In Memory of talented musician and Sephardi Shoah survivor Michel Assael, A”H—one of only ~19% of Greek Jews overall and a tragically even smaller percentage of Salonica’s (Thessaloniki’s) Jewish community who weren’t murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust—whose symphonic poem, Auschwitz, had its world première at Carnegie Hall last week, 75 years after being composed. Special thanks to the tireless efforts of Sephardic leader (including on the ASF’s Board of Directors) Dr. Joe Halio and renowned Turkish-Sephardi pianist Renan Koen in bringing this work to the public. The ASF proudly supported the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County & New Manhattan Sinfonietta in honoring Martin Elias, Distinguished ASF Board Member and Executive Producer of the New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival, with this historic performance
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
“The Jewish Community of Arta, Greece – Fables, Memories and the Holocaust”
By Elias Messinas, The Jerusalem Post
Defaced Holocaust Memorial, Arta, Greece, 28 March 2017
(Photo courtesy of the Former Jewish Community of Arta – Greece/Facebook)
The story of Romaniote Jewry, the Jews who lived in Greece since ancient times, began in the southern Greek town of Arta. But the community of Arta was devastated by the Holocaust, and the last Jew left in 1959. Today, the history of Arta’s Jews is preserved by Theocharis Vadivoulis, “a local of Arta, lawyer and dedicated researcher,” who you’ll find at a local church. Why is Theocharis so dedicated to preserving the memory of Arta’s Jews? “My grandmother… never told stories… However, there was one thing that she kept telling me about… The painful memory of losing her Jewish friends, and their deserted homes after their deportation: the deserted streets in the Jewish quarter, the silence, the open windows swaying in the wind, the closed shutters, the emptiness… Their loss was unbearable.”
Exclusively available at The ASF's Sephardi Shop:
The Synagogues of Greece: A Study of Synagogues in Macedonia and Thrace by Elias V. Messinas, an English edition published by The American Sephardi Federation
Feature: Woman Finds Family Her Grandmother Saved From Nazis, Loses Relatives To Violence
By NBC News
Yvette Manessis and Megyn Kelly
(Photo courtesy of NBC News)
During World War II, the entire Greek island community of Ereikoussa risked their lives to save a single Jewish family. Yvette Manessis Corporon’s grandmother was among those who protected the family, a story she tells in her book, Something Beautiful Happened: A Story of Survival and Courage. Tragically, two of Corporon’s extended family members, neither of them Jewish, were murdered in 2016 by a neo-Nazi who opened fire on a JCC in Kansas City. In this interview with Megyn Kelly, Corporon shares the mind-bending details of her family’s bravery and recent tragedy.
“The Holocaust of Greek Jews”
Philip Chrysopoulos, Greek Reporter
Heroine of the Greek resistance Lela Karagianni was recognized by Yad VaShem as one of the Righteous Amongst the Nations for saving the family of Solomon Cohen before she was captured and executed by the SS in 1944.
(Photo courtesy of Wikipedia)
While over 80% of Europe’s oldest Jewish community in Greece were murdered during the Holocaust, there are numerous stories of resistance among Greeks, including 352 people who have been designated as “Righteous Among the Nations” by Israel’s Yad VaShem Holocaust Memorial Museum. That list includes the mayor of the island city of Zakynthos, Loukas Carrer, and the local bishop, Chrysostomos, who refused to comply with a Nazi demand to prepare, “a list of every single one of the Jewish people who lived on the island.” The communal leaders instead presented an alternative list with only two names: their own.
“When the Mob Came for the Jews of Baghdad”
By Joseph Samuels, The Wall Street Journal
Joseph Samuels’ interview entitled “We are the Jews who escaped Iraq,” 14 March 2017
(Screenshot courtesy of CUFI’s The Mizrahi Project/Youtube)
Joseph Samuels is an LA-based real estate developer who grew up Iraq. He is also the author of Beyond the Rivers of Babylon: My journey of optimism and resilience in a turbulent century. Samuels was only ten years old during the 1941 Islamist-Nazi anti-Jewish pogrom known as the Farhud. It was terrifying, “‘Not wanting to appear weak to my older brothers, I cried myself to sleep in silence.’” Fear of a second Farhud drove Samuels to leave the country in 1949. Today? As Samuels tells it, “‘A journalist based in Basra, Iraq, recently asked me, ‘Would you like to come back to Iraq, if things got better?’ ‘No,’ I replied. ‘I am glad and grateful to be out of Iraq alive, and feel fortunate and blessed to enjoy freedom in one of the best countries in the world, the United States of America.’”
