Mazal Tov/Mabrouk to the UAE’s President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed on the inauguration of the Abrahamic Family House complex, which encompasses the Moses Ben Maimon Synagogue, the Catholic St. Francis Church, and the Imam al-Tayeb Mosque
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
✡️“Bosnia’s Jewish community is putting together an archive for an eventual museum”
By David I Klien, JTA
“A view inside the Jewish community center in Sarajevo,” Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2018
(Photo courtesy of Elvis Barukcic/AFP via Getty Images/JTA)
Jewish history in Bosnia and Herzegovina dates back 500 years, and today 900 Jews live in the country, with around 500 in the capital of Sarajevo. With numbers dwindling and an uncertain future, the community is curating an archive and recently “acquired a 7,500 square foot space in downtown Sarajevo… with the hopes of turning the… archive into a museum.” The project’s first aim, according to historian Eli Tauber, “is to write the history of the Jewish people in Bosnia and Herzegovina.” However, that history will not remain only within the museum’s walls. Says Tauber, “What is important is that at the end we will establish some computer program with family trees, for all those people who have their roots in Bosnia, and find all that they did.”
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Feature: Holocaust Remembrance Day of Greek Jewry 🕊️ 🙏
Consulate General of Greece in New York: Holocaust Remembrance Day of the Greek Jewry at Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, NYC, 19 January 2023
The American Friends of the Jewish Museum of Greece, whose President Solomon Asser is an ASF Advisory Board Member, recently organized their annual New York event in commemoration of Holocaust Remembrance Day for Greek Jewry, featuring readings, musical performances, and a keynote presentation from award-winning artist and educator, Viktor Koen (whose prints are exhibited in galleries and museums around the world). The event aimed to educate future generations about the experience of Greek Jews during the Shoah, and Koen accordingly explored “the mechanics of memory” involved in his family’s Greek-Jewish story.
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🕍“Former Andalucían bar confirmed as lost medieval synagogue”
By Sam Jones, The Guardian
“[A]rcheologist Migul Ángel de Dios discovered the Torah ark area and the prayer hall” in the 14th-century building
(Photo courtesy of Uterra City Hall/The Guardian)
Spain was home to more than six hundred years of Jewish culture and creativity. Hatred, however, has erased much of the material evidence. Even in cases where erasure hasn’t occurred, Jewish history is hidden, covered over by the lives of others. Take the Andalusian city of Utrera where archeologists recently “rediscovered a staggeringly rare Spanish medieval synagogue” that was “used… as everything from a hospital and a home for abandoned children to a restaurant and disco-pub.” Says archeologist Miguel Ángel de Dios, finding the synagogue is “‘like a window, or like a megaphone through which the Sephardic Jews can speak to us.’”
For a scholarly perspective, see ASF-Mimouna Association Florence Amzallag Award recipient & ASF Broome & Allen Fellow Dr. Vanessa Paloma Duncan-Elbaz’s “Imagining a sonic al-Andalus through sound, bones, and blood: the case of Jewish music in Morocco and Spain” (Jewish Culture and History, Vol. 22, Issue 4, 2021).
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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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Birkenau (Auschwitz II) How 72,000 Greek Jews Perished
By Albert Menache, M.D.
Memoirs of An Eyewitness; NUMBER 124454
This is the story of the destruction of the Balkan Sephardic Jewish Community by the Nazis in WWII. Written by the President of the Jewish Community of Salonica, Greece, it is the earliest published account by a survivor. Written while still in the concentration camp on smuggled paper, it has been out of print since the first edition appeared in 1947.
This new edition has been updated with historical documents, photographs, and notes on the restoration of Jewish life in Greece after the war.
Watch Dr. Joe Halio speak about “Dr. Albert Menache & The Holocaust in Salonika”
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
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) presents:
The Bishop of Assisi
A Heroic Light in te Darkness of the Holocaust
A Digital Reception in Honor of Righteous Among the Nations Monsignor Giuseppe Placido
“A virtual reception in celebration of Monsignor Giuseppe Placido Nicolini’s heroic actions in helping save two-hundred Jewish lives by allowing Jews fleeing Nazi deportation to be housed in the Italian city of Assisi, what has been termed as the “Assisi Network.”
The program will highlight the history of Catholic-Jewish relations since the Holocaust and the importance of strengthening those bonds in the face of rising antisemitism. The digital event’s mission centers on the recognition of past leaders who confronted antisemitism, in its most extreme form during World War II, as a means to inspire the current generation of civic and religious leaders to courageously confront antisemitism and other forms of bigotry.”
