In Memory of Sara Moinian, A”H. Condolences to Iranian Jewish Federation of NY (IAJF-NY) Trustee Joseph Moinian and his family
The Sephardi World Weekly is made possible by Professor Rifka Cook, Maria Gabriela Borrego Medina, Rachel Amar, Deborah Arellano, and Distinguished ASF Vice President Gwen Zuares!
Click here to dedicate a future issue in honor or memory of a loved one
🏗️“How did a proud Sephardi Jew build a global financial empire?”
By Liane Grunberg Wakabayashi, The Jerusalem Post
Edmond and Lily Safra were benefactors of many causes benefiting Greater Sephardic communities, especially in Israel. One of the most significant was providing Nina Avidan Wiener with the encouragement, advice, and support with which to create ISEF
(Photo courtesy of ISEF)
In A Banker’s Journey: How Edmond Safra Built a Global Financial Empire, Daniel Gross tells the story of Beirut-born Edmond Safra, “the man who made monumental contributions to the State of Israel, while never actually claiming citizenship or owning a home (in the country).” Gross notes that Safra started young, “sent by his father to Milan at age 15 to literally run around the central banks of Europe buying gold.” As for the particular experience of the Beirut Jewish community: “Through the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s, there was a functioning Jewish community in Beirut, and Edmond was going to Beirut till the time of the civil war.” However, when Lebanon imploded and Jews requested assistance, Safra’s responses were to the point: “‘Come to New York. I have a job for you.’”
Feature: Rabbi Isaac Ambalu’s Instrumental Afghani Versions of Two Piyyutim 🎶🪕
Rabbi Isaac Ambalu
(Photo courtesy of Isaac YouTube)
R’Isaac Ambalu plays instrumental, Afghani versions of two classic piyyutim: Dror Yikra (“He will proclaim freedom…”), originally written in the 10th c. by Dunash ben Labrat, the Baghdadi poet and refugee living in Cordoba, Spain; and El b’yado (“God with His hand”), by the Syrian payytan, R’ Eliyahu Leniado.
🙌🏼“Saving Pvt. Bar-Orian from Obscurity”
By Mitch Ginsburg, The Times of Israel
Pvt. Hagai Bar-Orian
(Photo courtesy of Eyal Shragai/The Times of Israel)
In 1964, Iranian-born Private Hagai Bar-Orian sacrificed his life to save his fellow Israeli soldiers during a secret mission in Jerusalem, but his act of heroism was never officially recognized by the Defense Ministry. Friends and family, along with then-Knesset Member Omer Bar-Lev, tried to win Bar-Orian the honor he deserves in 2014.
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The American Sephardi Federation invites all individuals, communities, and organizations who share our vision & principles to join us in signing the American Sephardi Leadership Statement!
Please also support the ASF with a generous, tax-deductible contribution so we can continue to cultivate and advocate, preserve and promote, as well as educate and empower!
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Concealed: Memoir of a Jewish Iranian Daughter Caught Between the Chador and America
By Esther Amini
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.
In this poignant, funny, entertaining, and uplifting memoir, Amini documents with keen eye, quick wit, and warm heart how family members build, buoy, wound, and save one another across generations; how lives are shaped by the demands and burdens of loyalty and legacy; and how she rose to the challenge of deciding what to keep and what to discard.
By Oded Halahmy
Like countless New Yorkers who arrived from distant lands, Oded Halahmy has a rich personal history of exile, migration and travels. Born in the old city of Baghdad in 1938, the artist came from a family of Orthodox Jews with deep roots in ancient Babylonian culture. Iraqi Cooking: Exile Is Home is a tasty exploration of Oded’s roots accompanied by several pieces of original art, sculptures and jewelry.
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Upcoming Events or Opportunities
In gratitude for the distinguished service of A.N. Suleiman on the ASF’s Board of Directors, we wish to share with our readers information about the forthcoming world première of his latest play:
The Arranged Matrimony
The challenges of a marriage in the midst of cultural clashes.
Director: Barbara Schofield
Playwright: A.N. Suleiman
Producer: Paolo Frassanito & Barbara Schofield
Thursday, 15 September 6:30PM
Friday, 16 September 9:00PM
Saturday, 17 September 5:00PM
Sunday, 18 September 5:00PM
Sign-up Now!
(Tickets: $15)
@Cabaret Theatre
Cast:
Gretchen Schneider, Robin Brenner, Anwar Suleiman, Juliya Grigory, Daniel Lugo, Gavin Vivek
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The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:
Rosh Hashana Foods with Sarina Roffé
While most Jews have apples and honey before their Rosh Hashanah meal, Syrian Jews have many more brachot.
Journalist, Sephardic historian, and cookbook author Sarina Roffé will share recipes and discuss the foods unique to Syrian Jews on Rosh Hashanah. The recipes are for the brachot said before eating the holiday meal on Rosh Hashanah.
Wednesday, 14 September at 12:00PM EST
(Tickets: $8)
Sign-up Now!
About the speaker:
Sarina Roffé is a professional genealogist, editor of the journal DOROT, and founder of the Sephardic Heritage Project. She is the author of Branching Out From Sepharad (Sephardic Heritage Project, 2017), which outlines the history of Jews in Spain, the 1492 expulsion, their history in Syria, and their immigration to the Americas. She is Co-Chair of the Brooklyn Jewish Historical Initiative, and Chair of the JewishGen Sephardic Research Division.
Sarina is also the author of Backyard Kitchen: Mediterranean Salads, and Backyard Kitchen: the Main Course and a cooking app called Sarina’s Sephardic Cuisine, available in the Apple Store, as well as hundreds of articles. Sarina presents often at IAJGS Conferences and has completed over a dozen genealogies, through her genealogy consulting business, Sephardic Genealogical Journeys.
