The ASF joins the Mimouna Association in mourning the loss of Elise Lasry, A”H, a Marrakech-born educator par excellence and paragon of Moroccan Jewish tradition. May her Memory be for a Blessing Always.
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Don’t miss the latest Sephardi Ideas Monthly: “L’Moledet Shuvi Roni: Asher Mizrahi’s Biblical-Zionist Romance”
“The shoe sole made from a Torah scroll that bears witness to the Shoah”
By Simon Rocker, The Jewish Chronicle
A Sefer Torah cut into a shoe sole
(Photo courtesy of Leeds University/The JC)
After lying unnoticed for nearly half a century in a Leeds University library, the sole of a shoe made from parchment cut out of a Torah scroll from Greece was “discovered” by Dr. Jay Prosser, reader in humanities at Leeds. The shoe sole
which could fit into the palm of a hand, is one of a pair that was collected by the doyen of Anglo-Jewish historians, Cecil Roth, during a visit to Greece the year after the end of the Second World War. It was sold as part of the historian’s collection to Leeds University in the mid-60s — a Canadian museum has the right sole.
The sole is not the only one of its kind:
There are three other known instances of soles cut from a Torah scroll, in Yad Vashem in Israel - two which lined the boots of a German officer and one of unknown provenance.
However, this story is more local
The sole is… likely the work of local Greeks, reflecting the despoliation of Jewish property after the deportation of Jews to the camps.
According to Prosser, the Torah scroll was most likely “cut up by a non-Jew because they needed to make shoes and they didn’t have any leather.” It’s important to remember that most of the local cobblers were Jewish and had been sent to Auschwitz. The shoe soles tell the story, on various levels, of the Jewish community’s destruction:
The fragments of Torah in the soles belonged to the final two portions of Exodus, Vayakhel and Pekudei, that would have been read immediately before the deportation of the Jews of Salonika, a major European Sephardi centre, in March 1943.
In other words, whoever found the scroll cut the fragments from the point to which it had been rolled by its Jewish users before the Nazis transported them to their death.
Stella Levi’s Pomegranate Award Acceptance Speech
Natalia Indrimi with Stella Levi, Opening Night of the ASF’s 26th NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival, Leo And Julia Forchheimer Auditorium, ASF - Center for Jewish History, NYC, 2 June 2024
(Photo courtesy of Zak Siraj)
The ASF’s President David Dangoor introduced Stella Levi, a native Ladino speaker, survivor of Auschwitz, and exemplar of the Sephardic spirit at the Pomegranate Awards Ceremony on Opening Night of the 26th New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival. With the support of Centro Primo Levi’s Natalia Indrimi, Stella delivered poignant remarks about her life on Rhodes, love of languages, her family’s connection to Spain and Jerusalem, and the importance of perpetuating the cosmopolitanism of the “Sephardic world as a spark of life, curiosity, and enthusiasm for everything that surround[s] us.” Listen to these wise words ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“Leigh Bardugo delves into magic, intrigue, and her Sephardic heritage in ‘The Familia’”
By Elizabeth Karpen, Unpacked
Leigh Bardugo and the cover of her latest book, The Familiar
(Montage courtesy of Jewish UnPacked)
Jerusalem-born fantasy novelist Leigh Bardugo grew up in a Moroccan and Ashkenazi secular Jewish family in Los Angeles. Best known for her young adult Grishaverse novels, Bardugo was inspired to write fantasy in junior high:
I felt like I had crash-landed on an alien planet… I walked into the library and a librarian had set out a table of science fiction and fantasy that said, ‘discover new worlds.’ And I thought, ‘boy, would I like to do that.’
Her latest novel, The Familiar, is a New York Times bestseller that features a Sephardi converso protagonist, Luzia Cotado, who
uses magic derived from Ladinorefranes (sayings) to improve her life in Madrid. However, when her mistress catches her performing magic, Luzia is forced to use her talents for acts to enhance her employer’s social standing.
Bardugo’s world of Ladino magic is meticulously portrayed, rooted in historical knowledge, and personal experience:
During the 16th century, distinctions between disciplines like alchemy and chemistry, or astrology and astronomy, were not clearly defined. What is today considered magic was integrated into scientific and philosophical thought…
To authentically depict Ladino culture, translations, and references, [Bardugo] received assistance from Sephardic studies professor Canan Bolel. However, the #1 New York Times bestselling author also drew upon memories of her grandmother.
While foreign to the modern world, the magic that confers distinction is still intended to resonate on a deeper register, as Bardugo explains:
This book is very much about power — who has power, who doesn’t have it, and the implications of having a gift but not being able to freely use it. I think something that resonates for many of us is the idea that to be visible is to be seen, which also makes you a target. This is something that Luzia grapples with throughout the entire book.
