In Memory of Isaac Mizan, A”H, the last of 23 Sephardi Shoah survivors of Auschwitz from Arta, Greece
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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!
During Passover, Iranian regime-backed Houthis expelled almost all of Yemen’s last Jews. They continue to illegally imprison Levi Salem Musa Marhabi. Don’t turn away. Don’t close your eyes. Don’t let another group of Jews become forgotten refugees. Join the ASF’s campaign to #FreeLeviMarhabi.
The U.S. Department of State recently pressed the Iranian regime-backed Houthis to respect basic human rights. In response to a question from an intrepid Saudi journalist, the US Department of State also singled out the case of Levi Marhabi, a Yemenite Jew who is being held unjustly by the Houthis: “‘We continue to advocate for his release. We have raised his case repeatedly at the UN Security Council and the former Secretary of State released a statement calling for his immediate release.’” Interviewed about the American Sephardi Federation’s Free Levi Marhabi Campaign, the ASF’s executive director, Jason Guberman, described how the Houthis are "‘filled with hatred… After cursing and persecuting Jews for years, sieg-heiling Houthis are now ethnically ‘cleansing’ Yemen of its ancient Jewish community… Those who claim to stand for marginalized peoples, human rights, and claim ‘Yemen can’t wait’ have failed to act.’”
As a junior in high school, Jordan Salama, an Iraqi-Argentinian now at Princeton University, created this documentary consisting of personal interviews with members of the Iraqi-Jewish Congregation Bene Naharayim community in Queens.
Isaac Mizan, the last of 23 Greek Sephardic Jewish Holocaust survivors from Arta, Greece (Photo courtesy of Greek City Times)
The last Holocaust survivor from the Jewish community of Arta in northwest Greece, Isaac Mizan, recently passed away at the age of 94. Before WWII, four hundred Jews lived in Arta, with two synagogues and a Jewish school. 352 Jews boarded the death trains, but only 23 returned. According to Dimitris Vlachopanos, Mazin's biographer, “‘His last wish, before he passed away, was to return to his birthplace, where the house where he and his family were taken from on March 24, 1944, is still preserved.’”
Joseph Samuels is an LA-based real estate developer who grew up Iraq. He is also the author of, Beyond the Rivers of Babylon: My journey of optimism and resilience in a turbulent century. Samuels was only ten years old during the 1941 anti-Jewish pogrom known as the Farhud. It was terrifying, “Not wanting to appear weak to my older brothers, I cried myself to sleep in silence.” Fear of a second Farhud drove Samuels to leave the country in 1949. Today? As Samuels tells it, “A journalist based in Basra, Iraq, recently asked me, ‘Would you like to come back to Iraq, if things got better?’ ‘No,’ I replied. ‘I am glad and grateful to be out of Iraq alive, and feel fortunate and blessed to enjoy freedom in one of the best countries in the world, the United States of America.’”
Joseph Samuels’ interview entitled “We are the Jews who escaped Iraq,” 14 March 2017 (Screenshot courtesy of CUFI’s The Mizrahi Project/Youtube)
Meet author
Daniela Weil
In conversation with historian
Noah L. Gelfand, Ph.D.
about THE DIARY OF ASSER LEVY
First Jewish Citizen of New York
Daniela Weil will discuss her recent work of historical fiction, which introduces young readers to the real-life figure of Asser Levy, the first permanent Jewish resident of Manhattan. Levy fled persecution in Recife, Brazil, arriving in New Amsterdam in 1654, where he helped lead the fight for religious and civil rights that first gave shape to the character of modern-day New York. This dramatic story will interest educators and students, and also parents and grandparents.
But Isabel's biggest secret is this: Though the Perezes claim to be New Christians, they still practice Judaism in the refuge of their own home. When the Spanish Inquisition reaches her small town determined to punish such judaizers, Isabel finds herself in more danger than she could ever have imagined. Amid the threat of discovery, she and Diego will have to fight for their lives in a quest to truly be free.