Listen to Joseph Samuels’ CBS radio interview with John Batchelor and Malcolm Hoenlein: Escape from the Farhud, 1941-1948. In October, Joseph fly to New York for a private meeting of Holocaust survivors with the Muslim World League's Secretary General Sheikh Dr. Mohammed Al-Issa organized by Hoenlein and the ASF.
“The unsung Jewish resistance of the Holocaust”
By Eliezer Hayon, Ynet
The Great Synagogue of Algiers, circa 1900
(Photo courtesy of Diarna: Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life)
The film “Night of Fools” tells the story of how 400 members of the Algerian underground, almost entirely Jewish, helped the allies to retake Algiers. How so? By fooling a colonel in the Vichy General Staff into letting local Jews take over the army’s main institutions. The film was aired in Israel in commemoration of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) 2015.
“Telling Holocaust Stories—in Ladino”
By Margarita Gokun Silver, Tablet
Annette Cabelli, 92, a survivor of Auschwiz, Sefarad Center, Madrid, Spain (Photo courtesy of Olmo Calvo/El Mundo)
Annette Cabelli is a 92-year-old Holocaust survivor from Salonica, Greece. Deported to Auschwitz at the age of 17, she survived three concentration camps and three death marches. She only began speaking about her experiences after a Holocaust documentary was released in France in 1956, “Before that, we couldn’t talk because people didn’t believe us.” Today she tells her story, in Ladino, to Spanish-speaking audiences.
Feature: Honoring Holocaust-era Heroism of Muslims with Dr. Mohammed al-Issa
Sheikh Dr. Mohammed al-Issa with Malolm Hoenlein (Executive Vice Chairman and CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations) and Dr. Robert Satloff (Executive Director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
(Photo courtesy of Zakaria Siraj)
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations with The American Sephardi Federation hosted Sheikh Dr. Mohammed al-Issa, General Secretary of the Mecca-based Muslim World League, on 25 April 2018 for the first public event discussing his historic letter to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, in which he wrote: “True Islam is against these crimes. It classifies them in the highest degree of penal sanctions and among the worst human atrocities ever.... One would ask, who in his right mind would accept, sympathize, or even diminish the extent of this brutal crime.” Dr. Robert Satloff of the The Washington Institute for Near East Policy led the conversation with Dr. al-Issa at the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust.
Featuring remarks by then-CoP Chairman Stephen Greenberg and then-Executive Vice Chairman and CEO Malcolm Hoenlein, the event honored Muslims who, in the face of the absolute evil perpetrated by Nazi Germany and its allies, respected and protected Jewish minorities living amongst them as well as Jewish refugees who fled the Nazi onslaught. Rabbi Itzhak Yehoshua, Bukharian Chief Rabbi, began the program with a benediction. ASF’s Partner Association Mimouna announced the launch of the first Holocaust curriculum in Arabic written “by Muslims for Muslims.” Dr. al-Issa said: “We have to try to assert our joint values and our joint goals simply because society loves harmony. We should carry on with dialogue, and we should never listen to voices of hatred and exclusion.”
Official representatives of several Muslim-majority countries— Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Morocco—discussed how they protected Jews during the Shoah and how they are committed to Jewish-Muslim cooperation today. In the classic Sephardic tradition of tolerance and inclusion, ASF’s delegation to the event included Muslim scholars and communal leaders.
Updates:
On Yom HaShoah and during Holocaust Remembrance Week 2019, the Muslim World League and Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations with the ASF signed the It Stops Now Agreement Against Hate, Bigotry, and Fanaticism at the Center for Jewish History. The 1st digital map of over 1,000 synagogues & other Jewish sites attacked by the Nazis on Kristallnacht was also launched at the event.
In October 2021, the ASF and Malcolm Hoenlein (Vice Chair, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations) organized a private meeting of Holocaust survivors—Farhud-survivor Joseph Samuels, Eastern European survivor Sami Steigmann, and Kindertransport survivor Manny Korman—with Sheikh Dr. Al-Issa.
“Analyzing and criticizing the dangers of ‘Mein Kampf’ with newly annotated edition”
By Lisa Deaderick, The San Diego Union-Tribune
Historiciser le mal: une édition critique de Mein Kampf [Historicizing Evil: A Critical Edition of Mein Kampf]
(Photo courtesy of Fayard)
Should Mein Kampf be republished in a critical edition? The American Sephardi Federation’s Executive Director, Jason Guberman, makes the case that, “dangerous ideas, if they are ever to be defeated, must be questioned, analyzed and criticized, not dismissed or censored.” What’s more, “There has been no carry-over from censorship to greater civility. On the contrary, canceling rather than refuting insidious ideas just allows them to become more contagious and deadly.” As for the argument that publishing an anti-Semitic text is liable to “inspire, or increase” Jew-hatred, Guberman responds, “[T]he real concern is that a critical edition, especially in Arabic, is decades overdue.” Mein Kampf helped instigate the Farhud and today “is spread by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Iranian regime” who “ensur[e] it never goes out of print and is the basis for an endless stream of articles, textbooks, films and other media.”
