Get Your Passes & Tickets Now for the 25th NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival!
🕯“Safeguarding the past: The Arab world’s cure to Holocaust amnesia”
By El Mehdi Boudra, The Atlantic Council
International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust - Mohammed V: Savior of Moroccan Jewry during the Holocaust, Beth El Temple, Casablanca, Morocco, 29 January 2023
(Photo courtesy of Mimouna Association)
El Mehdi Boudra is the Founder and President of Mimouna Association, a Moroccan NGO staffed by Moroccan students and volunteers dedicated to educating Moroccan society about the Hebraic heritage of Morocco. He is also a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at The Atlantic Council. In commemoration of Yom HaShoah, Boudra penned an impassioned essay championing the importance of cultural intelligence in advancing Holocaust education across North Africa and the Middle East (MENA).
Boudra begins his essay by noting how, in 2009, “Morocco’s King Mohammed VI became the first Arab leader to recognize the Holocaust by addressing the matter in a message… at UNESCO in Paris.”
In his remarks at UNESCO, King Mohammed VI placed Holocaust Remembrance within a larger, the Moroccan tradition of tolerance:
Amnesia has no effect on my understanding of the Holocaust, or that of my people… We must together endeavor to reassert reason and the values which underpin the legitimacy of a space of co-existence where the words of dignity, justice, and freedom will express themselves in the same way and will coexist, with the same requirements, regardless of our origins, cultures or spiritual ties. This is our interpretation, in Morocco, of the duty of remembrance dictated by the Shoah.
As opposed to the King’s approach, Boudra notes how previous efforts to initiate Holocaust education in the Arab world too often “suffered from a lack of context-specific sensitivity. In contrast to the king’s speech, which expresses the values and ideals of the Moroccan tradition as the basis for affirming Holocaust remembrance, others have simply translated Euro-centric Holocaust materials into Arabic.” And this is the crux of the issue: “To effectively use Holocaust education as a tool for genocide prevention, the content should be tailored to Arab audiences using relevant wording, metaphors, names, and historical events.”
Boudra highlights some notable successes in advancing Holocaust educational programming across the MENA region. In all these cases, the programs have been crafted with cultural intelligence. For instance:
In Morocco this year, the Mimouna Association, in partnership with the Council of Jewish Communities in Morocco, the United Nations Information Centre, and the American Sephardi Federation (ASF) provided over 120 students from different Moroccan universities and institutes, Moroccan Muslim activists, and members of the Moroccan Jewish community with an opportunity to engage and learn more about the history of the Holocaust.
The time is ripe for advancing Holocaust education in the region, so long as the cultural bridges will be intelligently constructed. Boudra thus concludes on an optimistic note even as he remains well-aware of the challenges that lie ahead:
It is no longer considered taboo in the MENA region to promote Holocaust education and genocide prevention. The region’s youth are far more receptive to discussing the events of one of the darkest chapters of human history, despite the political, religious, and educational challenges shrouding this historic move that has been praised in some nations in the region and criticized in others.
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Support Mimouna Association’s Holocaust Education Projects
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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”
The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa: The Impact of World War II
By Professor Reva Spector Simon
Incorporating published and archival material, this volume fills an important gap in the history of the Jewish experience during World War II, describing how the war affected Jews living along the southern rim of the Mediterranean and the Levant, from Morocco to Iran.
Surviving the Nazi slaughter did not mean that Jews living in the Middle East and North Africa were unaffected by the war: there was constant anti-Semitic propaganda and general economic deprivation; communities were bombed; and Jews suffered because of the anti-Semitic Vichy regulations that left them unemployed, homeless, and subject to forced labor and deportation to labor camps.
Covering the entire Middle East and North Africa region, this book on World War II is a key resource for students, scholars, and general readers interested in Jewish history, World War II, and Middle East history.
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Upcoming Events or Opportunities
Centro Primo Levi New York and the American Sephardi Federation present:
From Istanbul to Rio de Janeiro
Join us for an evening with Monique Sochaczewski Goldfeld (Brazilian Institute for Development, Education and Research) and Louis Fishman (Brooklyn College) in conversation on the political and cultural relations between Brazil and the countries of the former Ottoman Empire
Wednesday, 26 April at 7:00PM EST
in the ASF’s Sephardi Scholars Center @ the Center for Jewish History
(Registration is required; RSVP at info@primolevicenter.org)
In 1858, the Empire of Brazil and the Ottoman Empire signed a Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation. The aim of the treaty was allegedly to establish direct commercial relationships with particular focus on the coffee trade and on the possibility of Brazil expanding its mercantile interests to the regions of the Black Sea. Based on many years of research, Monique Sochaczewski Goldfeld explores the central role of immigration in forming the connection between two 19th century “peripheral empires”. According to her findings, it was immigration more than other geopolitical factors, that allowed these ties to remain in place and grow between the Republic of Brazil and the Middle Eastern and North African states that succeeded the Ottoman Empire. Middle Eastern immigration to Brazil continues to these days and, with time, many immigrants and their descendants became important part of the Brazilian society.
