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

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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.

Order your copy of “Concealed” now

Sponsorship opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org

Moment Magazine presents:

North Africa’s Forgotten Holocaust
with Sarah Abrevaya Stein and
Aomar Boum

Tuesday, 26 January at 4:30PM EST

Sign-up Now!
(Complimentary RSVP)



Under the Nazi, Vichy, and Italian fascist regimes, Jews as well as some Muslims, were subject to race law and internments. In commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, join Moment Deputy Editor Sarah Breger in conversation with UCLA professors Sarah Abrevaya Stein and Aomar Boum (recipient of the ASF and Association Mimouna’s Professor Haim Zifrani, A”H Award), co-editors of The Holocaust and North Africa. They will discuss the experiences of North African Jews during World War II, why their histories have been marginalized and the relationship between Jews and Muslims during that period and how it reverberates today. 


This program is co-sponsored by the
American Sephardi Federation

MALA: Muslim American Leadership Alliance, the American Sephardi Federation, and the Center for Interreligious Understanding present:

Nobody Wants Us
Film & Discussion

In commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Muslim American Leadership Alliance is offering a special streaming of the film "Nobody Wants Us"

24 January 10:00AM - 26 January 11:00PM EST
(Free streaming during 61 hours) 

Stream the film for free
here!


Tuesday, 26 January at 7:00PM EST
(Zoom discussion about Holocaust refugees & refugees today)

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Join our special guests:

S.A. Ibrahim, Co-Chair of the Center for Interreligious Understanding & contributor to the film 
Annette Lachmann, Holocaust survivor featured in the film 
Laura Seltzer-Duny, Nobody Wants Us Producer/Director 
Chris Sacarabany, Nobody Wants Us Co-Executive Producer 
Moderated by: Zainab Khan, MALA Executive Director 

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

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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:

New Works Wednesdays

Nadia Sabri, with contributing researchers, discusses the new collection Views of Jewish Morocco: Forms, Places, Narratives.

In this interactive session Nadia Sabri will have a discussion with book contributors Abdou Filaly Ansary, Vanessa Paloma Elbaz, and Brahim El Guabli.

Wednesday, 3 February at 12:00PM EST

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The book is a multidisciplinary collective work that focuses on the memory of Moroccan Judaism through autobiographical accounts, testimonies, artistic experiences, and critical writings that shed light on them. These contributions weave an unprecedented set of texts and works of art, combining temporalities around memories of a world lost forever, of a Morocco that the young ignore, and that this book proposes to revisit in a pluralistic manner. The collection encompasses a contemporary reflection on the scope of maintaining the memory of Moroccan Judaism.

About the Author:
Academic and independent curator, Dr. Nadia Sabri is president of the Moroccan section of AICA (International Association of Art Critics). Nadia Sabri has built projects around Art and societal issues over the course of the last fifteen years. She conceives artistic projects as a driving force combining research, demonstrative processes, and experiences. Nadia Sabri has written and directed several research projects and publications on contemporary art and its relationship to sociopolitical issues such as cities, exile or even artist commitment. In 2015, she founded Exiles, paradigm fertile, a multidisciplinary platform for reflection and creation around the issue of exile as a creative and evolutionary paradigm.

She lives in Rabat, Morocco, where she is associated professor at Mohammed V University and also works as a curator and researcher in several countries.

Click here to read more about the book, Views of Jewish Morocco: Forms, Places, Narratives. 

Sponsorship opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org

The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:

Writing Between Tongues
Part 2

With Ruben Shimonov

Following the success of December’s talk “Writing Between Tongues: An Exploration of Hebrew and Arabic Calligraphy”, we are excited to bring back educator and artist Ruben Shimonov for a follow-up interactive artist talk, virtual gallery tour, and workshop. In this 90-minute session, we will take a deeper dive into the rich visual worlds of Arabic and Hebrew calligraphy. 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 have a talk-back with the artist, as well as a live calligraphy demonstration during which you can try your hand at the calligraphy!

Sunday, 7 February at 12:00PM EST

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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:

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 visit: https://courses.instituteofjewishexperience.org/