Mazal tov Ambassador Yerzhan Ashikbayev for gathering Jewish leaders (including the ASF) for a pre-Rosh HaShanah luncheon, the first Kosher event at the Kazakhstan Embassy in Washington D.C.’s historic Sherman House
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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.
Israeli musician and “Tehran” actress Liraz Charhi is also a social entrepreneur. Raised in a Persian-speaking Israeli home, Liraz secretly brought together musicians from Israel and Iran, “to work on an album in secret and release it in the midst of a global pandemic.” Called, “Zan,” meaning “woman” in Persian, the album was a way for Charhi to pay tribute to the women of Iran and to connect to the land of her parent’s birth: “‘It was a very necessary thing for me to go back and dig in my roots and my veins to understand what is the real story of my family. To be an artist, I needed to know who I am.’”
Continuing our exploration of penitential prayers for the Hebrew month of Elul, Iraqi-Israeli oud master & ASF Pomegranate Award Recipient (2013), Yair Dalal, puts a meditative, Indian and ultimately ecstatic spin on the classic piyyut, Adon HaSelichot (“Master of Forgiveness”).
It’s a new Middle East. The Association of Gulf Jewish Communities (AGJC), a people-to-people network of Jewish communities livestreamed a prayer service on 22 August. Said AGJC’s Rabbi Elie Abadie (who is also the Senior Rabbi of the Jewish Council of the Emirates and Chair of the ASF’s Council of Sephardic Sages): “‘As we usher in the Hebrew month of Elul and prepare for the upcoming High Holidays, we gather as a community to recite the Selichot prayers… It was very important to us to host a genuine Sephardic service as we celebrate the rejuvenation of Jewish life in the region through the formation of the AGJC.’”
Alanoud Alhashmi (Founder & CEO of the Futurist Company), AGJC Selichot Service, House of the Ten Commandments, Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain
Concealed: Memoir of a Jewish Iranian Daughter Caught Between the Chador and America By Esther Amini
Esther Amini grew up in Queens, New York, during the freewheeling 1960s. She also grew up in a Persian-Jewish household, the American-born daughter of parents who had fled Mashhad, Iran. In Concealed, she tells the story of being caught between these two worlds: the dutiful daughter of tradition-bound parents who hungers for more self-determination than tradition allows.
Exploring the roots of her father’s deep silences and explosive temper, her mother’s flamboyance and flights from home, and her own sense of indebtedness to her Iranian-born brothers, Amini uncovers the story of her parents’ early years in Mashhad, Iran’s holiest Muslim city; the little-known history of Mashhad’s underground Jews; the incident that steeled her mother’s resolve to leave; and her parents’ arduous journey to the U.S., where they faced a new threat to their traditions: the threat of freedom. Determined to protect his daughter from corruption, Amini’s father prohibits talk, books, education, and pushes an early Persian marriage instead. Can she resist? Should she? Focused intently on what she stands to gain, Amini comes to see what she also stands to lose: a family and community bound by food, celebrations, sibling escapades, and unexpected acts of devotion by parents to whom she feels invisible.
In this poignant, funny, entertaining, and uplifting memoir, Amini documents with keen eye, quick wit, and warm heart how family members build, buoy, wound, and save one another across generations; how lives are shaped by the demands and burdens of loyalty and legacy; and how she rose to the challenge of deciding what to keep and what to discard.
The Wolf of Baghdad (Memoir of a lost homeland) By Carol Isaacs
In the 1940s a third of Baghdad’s population was Jewish. Within a decade nearly all 150,000 had been expelled, killed or had escaped. This graphic memoir of a lost homeland is a wordless narrative by an author homesick for a home she has never visited.
Transported by the power of music to her ancestral home in the old Jewish quarter of Baghdad, the author encounters its ghost-like inhabitants who are revealed as long-gone family members. As she explores the city, journeying through their memories and her imagination, she at first sees successful integration, and cultural and social cohesion. Then the mood turns darker with the fading of this ancient community’s fortunes.
This beautiful wordless narrative is illuminated by the words and portraits of her family, a brief history of Baghdadi Jews and of the making of this work. Says Isaacs: ‘The Finns have a word, kaukokaipuu, which means a feeling of homesickness for a place you’ve never been to. I’ve been living in two places all my life; the England I was born in, and the lost world of my Iraqi-Jewish family’s roots.’
Pre-order your copy of “Sephardi: Cooking the History.
Recipes of the Jews of Spain and the Diaspora, from the 13th Century Onwards”
(recently ranked “#1 New Release in Spanish Cooking, Food & Wine” on Amazon).
ASF Broome & Allen Fellow Hélène Jawhara Piñer earned her Ph.D in History, Medieval History, and the History of Food from the University of Tours, France.
Chef Hélène’s primary research interest is the medieval culinary history of Spain through interculturality with a special focus on the Sephardic culinary heritage written in Arabic. A member of the IEHCA (Institute of European History and Cultures of Food), the CESR (Centre for Advanced Studies in the Renaissance), and the CoReMa Project (Cooking Recipes of the Middle Ages), Chef Hélène has lectured at Bar-Ilan University (in collaboration with the Stali Institute and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC): “El patrimonio culinario judío de la Península Ibérica a través de un manuscrito del siglo XIII. Ejemplos de la pervivencia de recetas en la cocina de los sefardíes de España y de Marruecos,” 2018), as well as at conference of the Association Diwan (“Reflections on the Jewish heritage according to the Kitāb al-ṭabīẖ,” 2015), IEHCA of Tours (“Jews and Muslims at the Table: Between coexistence and differentiation: state of affairs and reflections on the culinary practices of Jews and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula and in Sicily from the 12th to the 15th century,” 2017), and Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies (“The hidden Jewish culinary heritage of the Iberian Peninsula through a manuscript of the 13th century. Examples of the provenance of some recipes in Venezuelan and Colombian cuisine,” 2017).
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.
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
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.
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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).
