In Honor of Professor Efraim Sadka, who for the past 14 years has dedicated himself to building the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center at Or Yahuda into an important Iraqi Jewish historical and cultural institution
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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!
Don’t miss the latest Sephardi Ideas Monthly: “Two Jewish Songs, Ancient and Israeli”
“Finding Home in Heritage: My Experience at ASF’s Sephardi House Young Leaders Shabbaton in Miami”
By Elizabeth Katanov, The Bukharian Times
Elizabeth Katanov, Sephardi House Fellows Shabbaton & National Leadership Summit, Yotel, Miami, 5 April 2025
Elizabeth Katanov remembers how on April 4, 2025, the ASF’s Sephardi House brought together “Sephardic and Mizrahi students and alumni from across [the United States]” for an unforgettable Shabbat in Miami.
The air at the Miami Shabbaton was enlivened by “hymns and melodies… from Greek, Turkish, and Moroccan” traditions, and Sephardi House fellows led the prayers according to their own customs, creating “an incredibly enriching experience” that fused “different liturgical styles.” As students from Persian, Syrian, Libyan, Iraqi, Bukharian, Kavkazi, and Egyptian Jewish backgrounds recounted tales and shared family artifacts, the retreat became “a powerful opportunity to learn about one another through sharing our stories.”
Katanov was raised a Bukharian Jew in Queens. A graduate of the Sephardi House Fellowship who serves on the Alumni Advisory Board and is now enrolled in medical school, Katanov recalls how, in her youth, her Jewish identity “differed vastly from those of my peers.” Provoked by the absence of Yiddish, a teacher once asked her, “Are you even Jewish?!” The Sephardi House Fellowship enabled Katanov to celebrate her unique Jewish roots. Likewise, in Miami:
Sharing anecdotes of family heroes and our rich traditions made me feel as though we were honoring our past and had brought all of our ancestors into the room with us–be they from Uzbekistan, Georgia, Yemen, or Sefarad (Spain) itself.
With so many dedicated and passionate young leaders in the same room, the potential to impact our communities was palpable. I am very grateful to Sephardi House for introducing me to this fantastic network, and giving me the opportunity to learn about our rich and intertwined histories while simultaneously building a brighter future.
All donations are tax-deducible and will be gratefully acknowledged at the ASF Sephardi House Shabbaton & Leadership Summit and thereafter.
For more information about ASF’s Sephardi House Fellowship, visit: www.sephardi.house
Apply Now!
Deadline: 1 August 2025, 11:59pm ET
For questions email the National Director of Sephardi House, Ruben Shimonov (rub[email protected]) and CC Sephardi House Engagement Associate, Stella Salmon ([email protected]).
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FEATURE: How the Jewish Women of Mashhad Hid Behind the Image of Fatima, daughter of Muhammad
Dr. Orit Shaham Gover
(Screenshot courtesy of ANU/YouTube)
A small medallion at the ANU - Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv tells a large crypto-Jewish tale.
When the Jews of Mashhad, Iran, were compelled to outwardly profess obedience to Islam, the women of Mashhadi Jewish community would hide Torah scrolls and prayer books underneath the long garments covering their bodies. In order to allay suspicions, however, of being secret Jews, they would hang a small pendant to a chain worn around their necks with an inlaid image of Fatima, daughter of Muhammad, attached. ANU’s Chief Curator, Dr. Orit Shaham Gover, brings out and shows one of the medallions from the museum’s collection.
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Voices in Exile: A Study in Sephardic Intellectual History
By Rabbi Dr. Marc D. Angel
Rabbi Angel explores the teachings of the Sephardi sages and thinkers who flourished around the Mediterranean and in the New World in the centuries after the Expulsion.
Jews, Food, and Spain: The Oldest Medieval Spanish Cookbook and the Sephardic Culinary Heritage
by Dr. Hélène Jawhara Piñer
2023 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards Best Jewish Food Culture Book; 2022 National Jewish Book Award Finalist
A fascinating study that will appeal to both culinarians and readers interested in the intersecting histories of food, Sephardic Jewish culture, and the Mediterranean world of Iberia and northern Africa.
In the absence of any Jewish cookbook from the pre-1492 era, it requires arduous research and a creative but disciplined imagination to reconstruct Sephardic tastes from the past and their survival and transmission in communities around the Mediterranean in the early modern period, followed by the even more extensive diaspora in the New World. In this intricate and absorbing study, Hélène Jawhara Piñer presents readers with the dishes, ingredients, techniques, and aesthetic principles that make up a sophisticated and attractive cuisine, one that has had a mostly unremarked influence on modern Spanish and Portuguese recipes.
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Upcoming Events or Opportunities
The American Sephardi Federation’s Sephardi House Fellowship is a unique learning, community-building, and leadership development program that infuses the diversity, creativity, and vibrancy of the Sephardic spirit into Jewish student life—while also advancing Jewish unity and vitality on campus.