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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”
A Liter of Soup and Sixty Grams of Bread: The Diary of Prisoner Number 109565
By Heinz Salvator Kounio
Translated by Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos
On 15 March 1943 the first Greek transport left from Salonika bound for Auschwitz. Their arrival on 20 March was the beginning of the end of Greek Jewry. Among the 2,800 deported Jews was the 15-year old Heinz Kouinio. Wrenched abruptly from a comfortable upper-middle class home, Heinz found himself immersed in the horrors of the Nazi Concentration Camps. Heinz, along with his mother, father, and sister, would ultimately survive. What kept him going was his fervent wish that his murdered brethren would be remembered and that their killers would be punished. He had to survive to bear witness to that unbelievable horror. Heinz kept a diary in which he recorded his experiences. That diary is the basis of this book.
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Upcoming Events or Opportunities
The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:
The Path to On Eagles’ Wings: The Story of Yisrael Yesh‘ayahu-Shar‘abi
After his arrival in the Land of Israel, Yisrael Yesh‘ayahu-Shar’abi got to work advocating for Yemeni Jewish needs, including a path to ‘aliyah for those fleeing Yemen. Although Yesh‘ayahu eventually served as Speaker of the Knesset, among other government roles, the focus of this talk will be on his advocacy for Operation On Eagles’ Wings, the large-scale migration of Yemeni and ‘Adeni Jews to Israel in 1949-50. As head of the Histadrut “Department of Yemenis and Oriental Communities,” Yesh‘ayahu articulated an inclusive vision of Zionism and pressed the Labor leadership to support ‘aliyah from Yemen. The ‘aliyah of most of the Yemeni Jewish community was not inevitable – it was the culmination of decades of work by Yesh‘ayahu and other Labor Zionist Yemeni Jews. This is not just Yesh‘ayahu’s story; it is the story of Mizraḥi migration, of a forgotten school of thought, and of how the “Ingathering of Exiles” came to include non-European Jews.
Monday, 2 May at 12:00PM EST
(Ticket: $10)
Sign-up Now!
About the speaker:
Benjamin Berman-Gladstone, an ASF Broome & Allen Fellow, is a doctoral student at the Skirball Department for Hebrew and Judaic Studies and the Department of History at New York University. He graduated magna cum laude from Brown University in 2018 with a Bachelor of Arts in Middle East Studies and Judaic Studies and received honors for his thesis on the idea of an “Ingathering of Exiles” in relations between the American, Israeli, and Yemeni Jewish communities during Operation On Eagles’ Wings. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 2018 and spent the 2018-2019 year in Jerusalem on a Fulbright research scholarship. His writing about issues related to Israel, American Jewry, and Southwest Asian affairs has been published in the New York Times, Haaretz, Tablet Magazine, the Jewish Daily Forward, Tower Magazine, the Times of Israel, the Jewish Advocate, the Hill, the Brown Daily Herald, and the Brown Political Review.
Sponsorship opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org
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The American Sephardi Federation presents:
The Ten Commandments, The Musical
(U.S. Premiere)
One of France’s most successful musicals, The Ten Commandments, is coming to America. The Ten Commandments’ Off-Broadway cast features new diverse talent from musical theater and operatic backgrounds. Twelve artists will bring to life the story of Moses and the Jewish people.
Thursday, 5 May at 3:00PM EST
Sunday, 8 may at 6:00PM EST
Tuesday, 10 May at 8:00PM EST
Thursday, 12 May at 8:00PM EST
Sunday, 15 may at 6:00PM EST
(Tickets: $26 G/A; $36 VIP)
The Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street
New York City
Sign-up Now!
About the musical:
David Serero, starring as Moses, will lead the cast composed of DaShaun Williams (Ramses), Aria Critchley (Nefertari), Stephanie Craven (Sephora), Lisa Monde (Bithia), Cale Rausch (Joshua), Zachary Harris Martin (Aaron), Kristyn Vario (Myriam), Shane Patrick Watson and Julia Anne Cohen (Various roles and U/S).
All performers will sing the beautiful music of Pascal Obispo, one of France’s most famous composers, with original lyrics by Lionel Florence and Patrice Guirao. The musical was originally created by Elie Chouraqui (ASF Pomegranate Awardee, 2020), who wrote the book. David Serero adapted the musical to English and is staging the show with respect to Broadway standards and culture.
