In Honor of the historic Ramadan Iftar hosted jointly in Washington, D.C. by the Ambassadors of Azerbaijan, Bahrain, and Israel
Sephardi World Weekly is made possible by Professor Rifka Cook, Maria Gabriela Borrego Medina, Rachel Amar, Deborah Arellano, & ASF VP Gwen Zuares!
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✡️“Raphael Mechoulam, the Israeli Godfather of THC”
By Madison Margolin, Tablet Magazine
Prof. Mechoulam in his lab, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel, 1 Sept. 2016
(Photo courtesy of Melanie Lidman/Times of Israel)
At age 85, the recently deceased Raphael Mechoulam was profiled by Table Magazine. Mechoulam was a Bulgarian-born scientist from a Sephardi Jewish family who discovered THC, the chemical in marijuana that gets you high. Simply dubbed “The Man” by High Times Magazine, in the early ’60s Mechoulam worked at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science studying “superb, smuggled Lebanese hashish” that he convinced the police to hand over for research purposes. Over the years, THC has proven useful in moderating side effects from cancer and HIV/AIDS treatments, epilepsy, chronic pain, anxiety, and other ailments, and Mechoulam was convinced, in 2016, that “‘if cannabis were legal, it would replace ten to twenty percent of all pharmaceuticals.’” With prohibitions against marijuana increasingly relaxed around the world, Mechoulam is optimistic, “‘I have spent the better part of my life decoding the mysteries that lie within this incredible plant… It is of great promise…let’s try to push it forward.’”
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Feature: Getting Ready for Passover with Jo Amar’s Andalusian-Moroccan Haggadah✨🎶
With help from some friends on oud and in the choir, the great Jo Amar reads (in French and Hebrew) and sings (in Hebrew and Arabic) the Passover Haggadah in his distinctly sweet, soulful and virtuoso style and according to the Andalusian-Moroccan tradition.
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🏛️“Fez’s Museum of Jewish culture has been completed”
By Said Affassi, i24News
Opening of the USAID-supported ASF-Mimouna Association Rebuilding Our Homes Exhibition of Judaica made by Moroccan artisans, The Mohammed V Foundation for Solidarity, Fez, Morocco, June 2022
(Photo courtesy of ROH/The Media Line)
Work on the 13,000 sq. foot Museum of Jewish Culture in the Al-Mellah district of Fez, Morocco, has been completed and the museum is set to open its doors. According to Henry Cohen, a community member and an expert on Jewish architecture, “‘The museum of Jewish Culture in the city of Fez is a masterpiece unique in Africa and the Arab world. It will receive great attention from Jews around the world and those interested in Moroccan Jewish culture.’” The museum is part of a program by HM King Mohammed VI that aims at preserving the architectural and spiritual heritage of Fez and that embraces local Moroccan Jewish history as a component of Morocco’s cultural heritage.
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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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Exploring Sephardic Customs and Traditions
By Hakham R’Marc D. Angel, Ph.D
Over the centuries, Jewish communities throughout the world adopted customs that enhanced and deepened their religious observances. These customs, or minhagim, became powerful elements in the religious consciousness of the Jewish people. It is important to recognize that minhagim are manifestations of a religious worldview, a philosophy of life. They are not merely quaint or picturesque practices, but expressions of a community’s way of enhancing the religious experience. A valuable resource for Sephardim and Ashkenazim alike.
By Rabbi Dr. Marc D. Angel
This unique Sephardic Passover Haggadah will be valued by Sephardim and Ashkenazim alike. Hakham Rabbi Angel provides a new, readable translation of the classic Haggadah text. Added to it are some selections in Judeo-Spanish as well as the popular “Bendigamos” blessing after meals.
This special edition of the Haggadah includes a running commentary, drawn from the teachings of Sephardic sages through out the generations, with insights from such Sephardic luminaries as Rabbis Moses Maimonides, Yitzhak Abravanel, Hayyim Y. D. Azulai, Benzion Uziel, Hayyim David Halevy and many others, ancient and modern. The Haggadah also includes a number of Sephardic customs which will enrich anyone’s Passover Seder.
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Upcoming Events or Opportunities
The American Sephardi Federation, in partnership with Center for Jewish History, Kulanu, Project Shema, Kahzbar, Be’chol Lashon and Jewish Multiracial Network presents:
The Hidden Jews of Ethiopia
Film Screening and Discussion
Nafkot – Yearning, a new film by Dr. Malka Shabtay
The Hidden Jews of Ethiopia, a new book by Dr. Marla Brettschneider
Sunday, 2 April at 4:00PM EST
(Followed by a reception)
At the Center for Jewish History
(Tickets: In-person $15)
Sign-up Now!
