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17 September 2021 

In honor of Chilean independence from Spain, which was declared on 18 September 1810, but not formally achieved until almost a decade later. Liberator Bernardo O’Higgins enjoyed support from the Converso community, and once in power the new government ended the Inquisition’s reign of terror

 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!

The American Sephardi Federation invites all individuals, communities, and organizations who share our vision and principles to join us on the eve of Rosh HaShanah in signing the American Sephardi Leadership Statement.
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The great Moroccan-Israeli payytan Rabbi Haim Louk
(Photo courtesy of Haim Louk)
Andalusian Orchestra young at heart and voice
Barry Davis, The Jerusalem Post

The period leading up to the High Holidays is the busiest part of the season for The Israeli Andalusian Orchestra of Ashdod. That's when this world-class orchestra, since 2018 an officially recognized Israeli national orchestra, tours the country and performs selections from its repertoire of penitential piyyutim. The great piyyut master, R' Haim Louk, is a featured vocalist, and he appreciates the importance of singing in front of different audiences: “‘I am always looking for new material and new approaches. It is important to keep the music alive and vital, and attractive to new audiences. The art form has to evolve.’”

Israeli Andalusian Orchestra of Ashdod, Tel Aviv, 2015 
(Photo courtesy of YouTube

 
The month leading up to the High Holidays is when the Israeli Andalusian Orchestra, Ashdod, tours around the country, playing selections from its repertoire of penitential piyyutim – traditional liturgical soul music - some popular tunes, too, and hosting special guest vocalists. It’s become a kind of Israeli custom, a beautiful expression of the free market. By the end of this 2015 show, the orchestra had the crowd on its feet, chanting piyyutim in the Tel Aviv Harbor.
There are only three Jewish people left in Iraq. Where did they all go
Sandy Rashty, gal-dem

Sandy Rashty tells the story of the end of Iraqi Jewish history, and the continuity of Iraqi Jewish identity, via her own family story. Her Arabic-speaking grandmother lives in London today. Does she want to go back? “‘We have moved on, enough,’ she says, with a typically Middle Eastern wave of her hand.” Arabic-language news plays around the clock, and when visiting, “‘We each have a glass of slow-steamed Arabic tea, shortly followed by Turkish coffee. The coffee table is decorated with Arabian incense and a range of Middle Eastern snacks.’” So when you really look at it, “‘In some ways, my family has not left Iraq behind. As my mum says: ‘We kept the language, the food and the music. That’s it.’”

Archival photo of Iraqi Jewish children in a Forgotten Diasporas montage 
(Image courtesy of Sandy Rashty)  
Sephardi Gifts:
Iraq’s Last Jews: Stories of Daily Life, Upheaval, and Escape from Modern Babylon
Edited by Tamar Morad, Dennis Shasha, and Robert Shasha

Iraq’s Last Jews, a National Jewish Book Award Finalist, is a collection of first-person accounts about the once-vibrant, 2,500 year-old Babylonian Jewish community and its disappearance in the middle of the 20th century. This book tells the story of the last generation of Iraqi Jews, who both reminisce about their birth country and describe the persecution that drove them out, the result of Nazi influences, growing Arab nationalism, and anger over the re-birth of the State of Israel.
 
Babylon Lights
By Oded Halahmy

2008, Aluminum Cast

 
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.’ 
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Upcoming Events or Opportunities:

Jewish Heritage Alliance, in collaboration with the American Sephardi Federation and other co-hosting Partners, presents:

Sefarad:
The Untold Story That Changed the World
(Part 3)


A 3-part series exploring History, Memory, and Legacy

Sunday, 19 September at 1:00PM EDT
Sign-up Now!
(Free Admission, registration required) 



The Sephardic experience is more than merely recounting a history; this is a far-reaching segment of Jewish and world history spanning centuries with profound consequences still unfolding in present day. Yet despite its historic importance, many in the Jewish and Latino communities have yet to learn the relevance and impact of these events.

PART III / SEP 19: In the Footsteps of the Crypto Jews: A story of Agony, Survival and Redemption. In this third and final webinar of the series, we will walk in the long shadows of Sefardic Crypto-Jews who lived their lives deprived of access to normative Judaism and under constant threat of severe, life-threatening punishment by the Iberian Inquisition. Despite incredible obstacles, many Crypto-Jews strove to remain faithful, over the centuries, to their ancestral faith and traditions. This remarkable story of resilience, survival, and redemption recreated Jewish communities across Europe and the New World, and continues in our time, contributing to the indelible legacy of Sefarad.

Welcome Remarks: 
Dr. Josh Perelman is Chief Curator & Director of Exhibitions and Interpretation at the National Museum of American Jewish History. He is a member of the Museum’s senior team and oversees NMAJH's exhibitions and education departments as well as its artifact collection. Josh has curated award-winning special exhibitions, launched the Museum’s national curriculum, and served as chief curator for the landmark core exhibition that inaugurated NMAJH’s new building on Philadelphia’s Independence Mall. Josh holds dual PhDs in Jewish Studies and American History from NYU.

