In Memory of Gilda Angel, A”H, a long-time member of Shearith Israel, author of Sephardic Holiday Cooking: Recipes and Traditions, and wife of Rabbi Dr. Marc Angel. May her Memory be for a Blessing Always.
Click here to dedicate a future issue in honor or memory of a loved one
Subscribe ◊ Upcoming Events ◊ ASF Sephardi Shop ◊ Donate ◊ Sephardi Ideas Monthly ◊ ASF IJE ◊ ASF Sephardi House ◊ Archive
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!
Don’t miss the latest Sephardi Ideas Monthly: “Two Jewish Songs, Ancient and Israeli”
~~~~~
“Sarah Milgrim’s Death Was a Tragedy. Distorting Her Legacy Would Be Another”
By Yasmina Asrarguis, The New York Times
Yasmina Asrarguis
(Photo courtesy of the author)
ASF Broome & Allen Fellow, Yasmina Asrarguis, recently eulogized her friend, Sarah Milgrim, in the pages of The New York Times:
In a world flooded with empty slogans and online posturing, Sarah Milgrim was something far rarer: a quiet peace builder. She didn’t seek headlines. She sought dialogue.
The pain of Milgrim’s murder was especially acute for Asrargis because her friend “was known for her engagement with organizations that brought together Christians and Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians. Her final master’s degree research project was on the role of cross-cultural friendships in peace-building.”
In order to prevent Milgrim’s legacy from being twisted, Asparagus remembers how “the Sarah I knew was a practitioner of what might be called peace diplomacy.”
The content of that peace diplomacy became clear during an interfaith trip to Morocco about nine months ago:
Sarah was committed to a concept known as the “third narrative.” It’s a vision that seeks to rise above the noise of vengeance and violence by focusing instead on shared humanity and the mutual right to dignity, safety and peace for Jews and Muslims. This effort is about more than dialogue; it’s a deliberate stand against polarization. Sarah believed in creating a space for people to look for solutions.
Milgrim’s life “was taken by a man whose… radicalism attempted to erase her humanity and all that she stood for.” However:
Those who mourn Sarah should reflect on her ideals, learn from her life’s work and aim as she did on creating the fragile groundwork for Middle East peace. It was a future she helped prepare for, one conversation, one relationship at a time
“Pipeline of hate: From campus rhetoric to capital murder”
By Sabrina Soffer, The Hill
Sabrina Soffer, Unity: Standing Together rally in Washington D.C., 10 November 2024
(Photo courtesy of World Jewish Congress)
Following the recent murders of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim in Washington, D.C., ASF Sephardi House Fellow, Sabrina Soffer, penned a piece in The Hill detailing how “a deep-seated ideology… has been allowed to metastasize from college campuses to city streets.” A recent graduate of George Washington University, Soffer had a front row seat for seeing the process play out.
Instead of focusing on the gunmen, Soffer says that the efficient causes of the antisemitic murders should be traced back
a lecture, a slogan, a chant shouted in the quad, a speech at commencement, or a tenured professor’s tweet. It began the moment elite institutions chose to… shelter calls for violence under the banner of ‘resistance.’
Soffer was present when fellow GWU graduate, Cecilia Culver, used her commencement address as a platform to defame Israel. In this context, writes Soffer, George Washington University professor William Youmans’s remarks offered at
last year’s anti-Israel encampment take on new weight: “Students enact what we teach.” His words were extended by an entire group of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine at George Washington University. They praised Culver, who wielded antisemitic rhetoric for four minutes unchecked at this year’s commencement ceremony, calling her “a stellar example of the type of student GW should seek to cultivate.”
The basic alternatives are clear. While one hopes that our university leaders will “defend civilization,” at the moment, too many lecturers and administrators excuse, or even advocate, for “ideologies that lead to… destruction.”
~~~~~~~
Jewish Women from Muslim Societies Speak
Published by the American Sephardi Federation and Hadassah International Research Institute on Jewish Woman at Brandeis University
Jewish women from Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, and Iran were invited to share their personal stories. It could be said that these women's voices are from the last generation of Jews to have an intimate personal knowledge of the Muslim world, the enormous diversity within and among Middle Eastern Jewish communities.