Monique Sochaczewski Goldfeld is Professor of History at the Brazilian Institute for Development, Education and Research where she teaches at the Master Program in Law, Justice, and Development. She received a Ph.D. in History, Politics, and Cultural Heritage from the Fundação Getulio Vargas in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and has been visiting scholar at the Bilkent University in Ankara (Turkey). She is co-founder and senior researcher at GEPOM (Middle East Research and Study Group). Her interests are mainly connected to Brazil-Middle East relations in historical and contemporary contexts.
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25th New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival Lineup:
Exciting Dramas, Powerful Documentaries, Timeless Classics, and Must-See Romantic Comedies – only at the ASF
To celebrate its 25th Anniversary, the NYSJFF will play both at the ASF - Center for Jewish History & via our new online platform for the first time!
7- 11 May 2023
ASF - Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street
New York City
14 -18 May 2023
Online platform: nysjff.eventive.org
This 25th edition of the NYSJFF is dedicated to Ike, Molly and Steven Elias
Book your Passes & Tickets
VIP Festival Pass – $600
(includes Opening Night, Closing Night, All Screenings at the ASF - Center for Jewish History and Parties)
Film Pass – $225
(includes Closing Night and All Screenings at the ASF - Center for Jewish History):
Opening Night and Pomegranate Awards Ceremony - $225
After Parties - $125
Single Screening - $18
All Access Online – $225
(includes 15 films selected from the Festival and online exclusives streaming from Sunday, 14 May to Thursday, 18 May)
The NYSJFF provides a range of opportunities for donors looking to support the American Sephardi Federation’s year-round preservation, education, and empowerment mission.
Your contribution will help us continue to promote the richness of Sephardic culture and to continue to provide representation with results for American Sephardi communities. Haj Sameyah!
Discuss Sponsorship or Advertising: Yves@AmericanSephardi.org
Email Inquires: info@AmericanSephardi.org
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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)
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
Sign-up Now!
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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YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, in partnership with the American Society for Jewish Music, American Sephardi Federation presents:
Babylon: Ghetto, Renaissance, and Modern Oblivion
Film Screening
Followed by a Q&A with director Jessica Gould
The award-winning film, considers the resonance of Psalm 137 (By the Waters of Babylon) through the music of two ghettoized peoples – Italian Jews of Mantua during the period of the Counter-Reformation, and African Americans before, during, and after the Harlem Renaissance.
Wednesday, 17 May at 7:30PM EST
@the Center for Jewish History
(Complimentary RSVP)
Sign-up Now!
About the film:
A 29-minute voyage through four centuries, Babylon confronts vital questions about minority musicians and their foundational roles in the music we enjoy today. Who was celebrated? Who was erased? Who was invited to the party and who was left out in the cold? Whose genius was attributed to someone else? Who contributed the most while remaining on the sidelines of history? And most importantly, why does it keep happening?
Ezra Knight narrates a script that interweaves works by Italian-Jewish composer Salomone Rossi (1570 – 1630) and contemporary American Brandon Waddles (1988 –). Additional Rossi works include performances by the Bacchus Consort, Voices of Music, and soprano Jessica Gould in collaboration with lutenist Lucas Harris. Also featuring the groundbreaking Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble, other musical selections include historical recordings by Ma Rainey, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Big Mama Thornton, The Fisk Jubilee Singers, as well as two luminaries in contemporary West African music – Kevin Nathaniel Hylton and Yacouba Sissoko.
About the speaker:
Jessica Gould is a director, writer, and soprano who continues to enjoy a formidable reception for her maiden film project, Babylon: Ghetto, Renaissance, and Modern Oblivion, on the international film festival circuit. Having become a filmmaker by virtue of the pandemic out of a need to continue presenting classical and early music through the prism of history in the absence of live performance, Ms. Gould’s ever expanding laurels include 90 awards and counting from festivals across the globe. As the Founder and Artistic Director of Salon/Sanctuary Concerts, based in New York City, her original projects have received grants from numerous foundations and institutions, generous support which has enabled the series to blossom into one of the more significant presenters of historical performance in New York City and beyond.
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Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue and Museum presents:
Greek Jewish Festival
Sunday, 21 May 12:00-6:00PM EST
(280 Broome Street, Lower East Side, NYC)
Join the Greek Jewish Festival 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, Sephardic cooking demonstrations, and much more!
The ASF is once again proud to be a Festival Sponsor.
Learn more at www.GreekJewishFestival.com
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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.