Guest Speaker / Presenter:
Dr. Isaac Amon, JHA’s Director of Research & Project Development will take us on a fascinating journey spanning time and space to the origins, experiences, and legacy of Sefarad, the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula, today’s Spain and Portugal. Isaac is an attorney and counselor at law. He graduated summa cum laude with “Highest Honors” in History for his thesis on the Spanish Inquisition. He was awarded a Dagen-Legomsky Fellowship and worked at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague where he met with Benjamin Ferencz, the last living Nuremberg Prosecutor. He has visited execution sites and torture chambers of the Inquisition as well as Nazi death camps. At the onset of the global pandemic, he was in the Iberian Peninsula researching the Iberian Inquisition.


Musical Guest:
Dr. Ariel Lazarus is a Composer, Classical Guitarist, singer, and musical director of the Israeli Ladino Orchestra. His Ph.D. work included a field research of the Spanish and Portuguese melodies in the Jewish community of Gibraltar. He has recorded several international albums inspired by his Sephardi heritage and performed worldwide as musical ambassador on behalf of the ‘Amiel Bakehila’ -Israeli Ministry of Diaspora affairs program. Dr. Lazarus is a music lecturer at "Givat Washington" college, and the Rimon School of Music in Israel (for more info please visit www.ariellazarus.co.il). We will feature Lazarus’s new rendition to the high holydays Piyyut (sacred poem) “Achot Ketana” (Little Sister) that was written by Abraham Ḥazzan of Gerona in the 13th century. This Piyyut is sung by Sephardi communities from the west and the east just before the entrance of the new year at Rosh Hashanah's eve.

The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:

New Works Wednesday with
Jane S. Gerber
and
Noam Sienna


Join Professor Jane S. Gerber and Dr. Noam Sienna as they discuss their research from the new book “Jews and Muslims in Morocco: Their Intersecting Worlds.”

Wednesday, 6 October

@ 9AM PDT ◊ 12PM EDT ◊ 5PM London ◊ 7PM Jerusalem ◊ 8PM Dubai

Sign-up Now!
(Free Admission, registration required) 



About Jews and Muslims in Morocco:
Multiple traditions of Jewish origins in Morocco emphasize the distinctiveness of Moroccan Jewry as indigenous to the area, rooted in its earliest settlements and possessing deep connections and associations with the historic peoples of the region. The creative interaction of Moroccan Jewry with the Arab and Berber cultures was noted in the Jews’ use of Morocco’s multiple languages and dialects, characteristic poetry, and musical works as well as their shared magical rites and popular texts and proverbs. In Jews and Muslims in Morocco: Their Intersecting Worlds historians, anthropologists, musicologists, Rabbinic scholars, Arabists, and linguists analyze this culture, in all its complexity and hybridity. The volume’s collection of essays span political and social interactions throughout history, cultural commonalities, traditions, and halakhic developments. As Jewish life in Morocco has dwindled, much of what is left are traditions maintained in Moroccan ex-pat communities, and memories of those who stayed and those who left. The volume concludes with shared memories from the perspective of a Jewish intellectual from Morocco, a Moroccan Muslim scholar, an analysis of a visual memoir painted by the nineteenth-century artist, Eugène Delacroix, and a photo essay of the vanished world of Jewish life in Morocco.

Purchase the book here!

About the speakers:
Jane S. Gerber is Professor Emerita of History and director of the Institute for Sephardic Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Dr. Noam Sienna is a scholar of Jewish culture and history, a Jewish educator, and a Hebrew calligrapher and book artist.

Sponsorship opportunities available:

info@americansephardi.org

The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:

Mizrahi Dance Series with Jackie Barzvi

Join the ASF Institute of Jewish Experience and Jackie Barzvi, creator of the Mizrachi Dance Archive, for a three-part series highlighting the history and movements of Mizrahi dance! Jackie will focus on three different Mizrahi styles: Moroccan, Bukharian, and Yemenite dances.

Each session will be both a lecture and dance class, and participants will learn about the history of each community, gain insight into how dance was included in their traditions, listen to Jewish music from each region, practice traditional movements, and so much more!
The workshops will be held via Zoom and all are welcomed.
No previous dance experience required.


On Sundays
10 October
17 October
24 October

@ 9AM PDT ◊ 12PM EDT ◊ 5PM London ◊ 7PM Jerusalem ◊ 8PM Dubai

Sign-up Now!



About Jackie Barzvi:
Jackie Barzvi is a professional raqs sharqi (belly dance) performer and instructor. She recently created the first ever Mizrachi Dance Archive to highlight specific Jewish dances from the Middle East and North African regions. Jackie was also the IACT Israel Programs Coordinator at Northeastern University Hillel in Boston, and has led over a dozen organized trips to Israel. Jackie is passionate about helping others find their unique Jewish identity and creating environments where people can dance, connect, and build community. To learn more about her work visit the archive at mizrachidancearchive.com

Sponsorship opportunities available:

info@americansephardi.org

The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:

New Works Wednesday with
Bart Wallet
and
David Wertheim


Join us for a New Works Wednesday with Bart Wallet and David Wertheim, two editors of the new book “Reappraising the History of the Jews in the Netherlands.”

