The Untold Story of Bukharian Jews During WWII

Manashe Khaimov presents a unique intergenerational video project that documented the little-told story of the role of the Bukharian Jews in World War II; in addition to the stories of Ashkenazi Jews who were evacuated from their homes and fled to Central Asia.

Wednesday, 7 April at 12:00PM EDT

Sign-up Now!

About the Speaker:
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.

He is a fourth generation community organizer, informal Jewish educator, and a lifelong learner who brings his passion working with Jewish community. He is founding director and social innovator of the Bukharian Jewish Union, the founder of AskBobo.org, the only Bukharian online dictionary and the founder of The Jewish Silk Road Tours ™ walking tours in NYC. Manashe researched and produced several documentaries about Bukharian Jewish community as part of the Bukharian Lens project: The Untold Story of Bukharian Jews; The Untold Story of Bukharian Jews and Ashkenazi Jews Who Were Evacuated During WWII to Central Asia; Bukharian Roots. Manashe launched MEROS: Center for Bukharian Jewish Research & Identity at Queens College Hillel.

Manashe is a member of the 3rd cohort of UJA-Federation of NY Ruskay Fellows. Manashe is a recipient of the NY Jewish Week “36 Under 36”, and TimesLedger Newspaper’s “Queens Impact Award.” He is an alumnus of the Nahum Goldmann Fellowship for International Jewish Leaders. Manashe earned a BA from Baruch College and MSW from Hunter College in Community Organizing, Planning, & Development. Manashe has presented on the history of the Bukharian Jews at numerous communities all around the United States and beyond including in Canada, Uzbekistan, Limmud South Africa (2018), Limmud FSU Vienna (2020), and presented at eFestival Limmud North America (2020).

Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org

Jewish Heritage Alliance presents:

Women of Sefarad Series:

Doña Gracia Nasi
With Prof. Abraham Gross

Multi-part educational webinar series celebrating the courage and determination of the Women of Sefarad who played a unique and special role during Medieval and Early Modern times.

While the quintessential Jewish woman of the past may have played an important home making role, at times she was also a formidable force in the business world, and some, like Doña Gracia Nasi gained power and wealth enabling them to support Jewish communities. Within the world of Crypro-Judaism, women were the main transmitters of Jewish traditions, prayers, and customs.

Sunday, 11 April at 2:00PM EDT

Sign-up Now!
(Complimentary RSVP)

Doña Gracia Nasi:
Doña Gracia Nasi, born in Lisbon (1510–1569), was among the most formidable figures of the Sefardi world in the sixteenth century. She was a shrewd and resourceful businesswoman, a leader of the Sefardi diaspora and a generous benefactor of Jewish enterprises. A legend in her own time, she is best known for initiating a bold forward-looking project—an effort to establish a self-sufficient Jewish settlement on the site of the ancient city of Tiberias in the Holy Land as a refuge for Jews and for conversos fleeing from Spain and Portugal.

Rich Cultural Heritage of Bukharian Jews II:
Language and Literature

On the heels of previous IJE sessions on Bukharian Jewish history and culture, we invite you to join us for a deeper dive into the literary and linguistic tradition of Bukharian Jews. Through our exploration of the eclectic literature and dynamic language of Bukharian Jews, we will discover some of the essential ways in which this Central Asian Jewish community has developed its vibrant and multifaceted culture.

Our discussion will take us on a journey to Central Asia, Iran, Afghanistan, the Land of Israel, the United States and beyond.

Monday, 12 April at 12:00PM EDT

Sign-up Now!

About the Speaker:
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.

Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org

Global Nação:
Synagogue Tour – Indonesia, Dominican Republic, and St. Thomas

Sunday, 18 April at 10:00AM EDT

Sign-up Now!

Yaakov Baruch was born in Jakarta, Indonesia. His grandmother’s family came from the Netherlands. In 2004 Mr. Baruch opened a synagogue for the Jews of the Netherlands who remain in Indonesia.