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One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World
One of Wall Street Journal’s Ten Best Books of the Year and a Recipient of the Jewish Book Council’s Natan Notable Book Award
By Michael Frank
The remarkable story of Stella Levi whose conversations with the writer Michael Frank over the course of six years bring to life the vibrant world of Jewish Rhodes, the deportation to Auschwitz that extinguished ninety percent of her community, and the resilience and wisdom of the woman who lived to tell the tale.
With over a century of life behind her, Stella Levi had never before spoken in detail about her past. Then she met Michael Frank. He came to her Greenwich Village apartment one Saturday afternoon to ask her a question about the Juderia, the neighborhood in Rhodes where she’d grown up in a Jewish community that had thrived there for half a millennium.
Neither of them could know this was the first of one hundred Saturdays over the course of six years that they would spend in each other’s company. upon arrival.
Probing and courageous, candid and sly, Stella is a magical modern-day Scheherazade whose stories reveal what it was like to grow up in an extraordinary place in an extraordinary time—and to construct a life after that place has vanished. One Hundred Saturdays is a portrait of one of the last survivors drawn at nearly the last possible moment, as well as an account of a tender and transformative friendship that develops between storyteller and listener as they explore the fundamental mystery of what it means to collect, share, and interpret the deepest truths of a life deeply lived.
By Shalach Manot (pen name of Jane Mushabac)
His Hundred Years, A Tale by Shalach Manot is a novel about a Turkish Jew, a peddler, an everyman, in the fast-deteriorating Ottoman Empire and in New York.
“This fascinating book by gifted writer and storyteller Shalach Manot reflects on the life of an unusual Sephardic man, his childhood in Turkey, and later, his adaptation to life in America. We follow his adventures and come away with a deeper appreciation and understanding of the Sephardic immigrant experience during the 20th century.” — Rabbi Marc D. Angel, author of The Crown of Solomon and Other Stories.
“Sensitive and gripping portraits of diverse Turkish Jewish women caught in a patriarchal system.”—Gloria J. Ascher, Professor and Co-Director of Judaic Studies, Tufts University.
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Upcoming Events or Opportunities
Our friends at Kanisse present:
Winter Community Shabbat
Please join us as we come together for our first community Shabbat of the year! The evening will begin with Sephardic Qabbalat Shabbat services, followed by Qiddush and a warming Middle-Eastern Shabbat dinner, complete with mezze (appetizers) and halwayat (sweets).
Friday, 31 January
6:15PM Qabbalat Shabbat and Arvit services
7:15PM Qiddush & Dinner
Sign-up Now!
Tickets: $36
Space is limited and registration is on a first-come, first-served basis.
Ticket sales help cover a portion of our costs for this event. If you are unable to purchase a ticket but would like to attend, please email us at hello@kanisse.org.
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The American Sephardi Federation with the Sephardic Foundation on Aging proudly present:
Mazal Bueno: The 8th Annual New York Ladino Day!
Curated by Jane Mushabac and Bryan Kirschen
Featuring:
Rachel Amado Bortnick, “Tales from Ladinokomunita,” the groundbreaking worldwide online correspondence circle which she founded and directs.
Julie Benko, Broadway star of Harmony and Funny Girl fame, narrates
Mazal Bueno: A Portrait in Song of the Spanish Jews,
featuring all Ladino songs sung by the 6 singers of the GRAMMY-nominated Western Wind Vocal Ensemble
with 3 guest instrumentalists.
The author of Mazal Bueno, Jane Mushabac, wrote it on commission for the original 1992 NPR broadcast on the quincentennial of the Alhambra Decree/Edict of Expulsion.
Sunday, 2 February 2:00-4:00PM EST
In-Person @ the TriBeCa Synagogue
49 White St, New York City
Sign-up Now!
Tickets: $36
Sephardic Hors D’oeuvres to follow the program
Since 2013, Ladino Day programs have been held around the world to honor Ladino, also known as Judeo-Spanish. February 2nd marks New York’s 8th Annual Ladino Day hosted by the American Sephardi Federation.
Ladino is a bridge to many cultures. A variety of Spanish, it has absorbed words from Hebrew, Turkish, Arabic, French, Greek, and Portuguese. The mother tongue of Jews in the Ottoman Empire for 500 years, Ladino became the home language of Sephardim worldwide. While the number of Ladino speakers has sharply declined, distinguished Ladino Day programs like ours celebrate and preserve a vibrant language and heritage. These programs are, as Aviya Kushner has written in the Forward, “Why Ladino Will Rise Again.”