“The Ten Commandments” dramatizes the biblical story of the life of Moses, an adopted Egyptian prince who becomes the deliverer of his real brethren, the enslaved Hebrews, and after that leads the Exodus to Mount Sinai, where he receives, from God, the Ten Commandments.
Sponsorship opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org
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The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:
The Five Pillars of Islam - A Jewish Perspective
Rick Sopher will explain the so-called “Five Pillars of Islam” (declaration of faith, prayer, giving, fasting and pilgrimage) and look at connections, similarities and differences with Jewish Practise. He will explore the basis of these practises and how one might have influenced the other.
Bonus: Rick will also look at the basis of the very close practises of Jewish and Muslim dietary laws and explain the history of this connection, which was first stated explicitly in the Qur’an.
Monday, 9 May at 12:00PM EST
(Ticket: $10)
Sign-up Now!
About the author:
Rick has a financial background and is the CEO of Edmond de Rothschild Capital Holdings, which he joined in 1993. He is the Chairman of the world’s longest established investment fund of its type. Prior to that he worked at BDO Stoy Hayward, where he was appointed the youngest ever partner. He has received various industry awards including the Outstanding Contribution Award from Hedge Fund Review and the Decade of Excellence Award by Financial News.
Rick graduated from Cambridge University and has more recently worked in the area of interfaith relations with the Woolf Institute, Cambridge as a member of their Council.
During the lockdown period, Rick convened an online dialogue between Professors of Religion at the world’s leading universities to discuss the relationship between the Qur’an and the Bible and has himself dialogued with Muslim leaders on the subject.
Rick was awarded the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur in 2007 from President Chirac for his contribution to religious education in France and is Chairman or Director of several educational charities in the UK.
Sponsorship opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org
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The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:
Between Baghdad and Asia
Beginning in the mid-19th century, a vibrant network of Jews primarily from Iraq but also from the Levant and Iran formed communities throughout the Indian sub-continent and East Asia. These communities flourished for over a decade and the remnants of these communities can still be seen to this day in places like Bombay, Singapore, and Hong Kong through the institutions they built and the communities which continue to exist. This talk traces the history of Baghdadi Jews in Asia from its earliest beginning until the present day, exploring the relevance of these communities both to Baghdad and the larger Jewish world.
Tuesday, 10 May at 12:00PM EST
(Ticket: $10)
Sign-up Now!
Sponsorship opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org
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The Department of Anthropology & Archeology at the University of Calgary, Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, Brandeis University and Belzberg Program in Israel Studies, University of Calgary, & the American Sephardi Federation present:
Sephardi Thought and Modernity 2022 Webinar Series
Continuity and Rupture in Sephardi Modernities
(Second Edition)
On Wednesdays at 1:00PM EST
(10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern / 6pm UK / 8pm Israel / 9:30pm Iran)
(Complimentary RSVP)
11 May
(10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern / 5pm UK / 7pm Israel / 8:30pm Iran - note time - US Daylight Savings)
Vanessa Paloma Elbaz (University of Cambridge; ASF Broome & Allen Fellow) Rhizomic networks of unruptured continuity from 16th c. Italy to 21st c. Casablanca: Music, Power, Mysticism and Neo-Platonism
In this second edition of the Sephardi Thought and Modernity Series we will focus on the question of continuity and rupture as a way to deepen our dialogue about the different forms that modernity has adopted throughout Sephardi history. We will discuss questions such as the meaning of the concept of “modernity” in non-European contexts such as the Levant and/or the Arab world. We will explore how non-European Jewish societies developed ways of life and practices that synthesized tradition, change and cultural diversity throughout time. We will delve into Sephardi intellectual life, cosmopolitanism, cultural belongings, language, translation and mobility.
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Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue and Museum presents:
The Seventh Annual Greek Jewish Festival
Sunday, 15 May 12:00-6:00PM EST
Join us as we celebrate the unique Romaniote and Sephardic heritage of the Jews of Greece!
Experience a feast for the senses including authentic kosher Greek foods and homemade Greek pastries, traditional Greek dancing and live Greek and Sephardic music, an outdoor marketplace full of vendors, arts and educational activities for kids, and much more!
The ASF is once again proud to be a Festival Sponsor.
Learn more at www.GreekJewishFestival.com
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The Greek Jewish & Sephardic Young Professionals Network in partnership with the Association of Friends of Greek Jewry present:
Special Young Professionals Tour of Jewish Greece
(Summer 2022)
Join to trace the roots of our families, visit the beautiful cities of Thessaloniki (Salonika), Veroia, Kastoria, Ioannina, Athens, and Rhodes, and connect with other young Jews in Greece.
Check out the full itinerary here!
For more information email GreekJewishYPN@gmail.com