Dr. Hakham Yehonatan Elazar-Demota was born in Miami. He comes from a long line of Sephardic families from Spain, Portugal, and North Africa who established themselves in the Caribbean. He is trained as a Hakham, shochet, and mohel. The Sephardic community in La Romana, Dominican Republic was established in 2013. Today there are over 50 families that gather there. The synagogue was established in 2017 in its current location. Members from the community built the hekhal, teba, and a wooden menorah for Hanukkah.

Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org

Global Nação:
Five London Hakhamim in the Early Enlightenment

The centers of Sephardic life in early modern Europe: Amsterdam, London, Hamburg, Livorno, Venice were at the very same time the fulcrum of Enlightenment culture.
While we know about Sephardic figures like Spinoza and da Costa who were deeply engaged with Enlightenment ideas, most Sephardim were engrossed in commerce. What was on the minds of their Hakhamim, who, in the case of London, lived in close proximity to Locke, Newton and Boyle?

Monday, 19 April at 12:00PM EDT

Sign-up Now!

About the Speaker:
Professor Matt Goldish, Dept. of History, Ohio State University is a specialist in Jewish and European History, with interests in Messianism, Jewish-Christian intellectual relations, and Sephardic studies. He holds the Samuel M. and Esther Melton Chair in Jewish History.
He earned his B.A. degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1986. His Ph.D. (1996) is from Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Professor Goldish has published Judaism in the Theology of Sir Isaac Newton (Dordrecht: Kluwer– International Archives of the History of Ideas, 1998), The Sabbatean Prophets (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004), Jewish Questions: Responsa on Jewish Life in the Early Modern Period (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), and several edited collections, as well as articles and book reviews. Professor Goldish is active as an invited lecturer in various academic and community environments.

Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org

Global Nação:
How the Unique Confluence of Culture can Benefit Modern Jewry

Western Sephardim have lived in the West for over 400 years. Yet their unique background in Spain, rather than Germany and France, has given them a different lens on Western life and thought and we just may discover valuable lessons from them.

Wednesday, 21 April at 12:00PM EDT

Sign-up Now!

Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org

The Department of Anthropology & Archeology at the University of Calgary, King’s College London, the International Network of Jewish Thought (Universidad Complutense of Madrid), & the American Sephardi Federation present:

Sephardi Thought and Modernity 2021 Webinar Series

A monthly lecture from February through June 2021, presenting different experiences of Sephardi modernization in different places and times.

On Thursdays at 1:00PM EDT 
(11:00AM MST)

22 April
Clemence Boulouque (Columbia University):
In praise of the Orient: Elia Benamozegh’s Sephardic Modernities

20 May
Gabriel Abensour (Hebrew University of Jerusalem): Rabbi Yosef Knafo’s Struggle for Democratization of Knowledge in Fin de Siècle Essaouira

17 June
Yuval Evri (King’s College London) and Angy Cohen (University of Calgary): Foreign in a familiar land: language and belonging in the work of Jacqueline Kahanoff, Albert Memmi, and Jacques Derrida.

Sign-up for the Webinar Series Now!
(Complimentary RSVP)


The intention of this series is to spark the interest in processes of Jewish modernization not exclusively mediated by Europeanization. The questions we will be dealing with are related to non-dichotomic identities, multiplicity and loss of language, colonization, social transformation, and intellectual responses to it. We will approach these questions by looking at Jewish-Arab influences, the Sephardi response to European modernization, the responses of the rabbinic leadership and the work of Sephardi intellectuals.

Series organized by Yuval Evri (King’s College London) and Angy Cohen (University of Calgary).

There will be a change to Daylight Saving Time in March, so the event times in North America will remain the same, but the event time in your area may change, depending on your location. The start time on Feb. 18 is 11 a.m. (MST), 1 p.m. (EST), 6 p.m. (GMT), 7 p.m. (Madrid; GMT +1); on March through June events, the start time will be 11 a.m. (MDT), 1 p.m. (EDT).

Global Nação:
Tour of the Venice Ghetto

Sunday, 25 April at 1:00PM EDT

Sign-up Now!

