In Memory of Altina “Tina” Schinasi, A”H, who was recognized today on the 116th anniversary of her birth with a Google Doodle! Born in New York to Sephardic parents from Ottoman Salonika and Manisa, Schinasi was an “American artist, designer, and inventor,” best know for creating the Harlequin (or cat-eye) eyeglass frame
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The Sephardi World Weekly is made possible by Daniel Yifrach, Rachel Sally, Professor Rifka Cook, Maria Gabriela Borrego Medina, Rachel Amar, Deborah Arellano, & ASF VP Gwen Zuares!
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Read the latest Sephardi Ideas Monthly exclusive: “American Excellence: Jews and the Jazz Tradition”
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🎬“Meet the Israeli actress telling the story of Israel’s creation – on Netflix”
By Ruth Marks Eglash, Jewish Insider
Characters Luna, Gabriel, and David in the Beauty Queen of Jerusalem
(Photo courtesy of Netflix/Jewish Insider)
The second season of “The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem” is streaming on Netflix. Based on the novel by Israeli author Sarit Yishai-Levy, the show “follows three generations of a Sephardi family living in Jerusalem beginning in the 1930s and set against the backdrop of the struggle for modern-day Israel.”
While “many of the show’s fans [are] surprised to learn that Jewish communities resided in Jerusalem long before the founding of the Jewish state in 1948,” according to Swell Ariel Or, the twenty-three-year-old actress starring in the role of Luna, “the beauty queen,” even more “are… shocked to learn that most of those communities were comprised of Sephardic Jews, who emigrated to the holy land when it was still part of the Ottoman Empire… This community is so under-represented in films and on television. This is a huge win for Sephardic Jews.”
Or says it’s also a win for viewers in general, as “the story of a Sephardic family living in the 1930s and 1940s” is both “a ‘Romeo and Juliet’ story set in the Middle East” and “really about the establishment of Israel from the inside.”
The ASF was honored to host Sarit Yishai-Levy for a memorable book talk at the Center for Jewish History on 13 November 2016.
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Feature: Opposing Book Burners at the Tish’a B’Ab Jewish-Muslim Solidarity Rally📚🤝🔥
Remarks from Jason Guberman at the Jewish-Muslim Solidarity Rally, Combat Antisemitism Movement
This past July 27th was also the 9th of Ab, the day that commemorates the destruction of the two Temples in Jerusalem and that articulates the dream of a restored House of Prayer for All Nations. In honor of the day, the Combat Antisemitism Movement organized a digital solidarity rally that brought together Jews and Muslims from around the world to reaffirm the value of tolerance and the benefits of cultural exchange. Speakers included the Founder of Dubai’s Crossroads of Civilization Museum, Dr. Ahmed Al-Mansoori, and Former Prisoner of Conscience, global human right champions, and CAM Advisory Board Chair Natan Sharansky, who celebrated a shared Judeo-Islamic heritage while also stressing the need for Jews and Muslims to combat together Islamist radicals, “We have a mutual heritage that we have to share, and we have to remind ourselves that with all our differences, we have mutual enemies who want to destroy our connection and our heritage. So let’s fight together against this prejudice and bigotry.” ASF’s Executive Director Jason Guberman delivered the event’s concluding remarks: “We need to repair, rebuild, and reunite what Dr. Judea Pearl has called the ‘Coalition of the decent,’ the civilized world…. burning a book is protected speech, in Sweden as in the United States, what of the person who would commit such a barbarous act?” Listen to Guberman’s remarks about opposing book burners, the assassination attempt on Salman Rushdie, and the forgotten context of Henrich Heinie’s tragically prophetic quote “[w]here they burn books, they will ultimately burn people also.”
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🥻“Bollywood’s Timeless Star, Ruby Myers ‘Unveiling the Golden Era’”
By News Track
Ruby Myers (aka “Sulochana”), seen her in the 1920s on an unidentified film set, was featured in the ASF’s “Baghdadis & the Bene Israel in Bollywood & Beyond Exhibit” with books and ephemera from the Kenneth & Joyce Robbins Collection.
