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6 December 2020 

In Memory of Albert Devico, A”H, President of the Moroccan Jewish Community of Meknes, who was an early and enthusiastic supporter of our partners, Association Mimouna, from their inception. “May he rest in peace, our condolences, thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends, Baruch Dayan HaEmet”
 
 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, and Distinguished ASF Vice President Gwen Zuares!
Become a Patron today!

ASF congratulates David Serero on earning 10 nominations, including Best Performer of the Decade, Best Opera Singer of the Year, Best Producer of a Musical and of a Play at the Broadway World Awards!

Show your support by voting:


BROADWAY AWARDS:
Click here to vote for the Musicals and Plays:
Romeo and JulietNabucco, Marriage of Figaro, Anne Frank, a Musical, and Lost in the Disco


OPERA AWARDS:
David Serero (Best Opera Singer) Here!
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Alejandro Mayorkas, Department of Homeland Security
(Photo Courtesy of the Sephardic Brotherhood of America


 
Alejandro Mayorkas’ historic nomination is a wake up call: Stop erasing Sepharadim 
By Ethan Marcus, The Forward

Ethan Marcus, Communications Director of the Sephardic Brotherhood of America, writes that Cuban-born refugee Alejandro Mayorkas, who was recently announced as the Biden-Harris Team’s pick for Department of Homeland Security Secretary, would be the 1st Sephardic Jew in American history to serve in a cabinet position if confirmed. His public service adds to a rich Sephardi-Jewish American legacy that goes back to colonial times and includes illustrious figures, such as the poet Emma Lazarus and Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo. Nevertheless, “People do not think of Ladino when they think of a Jewish language; they think of Hebrew or Yiddish. They don’t think of borekas or keftikas when they list Jewish foods; they bring up matzo ball soup and pastrami.” One hopes, “Si Kere El Dio — If God wills it… Sephardic contributions to the American experience will at last be recognized.”
Portugal sees important role of Jews in life over the centuries” 
By Franz Afraim Katzir, The Jerusalem Post

Jewish sites are being restored and promoted across Portugal, which, in 2015, passed a law granting Portuguese citizenship to Sephardi Jews whose ancestors had been exiled by the Edict of Expulsion and Inquisition. Unsurprisingly, the Jewish population of Portugal has grown the past five years from 600 to 4,500. A recent Zoom meeting dedicated to the future of Jewish life in Portugal brought together rabbis, scholars, and Portuguese officials. Portugal’s Ambassador to the United States, Domingos Fezas Vital, stressed the role Jews have played throughout Portuguese history: “We are grateful for the contribution you give to the diversity and richness of our society as your forefathers did before you, and trust that you will feel at home.”
President of Portugal Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and ASF Executive Director Jason Guberman, Lilian Goldman Reading Room, Center for Jewish History, 22 September 2016
(Photos courtesy of Chrystie Sherman)

The American Sephardi Federation, Sousa Mendes Foundation, and Portugal's Consul General at New York hosted the President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa for a tour of “Portugal, The Last Hope: Sousa Mendes’ Visas for Freedom.” See video of the visit.  


Advocate Lucia Goy Mastromiechele
(Screenshot courtesy of ILTV Israel News/Youtube


Advocate Lucia Goy Mastromiechele explains that Portugal is offering Sephardi Jews citizenship as reparations for the Inquisition, and as a “welcome home” to the land of their ancestors. Jews are interested in receiving a Portuguese passport, according to Goy, because of the many doors it opens.
The classical Sephardi tradition can be a model for us all” 
By Simon Rocker, The Jewish Chronicle 

Sina Kahen is a young Jewish professional at the beginning of his journey through Classic Sephardi Judaism. Kahen’s discovery of a Medieval rationalistic Sephardic Jewish tradition that was open to philosophy, science, and art – similar in character to what was once the modern orthodox ideal – compelled him to compose a commentary on Genesis. As Kahen says: “‘[T]he Author of the Torah and the Author of the world are one and the same. But we forget about the Author of the world, whose fingerprints are in the elements of the world, whether it’s science, nature, art. If you really love God, how can you ignore His fingerprints?’”  
Sina Kahen presented his book “Ideas: Bereshit” as part of the ASF Insittute of Jewish Experience’s New Works Wednesday series on 14 October 2020
 
Sephardi Gifts:

 
Lights for Peace
1996, Nickel and Bronze Cast
 
By Oded Halahmy


 
Spanish and Portuguese Jews in the Caribbean and The Guianas: A Bibliography
By Mordechai Arbell

The author of The Jewish Nation of the Caribbean: The Spanish-Portuguese Jewish Settlements in the Caribbean and the Guianas (which has been described as “an exceptional book that brings the Jewish communities of the Caribbean to life, with intensity, and with a heartbeat so strong as to secure their proper and rightful place in recorded Jewish history”) presents 646 bibliographic entries on Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Barbados, Columbia, Venezuela, and other countries. 

