Keeping Ladino Alive, Sephardi Solidarity with Israel, & Remembering Rabbi Hamra

14 May 2021    In Memory of Rabbi Avraham Hamra, A”H, who courageously served as the last Chief Rabbi of Syria and worked closely with Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations to rescue and resettle Syrian Jewry  Click here to dedicate a future issue in honor or memory of a loved one. Thank you to Sephardi World Weekly Patrons Professor Rifka Cook,  Maria Gabriela Borrego Medina, Rachel Amar, Deborah Arellano, and Distinguished ASF Vice President Gwen Zuares! Become a Patron today!

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During Passover, Iranian regime-backed Houthis expelled almost all of Yemen’s last Jews. They continue to illegally imprison Levi Salem Musa Marhabi. Don’t turn away. Don’t close your eyes. Don’t let another group of Jews become forgotten refugees. Join the ASF’s campaign to #FreeLeviMarhabi.

Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel, R’ Ben-Zion Meir Hai Ouziel walking in front of Israel’s Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, Hebrew University Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel, 7 June 1951 (Photo courtesy of National Photo Collection of Israel)

“Sephardic Rabbis Stand in Solidarity with Israel” R’Daniel Bouskila, The Jewish Journal A group of Sephardi rabbis from around the world expressed their solidarity with “our brothers and sisters in Israel” and offered their “love and prayers to the brave men and women of the Israel Defense Forces, the Israeli Police, Israel’s Home Front Command and Medical First Response units. May God strengthen and protect them as they protect Israel.” The statement invoked “the words of our great Sephardic sage Rabbi Bension Meir Hai Uziel, [who said] ‘we desire peace, but we will not go as sheep to the slaughter, rather we will defend ourselves with strength and courage in our historic homeland.’” Signatories include Rabbi Elie Abadie (Chair of the ASF’s Council of Sephardic Sages and the Senior Rabbi of the Jewish Council of the Emirates), Rabbi Marc Angel (Institute of Jewish Ideas and Ideals), Rabbi Moshe Benzaquen (West Coast Torah Center), Rabbi Nissim Elnecavé, (Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America), Rabbi Albert Gabbai (Congregation Mikveh Israel), and Rabbi Daniel Bouskila (Sephardi Educational Center), who authored the statement.

Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel, R’ Ben-Zion Meir Hai Ouziel walking in front of Israel’s Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, Hebrew University Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel, 7 June 1951
(Photo courtesy of National Photo Collection of Israel) “Sephardic Rabbis Stand in Solidarity with Israel”

“Rabbi Avraham Hamra, ZT’L, Chief Rabbi for Syrian & Lebanese Jews, Dies at 78” The Jewish Voice Rabbi Avraham Hamra, the last Chief Rabbi of Syria, passed away last week in Israel. He was 78. Chief Sephardi Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef remembered the important role played by R’ Hamra in leading Syrian Jewry, “‘I received with great sorrow the news of the death of Rabbi Avraham Hamra. Rabbi Hamra oversaw kashrut, marriage and education of the Jewish community in Syria, while he formed friendly relations with the president, helping to preserve the community… From the time he moved to Eretz Yisrael, he was… active in the preservation and elevation of the glorious Jewish traditions of these communities.’”

Rabbi Avraham Hamra (Photo courtesy of Hamodia/Hamra Family)

“Rabbi Avraham Hamra, ZT’L, Chief Rabbi for Syrian & Lebanese Jews, Dies at 78”
The Jewish Voice

Rabbi Avraham Hamra, the last Chief Rabbi of Syria, passed away last week in Israel. He was 78. Chief Sephardi Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef remembered the important role played by R’ Hamra in leading Syrian Jewry, “‘I received with great sorrow the news of the death of Rabbi Avraham Hamra. Rabbi Hamra oversaw kashrut, marriage and education of the Jewish community in Syria, while he formed friendly relations with the president, helping to preserve the community… From the time he moved to Eretz Yisrael, he was… active in the preservation and elevation of the glorious Jewish traditions of these communities.’”

Rachel Amado Bortnick (Photo courtesy of Bonnie Burt/Forward)

“Meet the Turkish Sephardic Jew Who’s Devoted Her Life to Keeping Ladino Alive” Matt Hanson, Alma Eighty-two-year-old Rachel Amado Bortnick, the founder and leader of the Ladinokommunita, was born and raised in the Turkish city of Izmir, and today lives in Dallas, Texas. Bortnick has dedicated much of her life to preserving and revitalizing Ladino, a language, she says, that contains “‘the entire history of the Sephardic people, from its origins, to where they’ve been, who their neighbors were, just taking it all in in different ways.’” Strange as it might sound, Covid has aided her efforts: “‘Now, with us being at home, Zoom has been a big boost for our language. We have all kinds of programs going on.’”   Bortnick, who the ASF and Mikveh Israel proudly hosted for a Shabbaton in 2018, recently established the Izmir Jewish Heritage Project Fund @ The ASF, and, beginning on 25 May, will be teaching a free online class (“Ladino 102 – Intermediate Language & Song”) for our friends & partners at the Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America.