A timeless love story about identity, religious intolerance, and female empowerment, The Poetry of Secrets will sweep readers away with its lush lyricism and themes that continue to resonate today.
Co-Sponsored by: The Holland Society of New York, Andrew S. Terhune, The American Sephardi Federation, The Netherland-American Foundation, and The New York Historical Society
A Zoom link and password will be emailed to registered participants the day before the program.
About the speakers: Daniela Weil was born in Brazil. She graduated from Brandeis University with a degree in Biology. In addition to writing books, Daniela Weil has worked as a scientific illustrator and has written several science and history articles for children's magazines. In 2014, she began research on a familiar story from her home country: that Jews from Brazil had “founded” the Jewish community in New York in the 1600’s. Five years of research on several continents documented the story of the ship that carried the first group of Jewish refugees from Brazil to Manhattan, where they initiated the legal fight for religious rights.
Noah L. Gelfand, Doctoral Lecturer at Hunter College, teaches courses on early United States History and Native American History. He earned his Ph.D. from New York University. Among his awards are a Quinn Foundation fellowship from the McNeil Center for Early American Studies and a Touro National Heritage Trust fellowship from the John Carter Brown Library. He is currently working on a book about the Jewish Atlantic world in the early modern era.
In this New Works Wednesdays session, Dr. Sasha Goldstein-Sabbah discusses her new book “Baghdadi Jewish Networks in the Age of Nationalism.”
The book traces the participation of Baghdadi Jews in Jewish transnational networks from the mid-nineteenth century until the mass exodus of Jews from Iraq between 1948 and 1951. Each chapter explores different components of how Jews in Iraq participated in global Jewish civil society through the modernization of communal leadership, Baghdadi satellite communities, transnational Jewish philanthropy and secular Jewish education. The final chapter presents three case studies that demonstrate the interconnectivity between different iterations of transnational Jewish networks. This work significantly expands our understanding of modern Iraqi Jewish society by going beyond its engagement with Arab/Iraqi nationalism or Zionism/anti-Zionism to explore Baghdadi participation within Jewish transnational networks.
About the speaker: Sasha Goldstein-Sabbah received her doctorate from Leiden University, in the Netherlands in 2019, specializing in the modern history of Jewish communities in the Islamic world. During her PhD she worked in Prof. Heleen Murre-van den Berg’s research project “Arabic and its Alternatives: Religious Minorities in the Formative Years of the Modern Middle East (1920-1950).” A revised version of her dissertation entitled "Baghdadi Jewish Networks in the Age of Nationalism" (Brill) was recently published. Following the conferring of her doctorate, she was awarded a Rothschild Hanadiv Europe post-doctoral fellowship for the research project ‘Jewish Transnationalism in the Age of Nationalism: Global Jewish Philanthropy 1918-1948’ also at Leiden University.
For more about the book (25% discount code: 72100): https://brill.com/view/title/56163
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 Wednesday, 23 June @ 12:00PM EDT
(10:00AM MDT) PLEASE NOTE NEW DATE AND TIME
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.
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).
“Registration is now open for this year’s Sephardic Birthright Trip! For 10 days, you'll be able to travel around the country with amazing people with Sephardic, Greek, and Turkish backgrounds, all while exploring everything Israel has to offer. You’ll be able to ride camels in the desert, raft down the Jordan River, explore the Old City in Jerusalem, and a whole lot more. The trip is totally FREE and anyone between the ages of 18 and 28 who hasn't been on a Birthright Israel trip before is eligible. Even if you’ve been to Israel before on a non-birthright trip, you may still be eligible. The trip will follow all related COVID-19 Health Guidance as required by the US Centers for Disease Control and the Israel Ministry of Health.”
You can sign up now at sephardicbrotherhood.com/birthright. Registration takes less than 10 minutes and no final commitment is necessary. When registering, make sure to write “Sephardic Israel” as your “referred by” group and Amazing Israel as your trip provider.
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.
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.
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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).