 
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Upcoming Events or Opportunities:
Announcing ChaiFlicks, the American Sephardi Federation's Official Streaming Service.
Featuring the Best in Jewish Entertainment, including your favorite films from the New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival!
 
Sign-up Now!
Temple of Aaron Congregation of St. Paul Minnesota is collecting stories of global Jewish experiences: “On a postcard from your city/state/country, please share with us what it is like to be Jewish where you live.  Story ideas could include: how you celebrate Jewish holidays/Shabbat, what the Jewish community is like, what it means to you to be Jewish, how you honor your heritage/culture in the community in which you live. 
These postcards and your stories may be included in a virtual and [pending] in-person exhibition in partnership with the Sabes & St. Paul JCCs in 2021.  Thank you for sharing your stories!”

Mail the postcard to:
Jorie Bernhardt
Temple of Aaron Congregation
616 Mississippi River Blvd. S
St. Paul, MN 55116 USA

For questions, or to send information/pictures electronically: 
joriebernhardt@templeofaaron.org

The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:

A Virtual Tour of the Bukharian Jewish Heritage Museum 

Join us for a look at the fascinating artifacts and traditional clothing from the Bukharian Jewish Heritage Museum. We will discuss their importance and the differences that they contain from the local community in Uzbekistan.

Tuesday, 8 December at 12:00PM EST

Sign-up Now!



Manashe Khaimov is an Adjunct Professor in Jewish Studies, with a specialty in History and Culture of the Bukharian Jews at Queens College. Manashe was born in a city along the Silk Road, in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, where his ancestors lived for over 2000 years, which makes Manashe’s Jewish identity simultaneously Bukharian, Sephardic, Mizrahi, and Russian speaking.

Sponsorship opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org


Festival des Andalousies-Atlantiques


The Souiri sense of resilience compelled the Association Essaouira-Mogador’s team to mobilize in the belief that the show must go on!

We proudly announce that this year’s Festival des Andalousies-Atlantiques will be virtual with the Festival’s original dynamic and world-class artists.
Even better, we are now free of borders, barriers, constraints, or tickets!

 
13-16 December 2020


Watch YouTube Live Here!
(Stay tuned for more details)

This yearly rendezvous is generously provided for and open to the thousands of music-lovers, Muslims and Jews, who migrate every year to Essaouira for a musical fall season like no other. For nearly 20 years this autumn of light has been rooted in the emotion of our shared music, the richness of our mixed heritage, and the ever-renewed promises of a great Moroccan history that Jews and Muslims alike have been sharing for more than 20 years, in the fabled architectural wonders of Dar Souiri, Bayt Dakira, and El Minzeh.
 
Still in the making, the program for this festival includes an exhilarating selection of vintage concerts from previous editions: concerts that have established, beyond oceans, the cultural, spiritual, and artistic diversity at the heart of age-old modernity that Essaouira has chosen to embody.
 
The selections will also echo our morning symposiums, the expected and sought-after highlights of the Festival, during which violins, lutes, voices, and darboukas have often illustrated the moving and daring debates to the delight of all participants.
 
We invite you to follow our social media for details on the evolution of the programming and the dates of broadcasts that will be available on our Facebook and Instagram accounts starting 9 November 2020.
 
Though we will miss the live audience experience this year, the Essaouira Festival des Andalousies-Atlantiques will come back even stronger in 2021, as we are already working on the 18th edition to make it the occasion to meet again in joy and music.
 
In the meantime, rest in good health and let us support and appreciate culture.


Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org

The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:

Writing Between Tongues:
An Exploration of Hebrew and Arabic Calligraphy


In this interactive session and virtual gallery tour, we will dive into the rich visual worlds of Arabic and Hebrew calligraphy.
Through historical, spiritual, linguistic, and artistic lenses, we will discover the parallels between both languages. Educator, community organizer, and artist Ruben Shimonov will take us on an exploratory journey of his multilingual calligraphy and the ways he has used his art to enrich Muslim-Jewish interfaith communities.
We will end the session with a live calligraphy demonstration.


Thursday, 17 December at 12:00PM
EST

Sign-up Now!

(No supplies necessary, but if you’d like, feel free to bring whatever writing utensils and paper you have at home to follow along)



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, an ASF Broome & Allen Fellow, 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.

Sponsorship opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org

The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:

Tell Your Sephardi-Mizrahi Story
With award-winning author Gila Green

Have you always wanted to write your life story?
Join our Zoom writing workshop that pushes beyond memoir and borrows fiction techniques.
All writing levels are welcome!


On Tuesdays
5 January – 2 February at 12:00PM EST

5 online sessions


Sign-up Now!
(Registration required for the full course; Space is limited)



Have you always wanted to write your life story? Gila Green’s new Middle Eastern flavored Autofiction Workshop explores a writing form that pushes beyond memoir and borrows fiction techniques. Inventing your own dialogue and creating details can often free you from the need to stick to the facts, opening the door to a deeper story with emotional truth at its center. This zoom course includes a weekly lesson and in-class exercise. Instructor feedback will be provided on weekly writing assignments (up to 1,000 words). Short readings will feature Middle Eastern writers that include authors such as: Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Rachel Shabi, and Ariel Sabar.
The workshop is open to women and men of all writing levels.

