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21 June 2019 

In Memory of Shalom Tesciuba, the Tripoli-born leader of the Libyan Jewish community at Rome for 50 years, who is credited with "the rebirth of the Tripoline Jewish community" in Italian exile and "help[ing] revitalize Roman Judaism” after the Holocaust
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Ioannina, home to unique Jewish community, elects Greece’s first Jewish mayor” 
By Gavin Rabinowitz, The Times of Israel
 
Romaniote Jews have lived in Greece for more than 2,000 years, and there were 2,000 living in the northern city of Ionnina at the start of WWII. Only 112 survived. Moses Elisaf leads the small community today, and when local elections were held in the city of 60,000 recently, who did they elect to be mayor? Elisaf, whose response was in equal parts emotional and political: “‘Today, Ioannina made a huge change, a big leap of progress. I feel deep emotion and heavy responsibility towards all my fellow residents.’”
 
Mayor Moses Elisaf
(Photo courtesy of Greek City Times

 
Feature of the week: Zohra Al Fassiya: The Forgotten Giant of Moroccan Music

By i24 News

 

Cheikha Zohra el Fassia's “Goulou Le Simohamed” and “Ah Yana,” album cover in Arabic and French, circa 1960s
(Photo courtesy of Popsike)  
 
Zohra Al Fassiya (1905?-1994) was a giant of Moroccan music, beloved by Moroccan Jews and Muslims alike, who made Aliyah to Israel in 1962, in part because the country suited her relatively liberal lifestyle. Settled in Ashkelon, Al Fassiya was largely forgotten by the Israeli public. Today, however, artists like Neta Elkayam (who performed at the ASF’s 20th NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival) are picking up where Al Fassiya left off, preserving her memory and performing her music in both Israel and Morocco.

Ben Zion David
(Photo courtesy of Ben Zion David/International Folk Art Market)   
The Last Yemenite Silversmith” 
By Deborah Danan, Jewish Journal
 
The Yemenite Culture Museum in Jaffa’s Old City is owned by an eighth-generation silversmith named Ben Zion David.  David was inspired to take up his career while waiting for security clearance to begin what would have been a very different job with a defense electronics firm. Today, he regularly exhibits his work in the United States and Europe. Asked if it ever gets old, David responds, “‘You have no idea how much fulfillment I have from doing this.’”
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American Sephardi Federation Presents:

Romeo & Juliet
Jewish Adaptation 
Starring  David Serero as Romeo.

Sunday, 23 June at 6:00PM
Closing Night; Followed by After Party

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

Please register here


Shakespeare’s classic tale of love and loss reconceived as the story of two Jewish lovers, one from a Sephardi family and one from an Ashkenazi family. Featuring Ladino and Yiddish songs. Original Jewish adaption by David Serero.


American Sephardi Federation Presents:

The Marriage of Figaro
Adapted and directed by David Serero

Tuesday, 9 July at 3pm
Thursday, 11 July at 8pm

Opening Night; Followed by After Party
Monday, 15 July at 8pm
Thursday, 18 July at 8pm
Sunday, 21 July at 6pm

Closing Night; Followed by After Party

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

Please register here


The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro) is a comic opera that pits the philander Count Almaviva against his wily valet, Figaro (David Serero), and his wise fiancée Susanna. Love, humility, and forgiveness triumph in harmonious song. Music by Mozart. Italian libretto by Lorenzo di Ponte, a Sephardi playwright in Italy.


Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America Presents:

Sephardic Birthright Israel Trip

26 June - 7 July, 2019

Please register here 
or email: info@sephardicbrotherhood.com 

“Join Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America for the Birthright Israel - Sephardic Israel Trip this Summer from June 27 - July 7! For 10 days, you'll be able to travel around the country with amazing people with Sephardic, Greek, and Turkish backgrounds, all while exploring everything Israel has to offer. You'll be able to ride camels in the desert, raft down the Jordan River, explore the Old City in Jerusalem, and a whole lot more. especially for Sephardic Jews from across the United States.”

Sign up now or learn more here

Note: While not an ASF program, ASF is proud of the members of our Young Leadership Board who are involved in organizing this trip


The American Sephardi Federation and The Sousa Mendes Foundation present:

Eleanor Roosevelt and the Jewish Refugees She Saved: The Story of the S. S. Quanza
 The New York première of the documentary film, Nobody Wants Us, 2019 

Sunday, 11 August at 2:00PM
(A wine and cheese reception will follow)

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


General admission: $20
Sponsor ticket: $120 includes VIP luncheon before the event. 

