In Memory of the more than 1,300 Israeli martyrs, HY”D tortured, humiliated, and slaughtered by Hamas. See the ASF’s Statement of American Sephardi Solidarity with Israel
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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!
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🎓“What I learned at Harvard”
By Sarah Shiloah Boxer, The Times of Israel
Sarah Shiloah Boxer
(Photo courtesy of The Times of Israel)
Sarah Shiloah Boxer, an ASF Sephardi House Fellow ’21-’22 at George Washington University, is now a second-year law student at Harvard:
While I spent the last 48 hours sobbing next to my parents, calling family members, frantically checking the news and social media for updates to gain the illusion of control, and sitting quietly in shock, my peers at Harvard were drafting a statement rationalizing the massacres, rapes, and torture without so much as a sentence expressing empathy or condemnation. Educated “human rights defenders” that I share classes with, people in the human rights student organizations I am a part of, and those who call themselves my friends – celebrating publicly as my people are being slaughtered, tortured, and brutalized in cold blood in their homes. Acts reminiscent of pogroms.
They are conflating the liberation of the Palestinian people with the indiscriminate violence of Hamas – a terrorist group. They are cheering on documented, transparent war crimes and violations of international law. And these people call themselves progressives and defenders of human rights. Antisemitism runs so deep. I have never felt so angry or betrayed in my life.
For me, as I am sure for many in the diaspora, October 7th signified a turning point. No longer will I sit quietly. No longer will I shy away from sharing my identity or heritage. No longer will I give people the benefit of the doubt when they dip into antisemitic tropes and rhetoric. No longer will I welcome into spaces I hold dear people who want me, my family, and my community dead. I refuse to sanitize my identity and my family’s history to make others more comfortable.
These people have shown us who they are.
Read the full article here
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Feature: “Straight Ahead: The Omni-American Podcast” 🎶🙌
Click here to watch the Special Episode
The ASF’s Director of Publications, Dr. Aryeh Tepper, lives in the southern Israeli town of Ofaqim with his family. Aryeh’s Ofaqim neighbourhood, Mishor haGefen, was overrun by Hamas terrorists this past Saturday, and in this special episode of “Straight Ahead: The Omni-American Podcast,” Aryeh and his partner and co-host, Greg Thomas, discuss Hamas’ Oct. 7th assault.
Aryeh shares stories of real-time heroism from his family and community and provides essential information for understanding how the attack fits into the larger regional war between the forces of Islamic tolerance and Islamist intolerance.
Tepper and Thomas affirm the values of civilization against barbarism, while Tepper concludes by pointing to the price that Israel has paid for allowing political expediency to trump considerations of competence, let alone excellence, in public life.
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🔥“Is Yalies4Palestine a hate group?”
By Sahar Tartak, Yale Daily News
Sahar Tartak
Sahar Tartak, an ASF Sephardi House Fellow ’22-’23, is a Sophomore at Pierson College, Yale University:
Editor’s note: The News reached out to Yalies4Palestine and asked if group members would like to issue a comment or a concurrent column; the organization declined.
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This sort of barbarism went on throughout Israel this weekend, committed by Hamas terrorists from Gaza intent on killing as many Jews as possible. Yes, they raped women. Yes, they kidnapped children. Yes, they beheaded men. Yes, they cheered the whole time. It’s all on video. Over 1,200 are dead, not to mention those kidnapped and maimed. This is terror, and Hamas is a designated terrorist group — as described by the United States, European Union and dozens of other countries.
Many Yalies have been frantically calling their friends and relatives in Israel, myself included. I fell into my mother’s arms (and many others’) crying this week. She escaped Iran, the very regime that supported, funded and supplied this weekend’s massacres. We’re all crying, and we don’t know what to do. People are hunting us.
You can imagine my horror to find that Yalies4Palestine decided that the murderers are absolved of their responsibility in an Instagram post that holds ‘the Israeli Zionist regime responsible for the unfolding violence,’ thereby justifying the use of unlawful violence against civilians (again: terror). An original Y4P post called on ‘the Yale community to celebrate the resistance’s success.’
Do you know who I hold responsible? The men with the guns and axes who raped the women, killed the children and abducted the grandmothers.
Read the full article here
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💙“Why don’t you see me?”
By Netanel Schwartz, Yale Daily News
Netanel Schwartz
Netanel Schwartz, an ASF Sephardi House Fellow ’22-’23, is a Junior at Timothy Dwight College, Yale University:
I’m reading the Yale Daily News. I am thinking: where is the word “innocent?” Where is the word “civilian?” Where is the word “massacre?” The News has avoided these words. I hear them the loudest.
I am not on a bench on Cross Campus. I’m in Haifa, where my aunt is texting me how she is doing: tragedy, tragedy. I’m on Israel’s border with Lebanon, where one of my cousins is deployed as a medic. I’m on the border with Gaza, where another cousin of mine is waiting for orders, which way to go — in or out, home or hell. She is 21 years old.