About Gila Green:
Gila Green’s novels feature characters of Sephardi, Yemenite, and mixed Middle Eastern heritage because she couldn’t find any Jewish stories that reflected her experience growing up and decided to write them herself. Her novel-in-stories White Zion explores one Yemenite family’s journey from Sana’a to Jerusalem to Canada. In Passport Control, heroine Miriam Gil struggles to understand her Yemenite father’s past against a trove of family secrets. Gila is an author, a creative writing teacher, an EFL college lecturer, an editor, and a mother of five. When she’s not exploring the Middle East in her novels, she migrates to South Africa in her continuing environmental young adult series that takes place in Kruger National Park. In addition to her four published novels, her short works have been featured in dozens of publications including: Sephardic Horizons, Jewish Fiction, Jewish Literary Journal, Fiction Magazine, Akashic Books, The Fiddlehead, and others.


Sponsorship opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org

The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:

New Works Wednesdays

 Edith Scott Saavedra discusses her new work “The Lamps of Albarracin.”

Wednesday, 13 January at 12:00PM EST


Sign-up Now!



Historical fiction author Edith Scott Saavedra explores her journey to bring alive the culture and history of Sephardic Aragon and true stories of resistance to the Spanish Inquisition by giving voice to women and girls. Inspired by traditions passed down from mother to daughter for generations, the author would discover in the historical records episodes of resistance long suppressed by the monarchy and church in Spain, write a historical novel in English and Spanish editions, and set out to bring this content to students in Spain and the United States.

The Lamps of Albarracín” is a fictional first-person narrative by a Sephardic girl that recounts the arrival of the Spanish Inquisition into the Kingdom of Aragon in the 1480s. It is based on extensive review of Spanish Inquisition testimony and historical research. The novel gives voice to the diverse peoples of late-medieval Aragon – Jews, Muslims, Christians, and persons of mixed heritage, with a focus on women and true stories of tolerance and courage. It also celebrates the rich culture and traditions of multicultural Aragon in the years prior to the Expulsion of the Jews.

Edith Scott Saavedra earned her BA and JD degrees from Harvard University. She has had a distinguished career as an international lawyer, business consultant and nonfiction author. The Lamps of Albarracín/Los Candiles de Albarracín, her first novel, has received media attention throughout the Spanish speaking world, including Radio Sefarad MadridSefarad.eseSefaradLibertad DigitalRadio AragónSemanario Hebreo, and Radio Las 2 Orillas Bogotá.


Sponsorship opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org

The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:

New Works Wednesdays

Esther Amini discusses her new work “Concealed”
Memoir of a Jewish-Iranian daughter caught between the Chador and America


Thursday, 21 January at 1:00PM EST


Sign-up Now!



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.

Esther Amini is a writer, painter, and psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice. Her short stories have appeared in Elle, Lilith, Tablet, The Jewish Week, Barnard Magazine, Inscape Literary, and Proximity. She was named one of Aspen Words’ two best emerging memoirists and awarded its Emerging Writer Fellowship in 2016 based on her memoir entitled: “Concealed.” Her pieces have been performed by Jewish Women’s Theatre in Los Angeles and in Manhattan, and was chosen by JWT as their Artist-in-Residence in 2019.


Sponsorship opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org

The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:

New Works Wednesdays

Award winning author Gila Green discusses her new work “White Zion.”

Wednesday, 27 January at 12:00PM EST


Sign-up Now!



The novel takes readers into the worlds of 19th century Yemen, pre-State Israel, modern Israel, and modern Canada. You will hear the voices of a young boy marveling at Israel’s first air force on his own roof, the cry of a newly married woman helpless to defend herself against her new husband’s desires, the anger of the heroine’s uncle as he reveals startling secrets about his marriage and the fall-out after generations of war.

Gila Green’s novels feature characters of Sephardi, Yemenite, and mixed Middle Eastern heritage because she couldn’t find any Jewish stories that reflected her experience growing up and decided to write them herself. Her novel-in-stories White Zion explores one Yemenite family’s journey from Sanaa to Jerusalem to Canada. In Passport Control, heroine Miriam Gil struggles to understand her Yemenite father’s past against a trove of family secrets. Gila is an author, a creative writing teacher, an EFL college lecturer, an editor, and a mother of five. When she’s not exploring the Middle East in her novels, she migrates to South Africa in her continuing environmental young adult series that takes place in Kruger National Park. In addition to her four published novels, her short works have been featured in dozens of publications including: Sephardic Horizons, Jewish Fiction, Jewish Literary Journal, Fiction Magazine, Akashic Books, The Fiddlehead, and others.


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/

 

All Jews Together @ the ASF's Institute of 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 Experience is 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.

 
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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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