Panelists:
Dr. Malka Shabtay is an applied anthropologist who has worked for decades with the Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel and more recently in Ethiopia. Author of many books, she has taught in numerous academic institutes including the Ruppin Academic Center and the Institute for Immigration and Social Integration. Shabtay combines research, consultancy, and training for organizations applying cultural and cross-cultural perspectives in their work. Nafkot (Yearning 2022) is her second ethnographic film.
Mr. Belayneh Tazebku Worku is one of the leaders of the Ethiopian North Shewa Bete-Israel community and serves as the manager of the synagogue, Brit Olam, in Addis Ababa. Working in the community for twenty-five years, Tazebku Worku has focused on raising awareness and community organizing both locally and nationally toward full civil and human rights of the Bete Israel people and community. Tazebku Worku also works to meet concrete current needs of the community such as the creation of a Jewish cemetery and a Bete Israel community settlement in Debre Berhan, in the Amhara region.
Dr. Marla Brettschneider, Professor holds a joint appointment in Politics & Feminist Studies at the University of New Hampshire. She is a groundbreaking scholar of Jewish diversity politics and political theory, also using diversity as a frame to address antisemitism in the US and globally. Lecturing widely and author of numerous award-winning books, her works include: Jewish Feminism and Intersectionality; The Family Flamboyant: Race Politics, Queer Families, Jewish Lives; The Hidden Jews of Ethiopia; The Jewish Phenomenon in Sub-Saharan Africa, & The Narrow Bridge: Jewish Views on Multiculturalism with a forward by Cornel West.
Sponsorship opportunities available:
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TriBeCa Synagogue presents:
Mexican Jewish Film Festival 2023
(First Edition)
A retrospective on Mexican films: directed, created, written, acted or produced by Mexican Jews
2-5 April 2023 | TriBeCa Synagogue
49 White Street, New York City
Sign-up Now!
(Please use a promo code ASF2023 to receive a special 50% off discount)
Sponsorship opportunities available
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The American Sephardi Federation presents:
Sephardic Culinary History with Chef Hélène Jawhara-Piñer
“Cecilia Cardosa Matza and Sweet Lamb for her Passover Dish”
Special Passover cooking class
Sephardi Culinary History combines chef and scholar Hélène Jawhara-Piñer’s fascination with food studies and flair for creating delicious cuisine. Join along as she cooks Sephardic history!
Monday, 3 April at 12:00PM EST
(Tickets: Zoom $15)
Sign-up Now!
ASF Broome & Allen Fellow Hélène Jawhara Piñer earned her Ph.D in History, Medieval History, and the History of Food from the University of Tours, France.
Chef Hélène’s primary research interest is the medieval culinary history of Spain through interculturality with a special focus on the Sephardic culinary heritage written in Arabic. A member of the IEHCA (Institute of European History and Cultures of Food), the CESR (Centre for Advanced Studies in the Renaissance), and the CoReMa Project (Cooking Recipes of the Middle Ages), Chef Hélène has lectured at Bar-Ilan University (in collaboration with the Stali Institute and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC): “El patrimonio culinario judío de la Península Ibérica a través de un manuscrito del siglo XIII. Ejemplos de la pervivencia de recetas en la cocina de los sefardíes de España y de Marruecos,” 2018), as well as at conference of the Association Diwan (“Reflections on the Jewish heritage according to the Kitāb al-ṭabīẖ,” 2015), IEHCA of Tours (“Jews and Muslims at the Table: Between coexistence and differentiation: state of affairs and reflections on the culinary practices of Jews and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula and in Sicily from the 12th to the 15th century,” 2017), and Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies (“The hidden Jewish culinary heritage of the Iberian Peninsula through a manuscript of the 13th century. Examples of the provenance of some recipes in Venezuelan and Colombian cuisine,” 2017).
Last May, Chef Hélène hosted “Shavuot in the Sephardic Kitchen: Bread of the Seven Heavens,” one of the most popular sessions of the Great Big Jewish Food Fest. An administrator of the over 11,000 member Sephardi Cuisine! group on Facebook, her recipes have appeared in the Sephardi World Weekly, Sephardi Ideas Monthly, Tablet Magazine, The Forward, and S&P Central’s Newsletter.
Order your copy of “Sephardi: Cooking the History. Recipes of the Jews of Spain and the Diaspora, from the 13th Century Onwards”
(recently ranked “#1 New Release in Spanish Cooking, Food & Wine”).
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)
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
Sign-up Now!
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.