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11 June 2021 
 
In Memory of Mordechai Zaken, A”H, one of the world’s “foremost expert[s] on Kurdish Jews”

 Click here to dedicate a future issue in honor or memory of a loved one.

Thank you to 
Sephardi World Weekly Patrons Professor Rifka Cook,  Maria Gabriela Borrego Medina, Rachel Amar, Deborah Arellano, and Distinguished ASF Vice President Gwen Zuares!
Become a Patron today!


During Passover, Iranian regime-backed Houthis expelled almost all of Yemen’s last Jews. They continue to illegally imprison Levi Salem Musa Marhabi. Don’t turn away. Don’t close your eyes. Don’t let another group of Jews become forgotten refugees. Join the ASF’s campaign to #FreeLeviMarhabi.
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Pnina Tamano-Shata
(Photo courtesy of Global Fusion)
“Aliyah & Integration Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata awarded Magen Begin Prize”
Hadassah Brenner, The Jerusalem Post

Aliyah and Integration Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata initially received recognition for being the first Ethiopian-Jewish woman in Israel’s Knesset and the first Ethiopian-born minister to serve in an Israeli government. Now she’s receiving accolades for her accomplishments as a parliamentarian, with the Begin Heritage Center recently awarding her the Magen Begin Prize for Leadership, “for her outstanding work and achievements in Aliyah, absorption and integration.” Said Tamano-Shata: “Menachem Begin was the first prime minister to see us as brothers and sisters who must be part of the 12 tribes returning to Israel and thus broke through the barriers among decision-makers that hindered immigration.”

Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata (Screenshot courtesy of The Knesset/Youtube)

Israel’s Minister of Aliyah and Integration and the recent recipient of the Magen Begin Prize for Leadership, Pnina Tamano-Shata, tells the amazing story of her family’s Aliyah to Israel in 1984. After trekking from Ethiopia to Sudan by foot, Tamano-Shata’s family spent time in Sudanese refugee camps before being accidentally separated when Tamano-Shata was spirited to Israel by the Mossad while her mother and sisters were left behind when the truck taking them to the designated pick-up spot broke down (they arrived a year later). The journey was, “dramatic and traumatic.” Tamano-Shata says she felt Israeli from the moment she set foot in the country, but she recognizes that not everyone shares her experience, and she has dedicated much of her parliamentary career to strengthening the bonds between native Israelis and new immigrants, “Israeli diversity means power… when we see new immigrants… we must know how to make room for their cultural expression.”

Jewish porter in Salonica, circa early 20th century
(Photo courtesy of the National Library of Israel Digital Collection/The Jerusalem Post)

 
“Memories from my Sephardic Grandparents”
James R. Russell, The Jewish Post

James R. Russell is a noted academic who taught at Columbia and Harvard. Russell is also, on his mother’s side, the descendant of Sephardi Jews. His Ladino-speaking maternal grandmother came from Salonika, Greece, while his Ladino-speaking maternal grandfather came from Tétouan, Morocco. The story of how Russell's grandparents met in a Park Avenue apartment points to the origin of Russell’s own talents: “They advertised for a suitable match for Grandma in the Ladino newspaper, and when each swain came to call, the women would leave a book on the table and hide in the kitchen to see what the prospective spouse did with it. Most men showed no interest in the book... Finally, a somewhat older gentleman immersed himself in the volume, not looking up right away when the ladies emerged. So Grandmother married him.”
“‘The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem’ makes its amazing, much-awaited debut”
Hannah Brown, The Jerusalem Post

“The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem” is a lavish television drama “adapted from the bestselling novel by Sarit Yishai Levi” that had its premiere this week. The show features a Sephardi family in a “Jerusalem setting” with dialogue, “in five languages: Hebrew, Ladino, Turkish, English and Arabic (although most of it is in the Hebrew and Ladino).” While the producers are hoping for another internationally popular Israeli program, Hannah Brown wonders why the show's trailer, “inexplicably, features a slow cover of the Simon and Garfunkel song “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme,” which has no connection to the series, either musically or any other way. The actual series has a beautiful soundtrack filled with Sephardi melodies that you would think would be sufficiently alluring for a trailer.”

Book cover The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem. Sarit Yishai-Levi presented her best-selling book at the ASF in November 2016
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Upcoming Events or Opportunities:


Original Ladino Music with Nani Noam Vazana

Sunday, 13 June @ 12:00PM EDT

Nani Noam Vazana is the world’s first original Ladino artist. She will be discussing her new Ladino album on Zoom and Facebook Live!

During the pandemic, Nani decided to do a resurrection project of a very old language called Ladino, a Jewish-Spanish dialect from the middle ages that her grandmother used to speak. One of her 1st and best memories is of her and her grandmother together in the kitchen, speaking Ladino & singing songs about aubergine recipes.