Bringing together a select cohort of Jewish students from colleges across the United States, 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 wisdom of the Sephardic and Mizrahi world.
For more information about ASF’s Sephardi House Fellowship, visit: www.sephardi.house
Apply Now!
Deadline: 1 August 2025, 11:59pm ET
For questions email the National Director of Sephardi House, Ruben Shimonov (rub[email protected]) and CC Sephardi House Engagement Associate, Stella Salmon ([email protected]).
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Our friends at Qesher in partnership with the American Sephardi Federation present:
Jewish Tunisia: at a crossroads of civilizations
“Tunisia, the former seat of Cartaghe’s empire, has been home to different Jewish communities for more than 2000 years. Its central location at a crossroads of civilizations led to multiple influences in food, culture, language and identity. Rafram will take us through the different elements of the complex Jewish layer of Tunisia, which took a fateful turn in 1967 after the Six-Day War. Rafram will talk about how Jewish life looks today in Tunisia and about his work as a visual artist, which blends biography and Jewish identity in contemporary Tunisia.”
Sunday, 27 July at 3:00PM EST
Sign-up Now!
Tickets: $9-$18
About the speaker:
“Born on the island of Djerba off the coast of Tunisia, Rafram Chaddad is an artist whose photographs, films, and multi-media installations rethink the archive, migration narratives, and what it means to belong.
Working between Tunis and New York, Rafram’s work reflects on his personal life experiences and comments on broader socio-political issues including migration and displacement, identity and belonging. Over the past twenty years, he’s created dozens of short films and installations, which have been exhibited worldwide in cultural institutions, galleries, and museums, including:
Kunst im Tunnel, Dusseldorf; Kunstraum, New York; Kayu Lucie Fontaine Gallery, Bali; Lucie Fontaine, Milan; ArteEast foundation, New York; Halle 14, Leipzig; and Zalatimo, east Jerusalem. Chaddad has held solo shows at the Mucem Museum in Marseilles and the Maximilian Forum in Munich, among others.”
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Our friends at Qesher in partnership with the American Sephardi Federation present:
A Tale of Three Kingdoms: The Jews of Andalusia, Morocco, and Gibraltar
Tuesday, 29 July at 3:00PM EST
Sign-up Now!
Tickets: $9-$18
About the talk:
“...while the Jerusalemite exile community of Sepharad shall possess the towns of the Negev” (Obadiah 1:20)
“Andalusía (Andalucía) -the southern region of Spain once considered the most advanced and educated society in the western world, and where Judaism developed profusely and reached great heights of excellence, is the same land where all of this came to an abrupt end. This is the land where, on an unfortunate day of heart-breaking memory, an infamous decree was published -within the walls of the most beautiful palace anyone could ever imagine- and forced into exile a group of Spaniards whose only sin had been to think differently about their relationship with God.
Some of these Jews went south crossing the Strait of Gibraltar and settled down in the land of the Wattasid Sultan Abu Zakariya Muhammad al-Saih al-Mahdi. There they became a scholarly mercantile elite and quickly dominated Jewish communal life in the land already known as Morocco. Two hundred years later, some descendants of these Jews from Morocco returned -mostly as traders- to Gibraltar, a rock of less than two square miles located at the very bottom of the Iberian Peninsula that had just become part of the British Empire after the Spanish Succession war. They were given the right of permanent settlement in 1749 and since then, there has been a significant Jewish presence in the Rock.”
About the speaker:
“Moisés Hassán-Amselém, born in Seville of Moroccan heritage, is an honorary lecturer on ~Holocaust-Shoa Studies and Antisemitism at the University “Pablo de Olavide” in Seville, Spain.
He was an Exchange student in California during his senior year in High School. After his graduation, Moises returned to Spain and attended the University of Seville, where he obtained a law degree in 1995. However, he decided to make a completely career change and focus on the Jewish history of Spain. Therefore he set out to found Jewish Spain Tour, a fully licensed Tour Operator specializing in Jewish travel inside the Iberian Peninsula as well as in Morocco.
In addition to his role at the University “Pablo de Olavide”, Moisés is also involved in informal Jewish education.”
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Our friends at Qesher in partnership with Nora Kaplan Learn-in-trips presents:
Jewish History Tours to Spain
BARCELONA-CORDOBA-GRANADA
SEVILLA-TOLEDO-MADRID
Embark on a 12-day journey this October and November 2025 to experience the history of Jews in Sepharad: explore museums and world heritage sites, walk through the old cobbled lanes of Jewish quarters, take in the splendid architecture, and enjoy delicious food and Spanish wine.
Learn about the Golden Age of Jewish life in Spain on this unique, family-run Jewish Heritage Tour.
26 October - 6 November, 2025
Early Bird Price: EUR 5,700 if booked by 26 July, 2025
For questions or more information, please visit www.norakaplan.com or email [email protected].
Note: While this is not an ASF program, the American Sephardi Federation is proud to serve as a promotional partner for this unique educational experience.