Ruby Myers was a great Bollywood actress who first left her imprint when the Indian film industry was just getting started in the 1920s and 30s. Born in 1907 in the polyglot, multicultural city of Pune to a Baghdadi Jewish family, Ruby was only 12 when she broke into the industry in the silent film, “Veer Bala.” Myers then began using the stage name Sulochana, and gifted with the ability to wordlessly communicate emotion, she subsequently starred in several very popular silent films. A fixture on the scene by the 1930s, she regularly appeared in “talkies” for which she was “recognized for her flexibility, moving with ease between roles that included feisty, independent women and tragic heroines. Her fluency in several languages, including Hindi, Marathi, and English, significantly increased her ability to connect with more people.” Myers received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1973 for her outstanding work in Indian cinema, the highest accolade offered, before passing away in 1983.
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Please 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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From Generation to Generation: a Legacy of Faith and Tolerance
By David S. Malka
From Generation to Generation: a Legacy of Faith and Tolerance is dedicated to the memory of Rabbi Shlomo Malka. It honors his memory as a Jewish scholar, a spiritual leader, and a great humanitarian.
David S. Malka is publishing this text as his personal contribution to legacy of Malka family, in the hope that this generation will re-discover their patriarch's teaching and advance his message of faith and compassion on to the next generation.
From Generation to Generation: a Legacy of Faith and Tolerance is a message of love, tolerance, and pride in one's heritage.
By Dr. Hélène Jawhara Piñer, a 2018 ASF Broome & Allen Fellow
In this extraordinary, award-winning and best-selling cookbook now in its 4th imprint, chef and scholar Hélène Jawhara-Piñer combines rich culinary history and Jewish heritage to serve up over fifty culturally significant recipes. Steeped in the history of the Sephardic Jews (Jews of Spain) and their diaspora, these recipes are expertly collected from such diverse sources as medieval cookbooks, Inquisition trials, medical treatises, poems, and literature. Original sources ranging from the thirteenth century onwards and written in Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, Occitan, Italian, and Hebrew, are here presented in English translation, bearing witness to the culinary diversity of the Sephardim, who brought their cuisine with them and kept it alive wherever they went. Jawhara-Piñer provides enlightening commentary for each recipe, revealing underlying societal issues from anti-Semitism to social order. In addition, the author provides several of her own recipes inspired by her research and academic studies.
Each creation and bite of the dishes herein are guaranteed to transport the reader to the most deeply moving and intriguing aspects of Jewish history. Jawhara-Piñer reminds us that eating is a way to commemorate the past.
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Upcoming Events or Opportunities
Attention college students!
ASF is excited to launch the application for Cohort 4 of our Sephardi House Fellowship — a unique learning, community-building, and leadership development opportunity that infuses the wisdom, diversity, and joy of the Sephardic spirit into Jewish student life.
Bringing together a select group of students from colleges across the U.S., our program is the only national, yearlong fellowship dedicated to deepening a sense of Jewish belonging through an immersion in the multifaceted history, cultures, and intellectual legacy of the Greater Sephardic and Mizrahi world.
Apply Now to be a ’23-’24 ASF Sephardi House Fellow!
Application Deadline: 27 August 2023
This Sephardi House experience includes:
1) 10 cohort-based learning sessions with influential Jewish educators, community and industry leaders, scholars, and artists, 2) one-on-one mentorship and tailored campus support, 3) free access to ASF’s robust educational resources and events, 4) two in-person Shabbaton leadership summits, 5) a capstone community-building project that empowers fellows to imbue Sephardic energy and their unique voices into Jewish student life, and 6) a $1,000 stipend upon full completion of the program.
Deadline: 27 August 2023
Joshua Benaim, a Harvard University and Harvard Business School alum and Founder & CEO of Aria Development Group, is the visionary leader behind the creation of Sephardi House. He was inspired to create Sephardi House to honor his father Carlos, who instilled in him a love for the Sephardic tradition and community.
Please write to info@americansephardi.org for more information on how you can get involved today!
Please support our work and help light a candle of wisdom and spirit on campus by donating now!
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The ASF’s Institute of Jewish Experience presents:
The Aden Conference
Building on the success of the ASF and E’eleh B’Tamar’s “The Yemenite Conference: Jews and Muslims in Yemen” held in 2017 at New York’s Center for Jewish History, the Aden Conference will bring together the world’s leading scholars from Aden, Israel, US, UK, and Europe to explore the historical, cultural, and communal dynamics that intersected in Aden and its environs, particularly under British rule.