$100 of this ticket price is tax-deductible.  
Money raised will help bring the film and educational materials into schools throughout the United States.


Please RSVP here
or call: 
1.800.838.3006


Synopsis:
In 1940, a ship called the S.S. Quanza left the port of Lisbon carrying several hundred Jewish refugees, most of whom held Sousa Mendes visas to freedom.  But events went terribly wrong, and the passengers became trapped on the ship because no country would take them in.  Nobody Wants Us tells the gripping true story of how Eleanor Roosevelt herself stepped in to save the passengers on board because of her moral conviction that they were not undesirables (as the US State Department labeled them) but rather were future patriotic Americans.  This is an episode in American history that everyone needs to know.

Program:
The film, which is 35 minutes in length, will be introduced by the filmmaker Laura Seltzer-Duny and followed by a panel discussion moderated by Michael Dobbs of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, author of The Unwanted

Other participants will include:
Blanche Wiesen Cook, the leading world expert on Eleanor Roosevelt and the author of her three-volume biography.

Annette Lachmann, who was a passenger on the Quanza in 1940.

Kathleen Rand, whose father, Wolf Rand, was the passenger who successfully filed suit against the shipping company, forcing the vessel to remain in port until the conflict was resolved.

Stephen Morewitz, the leading world expert on the Quanza story, whose grandparents Norfolk, Virginia law firm of Morewitz & Morewitz was hired by Wolf Rand and successfully litigated the case.

Significance of the story:
According to Michael Dobbs, The Quanza incident is a timely reminder that individuals make a difference.  Without visas supplied by the Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes, many of the Jewish passengers on board the Quanza might well have been stranded in Nazi-occupied Europe.  Without the legal brilliance of a maritime lawyer named Jacob Morewitz, the ship would have been obliged to sail back to Europe. Without the intervention of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, the passengers would not have been permitted to land.  It took three people, from entirely different backgrounds, to save dozens of lives that might otherwise have been lost.


The American Sephardi Federation & Consulate General of Spain at New York present:

Visados para la Libertad (Visas for Freedom)

On view until July

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


“The history of the Holocaust is not merely one of villains and their victims. There were also those who did not want to stand idly by in the face of tragedy; driven by their conscience, they decided to take action. Among these are the heroes, those who risked, or even sacrificed, their own lives to save others. However, there is also another group of individuals, whose actions behind the scenes, albeit more modest, are no less deserving of remembrance and tribute. They took advantage of the scope of Influence offered by their position or profession to protect and help, as far as was at all possible, Jews condemned to extermination in Europe. This was the case of some Spanish Diplomats. In the aftermath of the World War II, The Spanish government would claim that the regime’s official policy was devoted to humanitarian concerns, which they either tolerated or hindered.  It was, rather, individual diplomats, those to whom this exhibition pays homage, who did what was possible, and sometimes impossible, to save Jewish lives during the Holocaust.”


Embracing the Rituals of a Moroccan Wedding

A Joan Roth Photographic Journey, which opened on 17 June as part of The Morocco Conference (Uncommon Commonalities: Jews and Muslims of Morocco), continues in the
Leon Levy Gallery


On view until September

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


About the Photographer
In addition to Morocco, Joan Roth traveled to Ethiopia before Operation Moses and again afterwards, Yemen, Bukhara, India, Israel, and photographed extensively in the United States. Her photographs of Jewish women are published, exhibited, and collected by museums and collectors worldwide. Some of Joan’s photographs are published in the book: Jewish Women: A world of Tradition and Change (Jolen Press, 1995).

Gloria Steinem has written the following appreciation: “Joan Roth has looked at the Jewish world as if women mattered, and therefore as if everyone mattered. Across all the boundaries of geography and language, there is not only a common world of belief, but a common world of women. We see into its intimacy through her eyes. 
 
Roth richly depicts the personal and historical dimensions of these women as they preserve and adapt centuries-old traditions amid varied cultural surroundings. The effect, in the words of Rocky Mountain art critic Mary Voltz Chandler, “is like opening a jewelry box filled with so many secrets women know but never told each other. 

 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

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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) 548-4486

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