Postcard: Jewish musicians in Salonika, Turkey, c. early 20th Century
Co-sponsors: Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture, Cliff Russo, The Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America, the American Ladino League, and Shearith Israel League Foundation
Please support New York Ladino Day with a generous, tax-deductible contribution to ASF so we can continue to cultivate and advocate, preserve and promote, as well as educate and empower!
Sponsorship opportunities available:
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Our friends at Qesher present:
Qesher Book Club: “The Anatomy of Exile”
Tuesday, 4 February at 3:00PM EST
Sign-up Now!
Tickets: $9-$18
About the talk:
“The Abadi Family saga begins when a modern-day Romeo and Juliet story between a Palestinian and a Jew ends in predictable tragedy. The family flees to America to mend, but encounters only more turmoil that threatens to tear the family apart.
In the wake of the 1967 Six Day War, Tamar Abadi's world collapses when her sister-in-law is killed in what appears to be a terror attack but what is really the result of a secret relationship with a Palestinian poet. Tamar’s husband, Salim, is an Arab and a Jew. Torn between the two identities, and mourning his sister's death, he uproots the family and moves them to the US. As Tamar struggles to maintain the integrity of the family’s Jewish Israeli identity against the backdrop of the American ‘melting pot’ culture, a Palestinian family moves into the apartment upstairs and she is forced to reckon with her narrow thinking as her daughter falls in love with the Palestinian son. Fearing history will repeat itself, Tamar's determination to separate the two sets into motion a series of events that have the power to destroy her relationship with her daughter, her marriage, and the family she has worked so hard to protect. This powerful debut novel explores Tamar's struggle to keep her family intact, to accept love that is taboo, and grapples with how exile forces us to reshape our identity in ways we could not imagine. You can read more and order the book here.”
About the speakers:
Zeeva Bukai is a fiction writer, born in Israel and raised in New York City. Her stories have appeared in OfTheBook Press, Carve Magazine, Pithead Chapel, The Master's Review, jewishfiction.net, Mcsweeney's Quarterly Concern, Image Journal, December Magazine, The Jewish Quarterly and elsewhere. Her honors include a fellowship at the New York Center for Fiction, residencies at Hedgebrook Writer's Colony, and Byrdcliff AIR program in Woodstock NY. She received The Master's Review fiction prize, the Curt Johnson Prose Award, and the Lilith Fiction Award.
Her work has been anthologized in Frankly Feminist: Short Stories by Jewish Women from Lilith Magazine, and Out of Many: Multiplicity and Divisions in America Today. She holds an MFA from Brooklyn College and is the Assistant Director of Academic Support at SUNY Empire State University. Her debut novel, The Anatomy of Exile, will be published by Delphinium Books in January 2025. She lives in Brooklyn with her family.
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Our friends at Qesher present:
The Jews of Afghanistan: A glimpse into a vanished community
Sunday, 9 February at 3:00PM EST
Sign-up Now!
Tickets: $9-$18
About the talk:
“The Jewish community of Afghanistan developed along the Silk Road. By the year 700 CE, it flourished amidst the great cultural and religious diversity found when this nation was truly the crossroads of the world. By the 19th century, families survived through commerce, with men frequently traveling long distances to sell their wares. As a result, unusual domestic arrangements developed. Learn more about the daily life of this community, and how they survived the threat of forcible conversion and discriminatory economic policies while maintaining ancient, unique customs.
We will also discuss the community's fate and decline in the 20th century, and what remains of it today. Osnat Gad, born in Pakistan to Afghani Jewish parents, will also share about her efforts to restore Jewish sites in Kabul and Herat.”
About the speakers:
Sara Koplik, PhD, attended Bryn Mawr College, where she majored in history, and later the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. There, she received a master's degree in Central Asian studies and a doctorate in Middle Eastern history. She is the author of A Political and Economic History of the Jews of Afghanistan (Brill, 2013) as well as journal articles and chapters on the Mizrahi Jewish experience. From 2016 to 2021, Dr. Koplik founded and directed the Sephardic Heritage Program at the Jewish Federation of New Mexico. Under her leadership, the program helped thousands of individuals across the globe. She also edited the New Mexico Jewish Link for over a decade. Currently, she is the executive director of the Aaron David Bram Hillel House at the University of New Mexico.
Osnat Gad was born in Peshawar, Pakistan, to parents from Afghanistan. In 1947, her extended family all moved to Bombay, India, to avoid mobs wanting to kill the Jews after the partition of India and Pakistan. In the early 1950s, her family moved to Israel, and by 1961, they settled in the US. In the early 1980s, Gad established a firm specializing in importing precious gems. Her jewelry line is now carried in more than 200 stores throughout the USA. Today, Gad runs four e-commerce businesses. She has led the effort to restore Jewish sites in Kabul and Herat.
