Mazal tov/Mabrouk to the Kingdom of Bahrain’s King Hamad Global Centre for Peaceful Coexistence and The Office of the United States Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism on signing a ground-breaking Memorandum of Understanding to “promote mutual respect, appreciation, & peaceful coexistence between the Arab & Jewish peoples and their respective nation-states, and between all faiths in the Middle East....”
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, and Distinguished ASF Vice President Gwen Zuares! Become a Patron today!
A photography exhibition featuring the Jews of Morocco will be on display at Paris’ Museum of the Art
and History of Judaism (MAHJ) until May of next year. The exhibit features 60 black-and-white photographs
taken from 1934-37 by the late French photographer and painter Jean Besancenot. Unsurprisingly,
Besancenot developed a sensitive eye when it came to Moroccan Jewry. According to co-curator and
French-Jewish photographer, Hannah Assouline: “‘As soon as Besancenot saw me, he immediately knew
where I was from. He told me, ‘You come from Tafilalet (a region in southern Morocco) and you are a
Jew.’’”
Stella Levi is a Rhodes-born resident of Manhattan and a native Ladino speaker, one of the few remaining in the world. She has been described as, “a woman of great elegance and still greater finesse within her soul and in her manners [who] represents the best of humanity after having witnessed and experienced the worst of it.” In this video, she tells the story of her extraordinary life.
Azerbaijan is a Philo-Semitic Shi’a country with a new Museum dedicated to the Mountain Jews in the Jewish town of Qirmizi Qasaba (Krasnaiya Sloboda). Temporarily closed because of COVID-19, the Museum houses “one of the most remote collections of Judaica anywhere in the former Soviet Union.” Items on display include, “Faded Soviet propaganda magazines from the 1920s. Clandestine letters mailed from the front by Jewish soldiers battling Nazis,” and “Medallions from Azerbaijan’s bruising 1992 war….” in which Albert Agarunov, a Sephardic Jewish tank commander, became a national hero and was martyred by Armenia.
A display depicting the early Aliyah movement and Israeli-Sephardi singer Yaffa Yarkoni, whose family were of Azerbaijani origin, Museum of the Mountain Jews, Krasnaya Sloboda, Azerbaijan
(Photo courtesy of Larry Luxner/JTA)
The Grand Mosque of Paris: A Story of How Muslims Rescued Jews During the Holocaust (Holiday House) by Karen Gray Ruelle & Deborah Durland DeSaix
Beautifully illustrated and thoroughly researched, this inspiring, non-fiction book introduces children to a little-known part of Sephardic Holocaust (Shoah) history: how Salim Halali and other North African Sephardim found refuge from the Nazis and the collaborationist Vichy Regime in an unlikely place—the sprawling complex of the Grand Mosque of Paris.
La Juderia de Rhodes
(Judeo-Spanish with French and English translations)
An anthology of writings by Isaac Habib
Isaac Habib has been known as an actor whose stage performances have delighted various audiences in Cape Town, where a number of Jewish survivors from Rhodes settled after the Holocaust. According to the introduction written by Eliane de Saint-Martin, “what no-one knew was that behind the comic actor who made his audience laugh, there hid the poet whom you are about to discover.
This is poetry from the heart, the evocation of tragic memories, but written in a taut, sober style; it never lapses into gloomy melancholy, even though this could perhaps be justified.
These poems also serve to keep alive the Judeo-Spanish language,which has managed to survive for so many centuries.”
Wednesday, 28 October at 12:00PM EDT Alma Rachel Heckman discusses her new book, “The Sultan’s Communists: Moroccan Jews and the Politics of Belonging.” Sign-up Now!
The Parliament of the Republic of Albania, in partnership with the Combat anti-Semitism Movement (CAM) and the Jewish Agency for Israel, has made the historic decision to host the first-ever “2020 Balkans Forum Against Anti-Semitism” to fight prejudice and bigotry.
Wednesday, 28 October at 11:00AM EDT (Live YouTube and Zoom Broadcast)
The aim of the conference will be to create a united front among the Balkans to work together in order to eradicate the scourge of anti-Semitism from our discourse and to create better, more tolerant societies for future generations.
