development of Jewish space, perspectives on old and new African Jewish identities, and encounters between Jews and non-Jews in contemporary Africa.
TOPICS TO BE DISCUSSED
Jewish heritage in Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Cape Verde, Uganda, and South Africa; Black African Judaism; Future for Judaism in Africa; and preserving the memory and heritage of African Judaism in the 21st Century via the Diarna Geo-Museum and Atlas of Jewish History initiatives.
The central idea is to approach these topics from the point of view of Jewish African leaders. In doing so, the conference seeks to provide a platform and create a meaningful network of researchers and Jewish African leaders.
Description of ASF-Mimouna Partnership The American Sephardi Federation, a partner of the landmark Center for Jewish History, proudly preserves and promotes the history, traditions, and rich mosaic culture of Greater Sephardic communities as an integral part of the Jewish experience. The ASF hosts high-profile events and exhibitions, produces widely-read online (Sephardi World Weekly and Sephardi Ideas Monthly) and print (The Sephardi Report) publications, supports research, scholarship (Broome & Allen Fellows and Scholars), the Institute of Jewish Experience, and the National Sephardic Library & Archives, and represents the Sephardi voice in diplomatic and Jewish communal affairs as a member of the World Jewish Congress and Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
Association Mimouna is a Moroccan NGO that derives its name from a unique Moroccan Jewish celebration of liberty and community. Moroccan Jews would often invite their Muslim neighbors to join their post-Passover festivities. Association Mimouna was founded in 2007 at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane (AUI) by Moroccan Muslim students who take pride in this shared symbol of Moroccan heritage and strive to preserve and promote the history of Morocco’s ancient Jewish community. The New York Timesdescribed Mimouna’s conference commemorating Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust and honoring King Mohammed V for his refusal to assent to the persecution of Jews during the Vichy occupation as “the first of its kind in an Arab or Muslim nation and a sign of historical truth triumphing over conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic dogma.”
The American Sephardi Federation and Association Mimouna are partnered to celebrate Judeo-Moroccan history, traditions, and culture, as well as the Moroccan culture of co-existence. Since 2014, we have created a series of major events in New York City, including the Moroccan-Jewish Caravan, “From Casablanca to New York: A Night of Moroccan Culture,” the 20th and 21st Anniversary Editions of the NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival, and an event with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations featuring the General Secretary of Muslim World League to honor the heroism of Muslims who protected Jewish communities and/or saved Jewish refugees during the Holocaust. These events have been both well-attended and were featured in leading publications, such as Tablet Magazine, CS Monitor, and the Times of Israel. Our work together preserving Jewish historical sites in Morocco, via a mutual partner, the Diarna Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life, has also been featured in The New York Times.
The American Sephardi Federation, Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America, and American Jewish Historical Society present:
A Festival to celebrate Ladino, the remarkable language also known as Judeo-Spanish.
Sunday, 10 February, 2:00-5:00PM Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street
New York City
Please register here
or call: 1.800.838.3006 Light refreshments will be served.
Celebrate Ladino, also known as Judeo-Spanish, in the company
of highly acclaimed writers and musicians. Hear author Jane
Mushabac’s story, “Seven Songs”; clarinetist Danny Elias;
composer Avi Amon introducing his musical fantasy, Salonika;
scholar Bryan Kirschen speaking on Ladino’s rich culture; Rabbi
Nissim Elnecavé on wisdom tales; and the Alhambra Ensemble’s
Songs of Courtship, Love, and Holidays with oud, violin, shawm,
dumbek and voices.
Since 2013—when Israel’s 5th President Yitzhak Navon endorsed
Zelda Ovadia’s idea of International Ladino Day—celebrations have
been held in Jerusalem, Seattle, Istanbul, Madrid, Dallas, Forest
Hills, Boston, and other cities. February 10th marks the Second
Annual International Ladino Day at the Center for Jewish History.
Ladino is a bridge to many cultures; it’s a Spanish language that
includes words in Hebrew, Turkish, Arabic, and more. The mother
tongue of Jews in the Ottoman Empire for 500 years, Ladino was
the home language of Sephardim worldwide in the early 20th
century.
Although today Ladino is only spoken by a small fraction of
Sephardim, the interest in the language and its culture is
experiencing a resurgence through distinguished university
programs, publications, concerts, and events of many kinds.
Nosotros 2.0, which opened as a one-night pop-up exhibition on 11 October. continues in part as an exhibition in our Leon Levy Gallery.
On view until April
Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street
New York City
The Philos Project and American Sephardi Federation cordially invite you to “Nosotros," an exhibition composed of pieces by Latino artists celebrating the shared history and culture of Jewish and Latino communities, and expressing hope for a more positive future. Latin American artistry is rich with Sephardi and Crypto-Jewish allusions and symbols.
The exhibit is titled “Nosotros,” the Spanish word for “us,” and all of the art represents the growing relationship between the Jewish and Hispanic communities in New York and around the world. The exhibit is one of the many things Jesse Rojo, The Philos Project's Hispanic Affairs Director, is doing to bridge the gap between Hispanics and the Middle East.
Donate nowand 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
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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).