For more about Sarina’s cookbooks:
https://sarinassephardiccuisine.com/cookbooks
Sponsorship opportunities available:
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The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:
Exclusive Authors Series with Regina M. Tessone
Join us for a new episode of the Exclusive Authors Series with Regine M. Tessone who discusses her book Monavar’s Journey.
Tuesday, 20 September at 12:00PM EST
(Complimentary RSVP)
Sign-up Now!
About the book:
On February 1, 1979, Regine Monavar Tessone recalls running through the Mehrabad airport with her parents and three brothers to board the last flight out of Tehran on the eve of the Islamic Revolution. The pilot announced as they entered the aircraft, “You are the lucky ones! The airport is now closed and the Ayatollah Khomeini has arrived.” In this intimate memoir, Monavar (a Farsi name meaning light) recreates the life of her Persian Jewish family before they fled Iran and her own adventures in their new home in America. Always buoyant (her maiden name Omid means hope), she describes reuniting with her mother’s family in Brooklyn, visiting Israel and serving as a volunteer, falling in love with a non-Persian Jew, and becoming a successful fashion designer. Her story, at once personal and paradigmatic, reflects her nostalgia for the homeland of her youth and her embrace of the opportunities of her adopted homeland in the United States as a successful Iranian-Jewish immigrant.
About the author:
Regine Monavar Tessone is an Iranian American fashion designer. As a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Technology, she founded Aqua Modesta, a unique line of modest women’s swimwear and sportswear that attained worldwide success. Her initial professional goals achieved, she wrote this memoir to fulfill a lifelong dream: to share the story of her family’s incredible escape on the last flight out of Tehran. She resides with her husband and children in New York and Jerusalem.
For more about the book: https://www.amazon.com/Monavars-Journey-Bridge-Regine-Tessone/dp/163837306X
Sponsorship opportunities available:
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Kanisse: A Modern Sephardic + Mizrahi Community presents:
Multicultural High Holiday Services
Dates and Locations
Monday, 26 September at 3:30PM
Rosh Hashanah Tashlikh Service
@ Pier 57
57 Hudson River Greenway (at 15th Street), New York, NY
Meeting on the upper rooftop under the shade canopy.
Tuesday, 4 October at 6:30PM
Yom Kippur Eve
Evening Prayer - ‘Arvit
Conservative Synagogue of Fifth Avenue*
11 E 11th Street, New York, NY
Wednesday, 5 October
Yom Kippur Day
Morning Prayers - Shaḥarit and Musaf, beginning at 9:30AM
Evening prayers - Minḥah and Ne’ilah, beginning at 5:30PM
Conservative Synagogue of Fifth Avenue*
11 E 11th Street, New York, NY
Sign-up Now!
(Tickets: $0-$250)
If you are unable to buy a ticket but would still like to attend in-person, please email hello@kanisse.org
“Join Kanisse for our annual Yom Kippur Services, which will be led in a variety of Sephardic and Mizrahi traditions. We are excited to host our New York community in-person at a new sanctuary, as well as offer live-streaming for those joining us at a distance. We will be using our Zemirot HaMizraḥ maḥzor, which will be provided for those attending in-person (the digital version can also be accessed on our website). At the conclusion of Yom Kippur, a break-fast of Middle Eastern delicacies will be served.
This year, in addition to our Yom Kippur services, we will also be hosting a special Rosh Hashanah Tashlikh Service (“casting-off” of sins) on the Hudson. The short program will begin with Dr. Galeet Dardashti leading quintessential holiday piyutim from a variety of Middle Eastern and North African traditions. We will then meditatively sound the shofar and conclude with traditional and alternative Tashlikh readings along the river’s edge.”
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The American Sephardi Federation, the Seattle Jewish Theatre Company, and the Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America present:
“ARRIVALS”
A Jewish Romeo & Juliet love story based on historical events.
A hit in Seattle, coming to New York.
(Written and Directed by Art Feinglass)
When the first Sephardic Jew arrived in Seattle in 1902, not everything went as planned. Marco Cordova, a young Sephardic Jew from Turkey, came to America to make his fortune. Bayla Keigelman, a fragile Ashkenazi girl from Russia, arrived fleeing a pogrom. Their meeting seemed written in the stars until tradition declared their love forbidden.
Sunday, 30 October at 3:00 PM EST
Monday, 31 October at 8:00 PM EST
Tuesday, 1 November at 8:00 PM EST
Thursday, 3 November at 8:00 PM EST
Sunday, 6 November at 3:00 PM EST
Sign-up Now!
$36 Early bird discount (if purchased before October 9th)
$50 Ticket price (if purchased after October 9th)
The Center for Jewish History
15 W 16th Street
New York City
“Arrivals tells the Sephardic story with great drama, humor and warmth.”
Rabbi Simon Benzaquen, Congregation Ezra Bessaroth, Seattle, WA
“Everyone in the audience was engaged and enjoyed the show.”
Aaron Petersen, President , Temple Beth El, Tacoma, WA
“A tour de force!”
Rabbi Emeritus James Mirel, Temple B’nai Torah, Bellevue, WA
Sponsorship opportunities available:
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ASF Broome & Allen & ADL Collaborative for Change Fellow Isaac de Castro presents:
Entre Diasporas: Telling the Latin-American Jewish story. Contando la historia judía latinoamericana
Tell your story. Cuenta tu historia.
We’re looking for first-generation Latino Jews in the United States who immigrated because of political and social turmoil. Jews of Sephardic descent from Colombia, Cuba, and Venezuela that now reside in the Miami area will be given priority, but others are welcome to apply as well.
Fill out this form to be considered as an interviewee for this project. After you’ve submitted, we will be in touch promptly to set up a preliminary phone call.
Click here for more information.