Distinguished International Speakers Include:
Edi Rama, Prime Minister of the Republic of Albania Michael R. Pompeo, United States Secretary of State Gramoz Ruci, Speaker of the Parliament of the Republic of Albania Miguel Angel Moratinos, High Representative for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations Elan Carr, US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Omer Yankelevich, Minister of Diaspora Affairs for the State of Israel Isaac Herzog, Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel
*The American Sephardi Federation, one of the founding members of the Combat Anti-Semitism Movement, is proud to co-sponsor this event.
The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:
New Works Wednesdays
November Program:
Wednesday, 4 November at 12:00PM EST Shalva Weil discusses her new book, “The Baghdadi Jews in India: Maintaining Communities, Negotiating Identities and Creating Super-Diversity.” Sign-up Now!
Wednesday, 11 November at 12:00PM EST Stanley Mirvis discusses his new book, “The Jews of Eighteenth-Century Jamaica: A Testamentary History of a Diaspora in Transition.” An in-depth look at the Portuguese Jews of Jamaica and their connections to broader European and Atlantic trade networks. Sign-up Now!
Wednesday, 18 November at 12:00PM EST Jane Gerber discusses her new book, “Cities of Splendour in the Shaping of Sephardi History.” Sign-up Now!
Wednesday, 25 November at 12:00PM EST Cedric Cohen-Skalli discusses his new book, “Don Isaac Abravanel: An Intellectual Biography.” Sign-up Now!
At the Crossroads of Sephardic, Mizrahi, and Russian-Speaking Worlds: The History of Bukharian Jews (2-Part Series)
The culture and history of Bukharian Jews is situated at the unique, intersection of Sephardic, Mizrahi and Russian-speaking Jewish identities. Through this 2-part learning series, we will explore the multilayered, rich story of this millennia-old community—discovering the ways in which they have developed their mosaic culture through a dynamic interaction with the dominant and changing societies surrounding them.
Our discussion will also shed light on how their experiences fit into the broader historical saga of the Jewish people.
Thursdays
12 and 19 November at 12:00PM EST Sign-up Now!
Born in Uzbekistan, raised in Seattle, and currently based in New York City, Ruben Shimonov is a Jewish educator, community builder, social entrepreneur and artist with a passion for Jewish diversity and pluralism. He previously served as Director of Community Engagement & Education at Queens College Hillel—where he had, within his vast portfolio, the unique role of cultivating Sephardic & Mizrahi student life on campus. Currently, he is the Founding Executive Director of the Sephardic Mizrahi Q Network—a grassroots movement building a supportive, vibrant and much-needed community for LGBTQ+ Sephardic & Mizrahi Jews. He also serves as Vice-President of Education & Community Engagement on the Young Leadership Board of the American Sephardi Federation, as well as Director of Educational Experiences & Programming for the Muslim-Jewish Solidarity Committee. Within both organizations, Ruben has used his artistry in Arabic, Hebrew & Persian calligraphy to enhance Muslim-Jewish dialogue and relationship building. In 2018, Ruben was listed among The Jewish Week’s “36 Under 36” young Jewish community leaders and changemakers. He has lectured extensively on the histories and cultures of various Sephardic & Mizrahi communities. Among his speaking engagements, he has been invited to present at Limmud Seattle, NY and U.K. He is also an alumnus of the COJECO Blueprint and Nahum Goldmann Fellowships for his work in Jewish social innovation.
Wednesday, 2 December at 12:00PM EST Danny Bar Maoz discusses his new book, “Life without a Childhood in the Yemenite Jewish Community 1882-1948.”
The book is in Hebrew (חיים ללא ילדות בקהילות יהודי תימן 1882-1948) but the lecture will be given in English. Sign-up Now!
Wednesday, 9 December at 12:00PM EST Aviva Ben-Ur discusses her new book, “Jewish Autonomy in a Slave Society: Suriname in the Atlantic World, 1651-1825.” Sign-up Now!
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.
“We have to unite our energies together. All Jews, together…. If we are united, all Sephardim and also Ashkenazim, together... we will see the light!”
~Enrico Macias
The ASF Institute of Jewish Experienceis uniquely dedicated to ensuring that today’s Jews know our history; appreciate the beauty, depth, diversity, and vitality of the Jewish experience; and have a sense of pride in Jewish contributions to civilization. Donate Now!
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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).