Tuesday, 21 February at 1:00PM EST
(Complimentary RSVP)
Sign-up Now!
Co-Sponsored by: the American Sephardi Federation, Artists 4 Israel, Center for Jewish Impact, Claims Conference, European March of the Living Network, Herschel Center, Interfaith Encounter Association, International March of the Living, Philos Catholic, Philos Project, Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America
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The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:
Amid Conflict and Distress: Exploring the Remnants of Jewish Heritage in Syria and Lebanon
The Jewish communities of Syria and Lebanon are among the most ancient in the diaspora, with their origins often attributed to the era of King David.
This class will explore the history of these communities, alongside the development of unique cultural traditions from Baqashot to the Aleppo Codex.
Drawing from Daniel’s own experiences and photographic content, this class also focuses on the contemporary politics and challenges surrounding Jewish heritage in the region - with recent footage from, among other sites: the Jewish quarter of Damascus, Aleppo’s Old City and the Beirut Jewish cemetery.
Wednesday, 1 March at 12:00PM EST
(Complimentary RSVP; Suggested minimum donation $11)
Sign-up Now!
About the speaker:
Daniel Herszberg has visited over 190 countries and has recently traveled around Syria and Lebanon, with a particular focus on researching and documenting Jewish heritage sites. Daniel is currently reading for his DPhil (PhD) in Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford and has previously completed an MPhil in Heritage Studies from the University of Cambridge.
Sponsorship opportunities available:
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The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience, together with Kulanu and Genie Milgrom present:
Finding Judaism Across Africa and Central American
Communities across Africa and Central America are returning to their Jewish roots or finding Judaism. They are seeking out religion and a connection to the larger Jewish world, many with a view towards their own Sephardi ancestry and others through an affinity for the Sephardi rites.
Representatives of these communities, documentarians, and activists will come together to share their experiences and the unique interactions of these communities and the greater Sephardi world traditions.
The program will open with a photo exhibit in the Great Hall.
Sunday, 12 March 10:00AM - 4:00PM EST
At the Center for Jewish History
(Tickets: In-person $36; Via Zoom $15)
Sign-up Now!
Sign-up for Zoom Now!
We will host scholars and leaders of these emerging communities from Africa and Central America that will discuss their connections to Judaism and their Sephardi influences.
Featuring:
Professor Tudor Parfitt, emeritus of modern Jewish studies in the University of London, senior associate fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Judaic Studies, distinguished professor at Florida International University
Professor Shalva Weil, senior researcher at Hebrew university, distinguished professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, research fellow at University of South Africa, prolific writer and lecturer on Indian Jews, Ethiopian Jews, lost tribes, and femicide
Joseph F. Lovett, producer, director, writer. Director of Children of the Inquisition, 2019.
Engr. Jator Abido (Yatov ben Yisrael), Nigerian representative to the Sub Sahara Africa Jewish alliance
Patricio Serno, filmmaker and co-founder of Casa Tova, Mexico
and more.
Sponsorship opportunities available:
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The Belzberg Program in Israel Studies at the University of Calgary and the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University. With the collaboration of the American Sefardi Federation, Centro Sefarad Israel, and the International Network for Jewish Thought present:
Sephardi Modernities Seminar Series, 2023
Join us as we explore the relationship between our narratives about the past and the future to which we aspire. The ways in which scholars approach the stories, events, characters, and historical processes of the Sephardi/Levantine past are inevitably guided by values, by their moral and political beliefs. Which elements of the past do they strive to preserve, reclaim and grant continuity? What are they trying to say about a potential future? Which stories become part of canonized history, and which ones are dismissed as mere anecdotes? Which theoretical, social, political, and cultural frameworks do they wrestle with, and which do they seek to advance?
On Zoom
(Registration is required for each session)
14 March at 12:00PM EST
Preservation of Jewish Heritage and Debating Egypt’s Past and Present
Yoram Meital, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
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23 March at 12:00PM EDT
How Do Judeo-Spanish Proverbs and Tales Communicate with Us and How Do We Communicate With Them?