About the tour guide:
Moshe Bassali was born in Milan to Sephardic Jewish parents that came to Italy from Iran in the 1950’s and married in Italy. His mother arrived at age 12 and went to school in Milan. Moshe has a degree in economics, works in diamonds, and is an official certified tour guide for Venice and Italy. He has been working in Venice since 1991 and after his marriage, Moshe and his wife, Tally, decided to move there. Currently they have three children. Moshe’s father and brothers still live in Milan.

Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org

Global Nação:
Dayan Dilemmas

In the past, when Jewish communities were largely insulated and autonomous, the functions and jurisdiction of a Beth Din were more clearly defined. In today’s global world, where Jewish communities are less clearly defined, and the Beth Din is largely a private endeavor operating within the general legal framework of the local government, many dilemmas regarding authority and jurisdiction arise.
Dayan Ofer Livnat will try to address some of the dilemmas dayanim are faced with, and in particular how they relate to issues of Jewish identity, conversions and monetary disputes.

Monday, 26 April at 12:00PM EDT

Sign-up Now!

About the speaker:
Dayan Ofer Livnat serves as a Dayan on the Sephardi Beth of London. A graduate of the Eretz Hemdah Institute for Advanced Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, Dayan Livnat teaches in a number of programs for training rabbis and Dayanim, including the Semicha and Dayanut Programs run jointly by the Montefiore Endowment of London and Eretz Hemdah. A lecturer on Tanach at the Jerusalem College as well, Dayan Livnat has previously served in an artillery unit in the IDF and is currently studying for a PhD in Jewish studies at University College London.

Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org

New Works Wednesday and Global Nação:
Chocolate Around the World

Around the globe today, chocolate is embraced not only by enthusiastic consumers but also by truly passionate creators who pour their hearts into their confections.
​Here in this convenient guidebook are nearly 300 of these chocolate masters. From Brussels to Boston, Paris to Tokyo, London to Los Angeles, these are some of the most dedicated artisans anywhere.

​Special listings for gluten-free, vegan, organic, and other dietary needs are also included.

Wednesday, 28 April at 12:00PM EDT

Sign-up Now!

About the speaker:
Joshua de Sola Mendes is the proprietor of www.sandpcentral.org and www.grahamesguides.com. He is a proud S&P community member and researcher who works to bring the international communities together through his website, and under a separate hat, make us all happy through insight into chocolate and chocolatiering.Joining him will be master chocolatiers who will share some of their background.

Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org

New Works Wednesdays with José Alberto R. Silva Tavim

The Diasporas of Jews and New Christians of Iberian Origin between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean

This book consists of a set of contributions, with different themes and chronologies, on the general theme of Jews of Iberian origin after the late 15th century conversions, that is, with an official Christian identity; and also about welcoming others, of remote Portuguese origin or not, in contemporary Portugal, but also in other longitudes, such as Egypt and Brazil, in different and sometimes even adverse circumstances.

In the light of the dispersion between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, one can visit, as an example, the fortunes of some of these New Christians in Portugal, and their presence, assuming again a Jewish identity, in Diaspora lands, in Europe and in the New World. Modernity reveals the resistance in Portugal of an awareness of being Jewish; and also that, alongside this phenomenon, the arrival of other Jews, especially from the Maghreb, is more than just a return, it is actually another stage of permanence in completely different contexts with regard to people’s origins, their activities, acceptance and respect for its identity.

Wednesday, 5 May at 12:00PM EST

Sign-up Now!

About the speaker:
Editor José Alberto R. Silva Tavim will share insights into the book along with some of the contributors: Hugo Martins, who is in Potsdam with a German research grant, published an article in English about the Jews of Hamburg in the 17th century; Angela Benoliel Coutinho (Portuguese-Cape Verdean) wrote about the migration of Jews from Morocco to Portugal and Cape Verde in the 19th and 20th centuries; and Luís Filipe Meneses, from the University of Belo Horizonte (Brazil), wrote an article about a Brazilian Jewish writer of Moroccan origin – Leão Pacífico Esaguy.

Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org

Tell Your Sephardi-Mizrahi Story

With award winning author Gila Green

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.
Special bonus for this session: 4,500 manuscript editing at the end of the course included.

On Thursdays
27 May- 24 June at 11:00AM EDT
5 online sessions

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

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/