I’m with my uncle Shelomo Sammy Susan in October 1973, almost fifty years ago to the day. He is killed defending his people, forced from the synagogue to the battlefield by a surprise attack on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. He has come to this land all the way from Casablanca, married and fathered a son, and I am with him as he dies for them.
I’m in San Diego, describing to my mother over and over the maimed limbs of her country, the gaping wounds from which it bleeds. Ima, I sigh, when she asks me “how many” for the third time. Ima, Ima. It’s as if I’m explaining to her the nature of blood itself: how it flows, how much. “Ya Allah, ya rab!” I tell her, in the little bit of Moroccan Arabic I’ve inherited from my grandparents. Who am I to measure these things for her? I know nothing.
Read the full article here
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Please support the ASF’s Sephardi House Fellows and help light a candle on campus!
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Tu boca en los cielos: La haketia de Menashe y Alfonso
By Gladys Benaim Bunan
Tu boca en los cielos: La haketia de Menashe y Alfonso illustrates the world of the Jews of Northern Morocco through the usage of Haketia. Haketia-speaking Jews lived in Morocco for nearly 500 years, from the year of the exodus from Spain in 1492 until the 1970s.
Haketia, the well-known form of Judaeo-Spanish spoken by Jews living in the Balkans, Greece, Turkey and Jerusalem is "Ladino Oriental" (eastern Ladino). Haketia may be described by contrast as "Ladino Occidental". The language is a variety of Spanish that borrows heavily from Judeo-Moroccan Arabic. It evidently also contains a number of words of Hebrew origin and was originally written using Hebrew letters. There is some cultural resemblance between the two Judaeo-Spanish dialect communities, including a rich shared stock of Romanzas (ballads) from medieval Spain, though both words and music often differ in detail (as indeed they do between one Oriental-Sephardic community and another).
By Dr. Hélène Jawhara Piñer, a 2018 ASF Broome & Allen Fellow
In this extraordinary, award-winning and best-selling cookbook now in its 4th imprint, chef and scholar Hélène Jawhara-Piñer combines rich culinary history and Jewish heritage to serve up over fifty culturally significant recipes. Steeped in the history of the Sephardic Jews (Jews of Spain) and their diaspora, these recipes are expertly collected from such diverse sources as medieval cookbooks, Inquisition trials, medical treatises, poems, and literature. Original sources ranging from the thirteenth century onwards and written in Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, Occitan, Italian, and Hebrew, are here presented in English translation, bearing witness to the culinary diversity of the Sephardim, who brought their cuisine with them and kept it alive wherever they went. Jawhara-Piñer provides enlightening commentary for each recipe, revealing underlying societal issues from anti-Semitism to social order. In addition, the author provides several of her own recipes inspired by her research and academic studies.
Each creation and bite of the dishes herein are guaranteed to transport the reader to the most deeply moving and intriguing aspects of Jewish history. Jawhara-Piñer reminds us that eating is a way to commemorate the past.
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Upcoming Events or Opportunities
The American Sephardi Federation presents:
Convergence: Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian Calligraphy in Conversation
Featuring the multilingual art of Ruben Shimonov Convergence creates a visual world where Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian languages interact with, and speak to, one another; a world where stylized letters and words dance together on the page; a world where cultures, religions, communities, and philosophies intersect.
Juxtaposing cognates from these ancient West Asian languages, artist Ruben Shimonov encourages the viewer to explore the deep-rooted connections between these tongues, as well as the multilayered and transnational identity of the artist himself.
On View in the Leon Levy Gallery
through 31 December 2023
@ the Center for Jewish History
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The American Sephardi Federation and Mimouna Association’s Rebuilding Our Homes Project present:
Re-Creation: Judaica by Moroccan Muslim Artisans
Explore the exhibition of Judeo-Moroccan art, Moroccan Judaica, cultural and religious objects, including Menorot, Mezuzot, Yads, Shabbat Candleholders, Seder Plates, Hallah Covers, and much more.
On View through 31 December 2023
@ the Center for Jewish History
As Moroccan Jewish populations largely left the mellahs (Jewish quarters) in the latter half of the 20th century, there was a danger that not only designs but even the traditional artisanal techniques needed to create them would be lost. Passed down from one artisan to another and perfected over time, these designs and techniques. ranging from vibrant patterns to intricate metalwork and soulful wood carvings, are expressions of Moroccanity and reflect the individual character of each city. The materials and craftsmanship of Rabat are different than Fez, and Essaouira is distinct from both.
Mimouna Association and the American Sephardi Federation’s Rebuilding Our Homes Project, a multi-year USAID-supported New Partnerships Initiative, brought three notable experts-Ms. Zhor Rehihil, Ms. Deborah Koenigsberger Gutierrez, and Ms. Meryem Ghandi to train Moroccan Muslim artisans in the history of Judeo-Moroccan art and guided them in re-creating Moroccan Judaica, which encompasses a diverse array of cultural and religious objects, including Menorot, Mezuzot, Yads, Shabbat Candleholders, Seder Plates, Hallah Covers, and much more.