We hope that these essays, told through the medium of vivid personal stories, will stimulate discussion about contemporary dynamics in the Muslim world and raise awareness of Jewish women’s history in North Africa and the Middle-East.
Our Story: The Jews of Sepharad; Celebrations and Stories
A special publication of the coalition for the advancement of Jewish education.
Celebrations and Stories will enhance the teaching of Sepharad in lower grades of both congregational and day schools. The life cycle and annual cycle sections are designed to horizontally connect to the teaching of customs and ceremonies. The stories will provide insight to the life of Jews who emerged from Sephardic roots. They are glimpses of daily life and values, as well as tales of our history's heroes.
~~~~~~~
27th NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival - Festival Sefarad
Opening Night Only Tickets
The Best Way to Experience the Festival:
VIP Festival Pass
Access and VIP Seating at All ASF Events (including Opening & Closing Night Private Meet & Greet Receptions, Pomegranate Awards Ceremony, Enrico Macias Performance) and Film Screenings
All-Access Pass
Access and general seating at the Opening and Closing Night Ceremonies, all Movie Screenings, Q&As, and Special Daytime Events
Festival Week Pass
Access only to film screenings
~~~
Special Offer: Buy One $19.99 Movie Ticket, Get One Free
When you buy a film screening ticket, we will email you a complimentary ticket for another
~~~~~~~
The American Sephardi Federation, the UJA-Federation of New York, the Moise Safra Center and Ghiora Aharoni Design Studio present:
From the Sacred to the Utilitarian…Exploring the Soul of Objects
Inspired by the Sephardic/Mizrahi connection with mysticism and the Zohar’s interpretation of the universe as deeply metaphorical, Ghiora Aharoni will explore the notion that objects—from the antique to the contemporary, from sacred icons to the everyday—possess a unique resonance, informed by their intended use as well as the existence they have witnessed.
His lecture, entitled From the Sacred to the Utilitarian…Exploring the Soul of Objects, will trace the narratives of objects—ranging from a yad created with Zoharic text and Yemenite headdresses to an antique Moroccan menorah and vintage kerosene stoves used on Shabbat in Israel—the identity they embody and how those narratives can be harnessed, recontextualized and elevated into socio-cultural avatars of both our individual and collective humanity.
Illustrating these ideas with animations, still images and short films of artwork and installations created in his artistic practice over the course of nearly two decades, the lecture will survey the metaphorical, allegorical and inspiring narratives that exist within objects and their capacity to illuminate facets of our existence, and ultimately, humanity’s interconnectivity.
Monday, 9 June at 3:00PM
@The Moise Safra Center
130 E 82nd Street
Sign-up Now!
About the Artist:
Ghiora Aharoni founded his multi-disciplinary studio for art and design in New York City in 2004. His work has been exhibited internationally in museums, institutions and galleries, and is in private collections and foundations in North America, Europe, the UAE, Israel and India. A graduate of Yale University, Aharoni’s work is in the collections of The Pompidou Centre, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Vatican, The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., The Morgan Library & Museum, The Huntington Library and Museum, The Anu Museum and he was selected as Princeton University’s 2024 Belknap Visitor in the Humanities. In 2022, Aharoni received the ASF Pomegranate Lifetime Achievement Award for Art and Design.
~~~~~~~
American Sephardi Federation in partnership with Omni-American Future Project, Jazz Leadership Project, ASEFA, The UJA-Federation New York and Tribeca Synagogue present:
An Omni-American Juneteenth Celebration: The Blues, Jazz, and Sephardi Piyyut
This Juneteenth, we’re honoring Black American experience by celebrating jazz and jazz’s contribution to Jewish culture, especially Sephardi Jewish culture. A musical journey that begins with the blues, travels across Manhattan and blossoms into Sephardi sounds elaborated and enriched by America’s native high art, “Juneteenth at the Tribeca Synagogue” tells an American story of cultural exchange at the peaks of human excellence.
Thursday, 19 June at 7:30PM
@Tribeca Synagogue - 49 White Street, NYC
Sign-up Now!
Tickets: $18