Nani represented the NL at the EU Music Festival VN, performed at the Kennedy Center USA, Jodhpur RIFF festival IN, Jazzahead DE, North Sea Jazz NL, Roccella Jazz IT, TEDx NL & hosted 3 WOMEX panels. The Dutch NPO network released a mini documentary about her musical work in 2018. Nani also composed music for BBC4 and NPO documentaries. Nani is a professor at the London Performing Academy of Music, she chairs of the Amsterdam Artist Collective and founded Why DIY Music and Nova Productions.

For more about Nani: https://nanimusic.com/home/

Sign-up Now!

Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org


New Works Wednesdays with Dalya Arussy Di Veroli

Wednesday, 16 June @ 12:00PM EDT

Join us for a special edition of New Works Wednesdays where Dalya Arussy Di Veroli will discuss the siddur “Four Corners of the Earth,” the idea behind it, the nuances in the different texts, and why it is practical today.

“Four Corners of the Earth” is a siddur with Shabbat prayer texts of four different Jewish communities - Ashkenazi, Baladi (Yemenite), Bene Romi (Roman), and Edot Hamizrah (Mizrahi). While there have been attempts at creating a unified nusah (version) of the prayers, this siddur includes the different varieties, separately, allowing individuals to pray at the synagogue of their choice and be able to follow along no matter what nusah they are used to. “Four Corners of the Earth” connects the various diaspora communities through prayer.

About the speaker:

Dalya Arussy Di Veroli is the visual content creator at the Institute of Jewish Experience. After studying Art History and Arabic and doing an M.Sc. in Urban Planning, Dalya decided to focus on building social bridges rather than physical bridges, finding her way to the Institute of Jewish Experience. The siddur “Four Corners of the Earth” is a project she and her husband took upon themselves in honor of their recent wedding.

Sign-up Now!

Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org


Live with Filmmakers at CGMuse

Join us for a unique discussion with animator and filmmaker C.A. MacFinn and creative producer Clare Kohavi, from CGMuse!

About their upcoming film, “Ariel”:
Synopsis - In the world of the Ottoman Sultans, a poor child from Jerusalem makes an unimaginable desert journey to Cairo and back to save his mother and siblings from a rapacious aristocrat. He has nine days…

The Impact - Sephardi/Mizrahi Jewry is a deeply ancient community long ignored in the west. Most people are shocked to find out that at the dawn of the 20th century the most Jewish city in the world wasn’t New York or Tel Aviv - It was Baghdad, whose population was 40% Jewish! Brings this long-gone world of Middle-Eastern Jewry to life, educating audiences about this rich tradition with a dynamic story of family, love and resilience.

Learn more: http://cgmuse.com/ariel.html

*The event will also be on Facebook Live*

Sign-up Now!

Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org


New Works Wednesdays with Gloria Abella Ballen

Join us for New Works Wednesdays with Gloria Abella Ballen as she discusses her book “Garden of Eden: Plants of the Hebrew Bible.”

About the book:

Historically the plants of the Bible have been of great interest for botanical studies, for their medicinal qualities, for cooking, for building gardens, for inspiration, and as metaphors for teaching.

The Bible often provides both social and symbolic meanings for plants, but sometimes the ambiguity of language means that the species mentioned cannot be specifically identified. The Bible was written in Aramaic and Hebrew, it was first translated into Greek in the second century B.C.E., into Latin in the fourth century C.E., and later into the many languages of the world. As we will see, the story of those translations has affected our understanding of the plants.

In this book I include the Hebrew name and the Latin scientific name for each of the plants, as well as the common name in English. Along with the images, I include a biblical reference to the plant with my interpretation of the verse, focusing on the five most mentioned plants: fig, grape vine, olive, date palm and pomegranate.


About the author:
Gloria Abella Ballen is an artist and author creating award-winning art books such as The Power of the Hebrew Alphabet and The New World Haggadah, the latter with Ilan Stavans. Both titles won Best Book Awards with The Power of the Hebrew Alphabet winning multiple awards. Abella Ballen has graduate degrees in art from SUNY-Buffalo and the National University in Mexico City and has done specialized studies on studio art and theory with Larry Rivers and John Cage. She has exhibited in individual and group shows in the US, Israel, Japan, Latin America, and Europe, and has received a number of awards, including the UNESCO prize in painting, the Latin American Graphics Biennial, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Pan American Graphics Portfolio Award among others. Abella Ballen currently lives in Santa Fe, NM.

Sign-up Now!

Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org

The Department of Anthropology & Archeology at the University of Calgary, King’s College London, the International Network of Jewish Thought (Universidad Complutense of Madrid), & the American Sephardi Federation present:

Sephardi Thought and Modernity 2021 Webinar Series

A monthly lecture from February through June 2021, presenting different experiences of Sephardi modernization in different places and times.

On Wednesday, 23 June @ 12:00PM EDT 
(10:00AM MDT)
PLEASE NOTE NEW DATE AND TIME


Yuval Evri (King’s College London) and Angy Cohen (University of Calgary): Foreign in a familiar land: language and belonging in the work of Jacqueline Kahanoff, Albert Memmi, and Jacques Derrida.