28-30 August 2023
Opening Night | JW3, London
Conference | Woolf Institute, Cambridge
Cambridge, Madingley Rd, Cambridge CB3 0UB, UK
Sign-up Now!
Co-Presenters:
Woolf Institute, ASMEA (Association for the Study of the Middle East & Africa), Aden Jewish Heritage Museum, Zalman Shazar Center, and Harif: Association of Jews from the MENA
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Instituto de Música Judaica -Brasil, YIVO, the ASF’s Institute of Jewish Experience, & Brazilian Consulate in NYC present:
Kleztival NYC
Brazilian Jewish Music and Culture, a two-day program with Brazilian and North American artists.
Celebrating the 23 Brazilian Jews who, in 1654, arrived in North America and helped to build a city then called New Amsterdam, which later became New York. Celebrating Brazil, its Jewish roots and community today.
11 September at 6:00PM EST
Brazilian Jewish Music concert
@at the Brazilian Consulate in NYC
225 East 41st, New York, NY
(no registration required)
12 September:
3:00PM EST
Screening of documentary “A Estrela Oculta do Sertão” (The Star
Hidden in the Backlands) followed by Q&A with the producers
7:30 PM EST
Brazilian Jewish Music concert
@ the Center for Jewish History
Sign-up Now!
Executive Producers: Nicole & Edy Borger
Musical Director: Frank London
Singers: Carla Berg, Nicole Borger, Ahuva Flit and Rafael Zolko
Musicians: Pablo Aslan (bass), Vicente Falek (accordion),
Frank London (trumpet), Oren Neiman (guitar), Alex Parke (clarinet),
Satoshi Takashi (drums)
Documentary Producers: Elaine Eiger and Luize Valente.
Special thanks to:
Drora Arussy, Julia Rothkof, Miriam Mora, Suzanne Schwimmer, Alex Minkin, Thiago Antonio de Melo Oliveira, Tiago Domingues Carvalho, Aaron Alexander, Peter Rushevsky, Hanna Griff-Sleven, Felipe Pait, Eliezer Kahn, Bruno & Joyce Szlak, Angela Waitzberg, Bruce Phillips, Daniel Borger.
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The American Sephardi Federation presents:
Convergence: Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian Calligraphy in Conversation
Featuring the multilingual art of Ruben Shimonov Convergence creates a visual world where Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian languages interact with, and speak to, one another; a world where stylized letters and words dance together on the page; a world where cultures, religions, communities, and philosophies intersect.
Juxtaposing cognates from these ancient West Asian languages, artist Ruben Shimonov encourages the viewer to explore the deep-rooted connections between these tongues, as well as the multilayered and transnational identity of the artist himself.
On View in the Leon Levy Gallery
through 31 December 2023
@ the Center for Jewish History
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The American Sephardi Federation and Mimouna Association’s Rebuilding Our Homes Project present:
Re-Creation: Judaica by Moroccan Muslim Artisans
Explore the exhibition of Judeo-Moroccan art, Moroccan Judaica, cultural and religious objects, including Menorot, Mezuzot, Yads, Shabbat Candleholders, Seder Plates, Hallah Covers, and much more.
On View through 31 December 2023
@ the Center for Jewish History
As Moroccan Jewish populations largely left the mellahs (Jewish quarters) in the latter half of the 20th century, there was a danger that not only designs but even the traditional artisanal techniques needed to create them would be lost. Passed down from one artisan to another and perfected over time, these designs and techniques. ranging from vibrant patterns to intricate metalwork and soulful wood carvings, are expressions of Moroccanity and reflect the individual character of each city. The materials and craftsmanship of Rabat are different than Fez, and Essaouira is distinct from both.
Mimouna Association and the American Sephardi Federation’s Rebuilding Our Homes Project, a multi-year USAID-supported New Partnerships Initiative, brought three notable experts-Ms. Zhor Rehihil, Ms. Deborah Koenigsberger Gutierrez, and Ms. Meryem Ghandi to train Moroccan Muslim artisans in the history of Judeo-Moroccan art and guided them in re-creating Moroccan Judaica, which encompasses a diverse array of cultural and religious objects, including Menorot, Mezuzot, Yads, Shabbat Candleholders, Seder Plates, Hallah Covers, and much more.