Wednesday, 13 October

@ 9AM PDT ◊ 12PM EDT ◊ 5PM London ◊ 7PM Jerusalem ◊ 8PM Dubai

Sign-up Now!
(Free Admission, registration required) 



About the book:
The two decades since the last authoritative general history of Dutch Jews was published have seen such substantial developments in historical understanding that a new assessment has become an imperative. This volume offers an indispensable survey from a contemporary viewpoint that reflects the new preoccupations of European historiography and allows the history of Dutch Jewry to be more integrated with that of other European Jewish histories. Historians from both older and newer generations shed significant light on all eras, providing fresh detail that reflects changed emphases and perspectives.

In addition to such traditional subjects as the Jewish community’s relationship with the wider society and its internal structure, its leaders, and its international affiliations, new topics explored include the socio-economic aspects of Dutch Jewish life seen in the context of the integration of minorities more widely; a reassessment of the Holocaust years and consideration of the place of Holocaust memorialization in community life; and the impact of multiculturalist currents on Jews and Jewish politics. Memory studies, diaspora studies, and postcolonial studies all play their part in providing the fullest possible picture.
Available at liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk

About the editors:
Bart T. Wallet is Professor of Jewish History at the University of Amsterdam.
David J. Wertheim is the director of the Menasseh ben Israel Institute for Jewish Social and Cultural Studies, Amsterdam.

Sponsorship opportunities available:

info@americansephardi.org

The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:

The World Should Know:
First Steps in Writing Your Memoir


Each of us has a story to tell, we just need the impetus to get started!
Join award-winning author Gila Green in a hands on workshop to begin writing yours or your family’s story.

Writing a memoir is both for you and for future generations.
Begin today!


Thursday, 21 October

@ 9AM PDT ◊ 12PM EDT ◊ 5PM London ◊ 7PM Jerusalem ◊ 8PM Dubai

Sign-up Now!



About Gila Green:
Canadian author Gila Green is an Israel-based writer, editor, and EFL teacher.

Sponsorship opportunities available:

info@americansephardi.org

The American Sephardi Federation, the Jazz Leadership Project, and the Combat Antisemitism Movement present:

Combating Racism and Antisemitism Together: 
Shaping an Omni-American Future


Join artists, thinkers, and musicians who will offer perspectives on how to build a shared “Omni-American” future free of racism and antisemitism.

24-25 October 2021
(Digital Event)

SAVE THE DATE!



The term “Omni-American” is borrowed from the writings of Albert Murray, the great 20th century Black American thinker and writer who, together with his good friend and celebrated novelist, Ralph Ellison, extolled America’s pluralistic and “incontestably mulatto” culture.  By robustly critiquing racial essentialism and strongly emphasizing the power of culture instead of race, Murray and Ellison's writings strike at the root of ideologies that foster division, manipulation, and hatred, and ultimately develop into Antisemitism and Racism.

Sponsorship opportunities available:

info@americansephardi.org

The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:

New Works Wednesday with
Andre Elbaz, Edwin Seroussi,
and Michal Ben Ya'akov


Join us for a discussion with three researchers featured in the book “Jews and Muslims in Morocco: Their Intersecting Worlds.”

Wednesday, 27 October

@ 9AM PDT ◊ 12PM EDT ◊ 5PM London ◊ 7PM Jerusalem ◊ 8PM Dubai

Sign-up Now!
(Free Admission, registration required) 



About the book:
Multiple traditions of Jewish origins in Morocco emphasize the distinctiveness of Moroccan Jewry as indigenous to the area, rooted in its earliest settlements and possessing deep connections and associations with the historic peoples of the region. The creative interaction of Moroccan Jewry with the Arab and Berber cultures was noted in the Jews’ use of Morocco’s multiple languages and dialects, characteristic poetry, and musical works as well as their shared magical rites and popular texts and proverbs. In Jews and Muslims in Morocco: Their Intersecting Worlds historians, anthropologists, musicologists, Rabbinic scholars, Arabists, and linguists analyze this culture, in all its complexity and hybridity. The volume’s collection of essays span political and social interactions throughout history, cultural commonalities, traditions, and halakhic developments. As Jewish life in Morocco has dwindled, much of what is left are traditions maintained in Moroccan ex-pat communities, and memories of those who stayed and those who left. The volume concludes with shared memories from the perspective of a Jewish intellectual from Morocco, a Moroccan Muslim scholar, an analysis of a visual memoir painted by the nineteenth-century artist, Eugène Delacroix, and a photo essay of the vanished world of Jewish life in Morocco.

Purchase the book here!

About the speakers:
André Elbaz is a professor emeritus of French at Carleton University.
Edwin Seroussi is a professor of musicology and director of the Jewish Music Research Centre at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Michal Ben Ya'akov is an associate professor of history at Efrata College of Education.

Sponsorship opportunities available:

info@americansephardi.org


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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