Lital Belinko-Sabah, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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18 April at 12:00PM EST
‘Modernity’ and ‘Tradition’ on the Move: Spanish Moroccan Jews and their Diasporas
Aviad Moreno, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in conversation with Angy Cohen, University of Calgary
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9 May at 12:00PM EST
Sephardi Musical Modernities: Listening to the Past in the Future
Edwin Seroussi, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Yair Dalal, Composer, violinist, oud player, singer, and teacher
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Throughout this year’s series we will discuss the future invoked by each way of looking at the past, the political agendas of historical research, and the values that unavoidably guide scholastic inquiry. Topics include the transmission of narratives among collectives and among researchers, ownership of archives, encounters with the past, the academic legitimacy of certain topics and collectives, vehicles of memory (music, oral history, proverbs, etc.) and the construction of historical narratives.
Organized by Dr. Angy Cohen, Inaugural Hy and Jenny Belzberg Postdoctoral Associate in Israel Studies, Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Calgary, and Dr. Yuval Evri, Assistant Professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies on the Marash and Ocuin Chair in Ottoman, Mizrahi, and Sephardic Jewish Studies, Brandeis University.
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The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:
Diary of a Black Jewish Messiah
Discover a true story of imperial rivalry, Mediterranean Jewish communities, a Jewish kingdom, & one black messiah!
Professor Alan Verskin will share the world into which the semi-messianic figure, David Reubeni, peddles his vision of an autonomous Jewish country in the Holy Land.; a world filled with fierce rivalries between Christian and Muslim powers, brutal conquest, and fantastic discovery.
A panel discussion will ensue with Professors Alan Verskin, Ronnie Perelis, and Francesca Bregoli followed by Q&A.
Thursday, 16 March at 6:00PM EST
At the Center for Jewish History
(Tickets: $15 suggested donation)
Sign-up Now!
In 1524 David Reubeni, also known as the “black messiah,” arrived in Venice, claiming to be the ambassador of a powerful Arabian Jewish kingdom. In an era of fierce imperial rivalry, and the fantastic discovery and brutal conquest of new lands, people across the Mediterranean saw signs of an impending apocalypse and dreamed of discovering new allies to join them in the coming war. Reubeni offered a Jewish take on these expectations. With his warriors from lost Israelite tribes, he pledged to recover the Holy Land and restore Jewish pride. Numerous Jews and conversos hailed him as the messiah.
Diary of a Black Jewish Messiah (Stanford University Press, 2023) is the first English translation of Reubeni’s Hebrew diary.
Alan Verskin is Associate Professor of Jewish and Islamic History at the University of Rhode Island. His most recent book is A Vision of Yemen: The Travels of a European Orientalist and his Native Guide (Stanford University Press, 2019).
Francesca Bregoli, Joseph and Oro Halegua Chair in Greek and Sephardic Jewish Studies, is Associate Professor at Queens College and The Graduate Center, where she serves as Director of the Center for Jewish Studies. Her research focuses on early modern Italian and Sephardic Jewish history. She is the author of Mediterranean Enlightenment: Livornese Jews, Tuscan Culture, and Eighteenth-Century Reform (Stanford University Press, 2014; National Jewish Book Award finalist in the categories of Sephardic Culture and Writing Based on Archival Material).
Co-Sponsored by the Diasporas Project at the Rabbi Arthur Schneier Program for International Affairs at Yeshiva University and The Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Center, CUNY
Sponsorship opportunities available:
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The Posen Library of Jewish Culture & Civilization with Congregation Shearith Israel, Center for Jewish History, American Jewish Historical Society, Leo Baeck Institute, and the American Sephardi Federation present:
The Early Modern Period, 1500-1750, Volume 5
“Join Professors Deborah Dash Moore, Elisheva Carlebach, Francesca Bregoli, and Mayer Juni to celebrate the publication of The Early Modern Period, 1500-1750, Volume 5 of The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization edited by Yosef Kaplan. The discussion will present fascinating dimensions of Jewish culture and civilization across three centuries from 1500 to 1800.”
Featuring a short performance by the Shearith Israel Choir and a panel discussion with distinguished Jewish historians.
Followed by a reception in the Levy Auditorium
Thursday, 23 March 23 at 7:00PM EST
(Complimentary RSVP)
Congregation Shearith Israel, Main Sanctuary
2 West 70th Street at Central Park West, New York City
Sign-up Now!
“Accessibility: The landmark synagogue building does not have an elevator. We do have people on hand to provide mobility assistance, including with the aid of a wheelchair climber that can take wheelchair users upstairs to the Sanctuary and downstairs to the Levy Auditorium. Please let us know if you expect to need assistance.”
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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.