Sign-up for the Last Webinar Series Event!
(Complimentary RSVP)


The intention of this series is to spark the interest in processes of Jewish modernization not exclusively mediated by Europeanization. The questions we will be dealing with are related to non-dichotomic identities, multiplicity and loss of language, colonization, social transformation, and intellectual responses to it. We will approach these questions by looking at Jewish-Arab influences, the Sephardi response to European modernization, the responses of the rabbinic leadership and the work of Sephardi intellectuals.

Series organized by Yuval Evri (King’s College London) and Angy Cohen (University of Calgary).


The Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood Presents

2021 Sephardic Birthright Trip

“Registration is now open for this year’s Sephardic Birthright Trip! 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. The trip is totally FREE and anyone between the ages of 18 and 28 who hasn't been on a Birthright Israel trip before is eligible. Even if you’ve been to Israel before on a non-birthright trip, you may still be eligible. The trip will follow all related COVID-19 Health Guidance as required by the US Centers for Disease Control and the Israel Ministry of Health.”
 
You can sign up now at sephardicbrotherhood.com/birthright. Registration takes less than 10 minutes and no final commitment is necessary. When registering, make sure to write “Sephardic Israel” as your “referred by” group and Amazing Israel as your trip provider.


August 22 - September 1 2021


Sign-up for the trip now!



Note: While not an ASF program, the ASF is proud of the ASF Young Leaders involved in organizing this trip.


The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:

The Persian Experience

Sign-up now!

Jews lived in the Middle East, and particularly Iran, even before the advent of Islam. Iran has a long history with varying dynasties, dynastic changes, and evolving borders and Jews have been there continuously throughout these changes. Throughout the ascent of Islam in its different forms, Jews were integrated at times more and at times less economically. There were times of intellectual and spiritual growth as well as suppression and persecution. All this will be addressed and discussed in a historical context.

The course is divided into seven units:


1. The Ancient Period – the settlement of the Jews in Iran, Acaemenid, Parthian, and Sassanian times
2. 7th to 9th Centuries – The emergence of Islam, Islam and the Jews, Dhimma, and Jewish religious streams
3. 13th to 18th centuries – Mongols, Jewish Persian poets, Safavid times
4. Mid-18th century to 19th century – Invasion, dynasties, and persecutions
5. The latter part of the 19th century – Interactions with World Jewry, legal status and conversions
6. Early 20th century – Modernization and education, constitution revolution, Zionism
7. The 20th century – Pahlavi dynasty, Revolution, Mashadis, and Migration


Dr. Daniel Tsadik
Dr. Daniel Tsadik, a former professor of Sephardic and Iranian Studies at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, has been awarded The Prime Minister’s Prize (Israel) in 2020 for the Encouragement and Empowerment of Jewish Communities in Arab Countries and Iran for The Jews of Iran and Rabbinic Literature: New Perspectives, published by Mosad Ha-Rav Kook.
Tsadik researches the modern history of Iran, Shi'ah Islam, and Iran's religious minorities. A Fulbright scholar, he earned his Ph.D from the History Department at Yale University.

Dr. David Yeroushalmy
Born in Tehran, David Yeroushalmy completed his primary and part of his secondary education at the Alliance Israelite school in Tehran. He immigrated to Israel in 1961 and upon completing his secondary education he enrolled in the Department of Middle Eastern History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Completing his B.A. in Middle Eastern Studies and in Political Science, he served in the Israeli Army as an officer. He pursued his doctoral studies at Colombia University New York, in the Department of Middle East Languages and Cultures. He specialized in Persian and Hebrew languages and literatures. D. Yeroushalmy was appointed lecturer in the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel-Aviv University, where he has been teaching Persian language and Iranian history and culture. His Book entitled The Judeo-Persian Poet Emrani and His Book of Treasure, was published by E.J. Brill Publishers, Leiden, in 1995. Dr. Yeroushalmy's current research focuses on the communal and cultural history of Iranian Jewry in the course of the nineteen-century.

Ms. Lerone Edalati
Lerone Edalati is a member of the Mashadi community of New York. In addition to her role as Associate Director of Donor Relations at ISEF, she researches and records the history and current practices of the Mashadi Jews. She holds a BA from NYU in Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies, and an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from The Graduate Center, CUNY. She is a Broome & Allen Fellow at the American Sephardi Federation and is currently gathering oral histories of Iranian Jews in NY.

Dr. Hilda Nissimi
Dr. Hilda Nissimi is the chair of the Generatl History Department at Bar Ilan University. Her most current research focuses on the formation adn change of identity layers in crypto-religious communities, with a particular focus on Mashadi Jews. Her book, The Crypto-Jewish Mashadis, was published in 1985 and remains the main text on the study of that population. She has written numerous articles on identity and forced conversions.


This course is made possible with the support of The Shazar Center, Israel.

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



Sponsorship opportunities available:
info@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/

With your generous, tax-deductible donation, the ASF can cultivate and advocate, preserve and promote, as well as educate and empower!



Please donate now to support the American Sephardi Federation!
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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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