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Our friends at Qesher present:
Recovering the Lost World of Iraqi Babylonian Jews
Join us to walk through the history of Iraqi Jews, from the River of Babylon to the streets of Baghdad. Together, we will discover the rich culture, Judeo-Arabic language, traditional foods, and everyday life of this ancient Babylonian Jewish community.
Tuesday, 25 February at 3:00PM EST
Sign-up Now!
Tickets: $9-$18
About the speaker:
Sarah Sassoon is an Australian born, Iraqi Jewish writer, poet, and educator. Sarah's writing follows her curiosity exploring her Iraqi Jewish history, the story of refugees and resilience, and the rich, layered 2600-year-old culture of Babylonian Jews, with a special interest in Middle Eastern women's experience. She is the author of the award winning picture book, Shoham's Bangle and This is Not a Cholent. Her poetry micro chapbook, This is Why We Don't Look Back was awarded the Harbor Review Jewish Women's Poetry prize. She is an editorial advisor for Distinctions: A Sephardi and Mizrahi Journal. She is also the co-author of the The In-Between, a literary dialogue about identity and belonging published by Verlagshaus Berlin. She lives in Jerusalem with her husband and four boys. Visit www.sarahsassoon.com
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Our friends at Qesher present:
The Jews of Kurdistan: A Land of Jewish Heritage, and Potential Reconciliation
Tuesday, 4 March at 3:00PM EST
Sign-up Now!
Tickets: $9-$18
About the talk:
Jews from Kurdistan have a documented history going all the way back to the Bible, and there are tens of thousands of Jews whose ancestors immigrated from Kurdistan to the present-day State of Israel.
In this talk presented by Levi Meir Clancy, a researcher who lived in the Kurdistan region for almost eight years, we will explore the unique Jewish history of Kurdistan, including famous heritage sites and major historical figures, and learn about the Assyrian, Kurdish, Yazidi, Turkmeni, and other communities that have lived alongside them.
We will also explore how to navigate and understand Jewish- Muslim relations through the context of the overall Kurdish-Muslim society, including how to make sense of competing messages rooted in antisemitism, so-called philo-semitism, and hopes for a better tomorrow.
About the speaker:
Levi Meir Clancy is a strategist who spent much of his adult life in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, where he co-founded Foundation of Ours to promote the region's multi-faith history through events. He has spoken at TEDxDuhok, AMP Conf, and GSMA Mobile 360, and frequently appeared on Kurdish television and radio.
An advocate for Jewish life in the Islamic world, Levi Meir survived imprisonment and an assassination attempt in Erbil. Now based in the United States, he supports JFCS SF in building an inclusive, neurodiverse community rooted in Jewish values and inspired by Israeli models like Kibbutz Kishorit. With support from Zioness, Levi Meir develops educational materials and experiences like Conversation Pieces, drawing from his multiracial Okinawan-Jewish identity and global journey.
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Our friends at Qesher present:
Along the Silk Roads to Jerusalem: A Voyage into Bukharian Jewish History and Culture
Sunday, 30 March at 3:00PM EST
Sign-up Now!
Tickets: $9-$18
About the talk:
Embark with us on an exploration of the rich and multilayered history of the ancient Jewish community of Central Asia, the Bukharian Jews. Join us as we discover how Bukharian Jews have developed their rich culture against the backdrop of changing societies—including Iranian, Arab, Turkic, and Russian empires. Through archival documents, music, heritage site photographs, and personal stories, our Uzbekistan-born educator, Ruben Shimonov, will guide us on a journey through Central Asia, the Middle East, and the United States.
About the speaker:
Ruben Shimonov is an educator, community builder, and social entrepreneur passionate about Jewish diversity and intercultural understanding. He is the National Director of the American Sephardi Federation's Sephardi House initiative, which works to enrich Jewish campus life and young leadership with the vibrancy, wisdom, and diversity of the Greater Sephardic world.
He previously served as Director of Community Engagement & Education at Queens College Hillel, as well as the Director of Educational Experiences & Programming for the Muslim-Jewish Solidarity Committee. He is also the Founding Executive Director of the Sephardic Mizrahi Q Network, the sole international organization building a supportive community for LGBTQ+ Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews.
As a visual artist, Ruben uses his multilingual Arabic-Hebrew-Persian calligraphy to build interfaith and intercultural bridges. Ruben has been listed among The Jewish Week's "36 Under 36" young leaders and changemakers. He has lectured around the world on the histories and cultures of Sephardic and Mizrahi communities.