Rachel Amado Bortnick (Photo courtesy of Bonnie Burt/Forward) “Meet the Turkish Sephardic Jew Who’s Devoted Her Life to Keeping Ladino Alive”

The CRIF & Combat Anti-Semitism Movement Present:
JUSTICE POUR SARAH HALIMI: 
UN MOVEMENT INTERNATIONAL EST NÉ

JUSTICE FOR SARAH HALIMI: 
AN INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT IS BORNATIONAL EST NÉ

Wednesday, 19 May @ 9AM EDT 
Sign-up Now!

Ecoutez les acteurs clé mobilisés pour demander justice pour Sarah Halimi, assassinée en France parce que juive, à l’occasion de cet événement proposé par le Crif et CAM.
 
Informez-vous sur l’affaire Sarah Halimi et découvrez ce que l’on peut faire, ensemble, pour qu’aucun juif ne soit privé de justice en France comme l’est la famille Halimi.

Hear from key figures in the growing international movement demanding justice for murdered French Jewish grandmother Sarah Halimi at this timely event hosted by CRIF and CAM.
 
Learn more about the Halimi case and find out what we can do, together, to ensure no Jew in France will ever again be denied justice as the Halimi family has.

Speakers Include:

Francis Kalifat
CRIF President / Président du Crif

Isaac Herzog
Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel and CAM Board Member / Président de l’Agence Juive

Francis Szpiner
Halimi family lawyer / Avocat de la famille Halimi

Amine El Khatmi
Printemps Républicain President / Président du Printemps Républicain

Hassen Chalghoumi
Imam of Drancy / Imam de Drancy

Anne Hidalgo
Mayor of Paris / Maire de Paris

Marie Van Der Zyl
President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews / Présidente du Board of Deputies of British Jews (Royaume-Uni)

Eta Yudi
Vice President of CIJA (Quebec) / Vice-Présidente du CIJA (Québec)

Brooke Goldstein
Founder & Executive Director, The Lawfare Project

Manuel Valls
Former French Prime Minister / Ancien Premier Ministre français

Ellie Cohanim
Former US Deputy Special Envoy to Combat Anti-Semitism

Jason Guberman
Executive Director, American Sephardi Federation

Ahmed Shaheed
UN Special Envoy on Freedom of Religion and Belief 

New Works Wednesday with Joyce Zonana and Jean Naggar

Egyptian Jewish writers Joyce Zonana and Jean Naggar will discuss A Land Like You, Tobie Nathan’s historical novel about the Jews of Egypt, recently translated from French by Joyce and reviewed by Jean for the Jewish Book Council as a “riveting must-read.” Unlike most novels and memoirs of Egypt’s Jews, “A Land Like You” focuses on Cairo’s poorest Jews living in Haret al-Yahud, in close proximity with Muslims. The novel explores the spiritual and sensual dimensions of their humble yet dramatic lives, while also detailing the historical forces that would lead to their expulsion from their ancestral homeland. Tobie Nathan is a prolific and accomplished writer and public intellectual in France, an ethno-psychiatrist born to an old Cairo Jewish family in 1948. Jean and Joyce will also discuss their own memoirs and Jean’s novel, Footprints on the Heart.

Wednesday, 19 May @ 9AM PDT ◊ 12PM EDT ◊ 5PM London ◊ 7PM Jerusalem ◊ 8PM Dubai

Sign-up Now!

Co-Presented by the Rabbi Arthur Schneier Program for International Affairs

Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org

Out of the Dungeons with Genie Milgrom

Crypto-Jews, and many New Christians, were thrown into the dungeons throughout Spain. The Massacre of 1391 was the beginning of mass conversions in Spain. Of course, the decree of 1492 was to convert or be expelled. Many Jews chose to convert, yet they secretly maintained some Jewish practice. Being a crypto-Jew was an act of heresy, and there were great rewards for uncovering a secret Jew.

We will see, based on Inquisition papers, how so many crypto-Jews ended up in the dungeons. What were their formal crimes, and how were they caught? Life in the dungeons was unbearable, yet we know that they had modes of communication and some even lived to tell the tale.

Tuesday, 25 May @ 9AM PDT ◊ 12PM EDT ◊ 5PM London ◊ 7PM Jerusalem ◊ 8PM Dubai

Sign-up Now!

Co-Presented by the Jewish Heritage Alliance

Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org

New Works Wednesday with Cambria Gordon

As a young woman in 1481, Trujillo, Spain, she should be overjoyed that the alguacil of the city wants to marry her, especially since she and her family are conversos—Jews forced to convert to Catholicism—leaving them low in the hierarchy of the new Spanish order. Yet she longs to pursue an independent life filled with poetry and a partner of her own choosing: Diego Altamirano, a young nobleman whose family would never let him court someone with tainted blood like hers.

But Isabel’s biggest secret is this: Though the Perezes claim to be New Christians, they still practice Judaism in the refuge of their own home. When the Spanish Inquisition reaches her small town determined to punish such judaizers, Isabel finds herself in more danger than she could ever have imagined. Amid the threat of discovery, she and Diego will have to fight for their lives in a quest to truly be free.

A timeless love story about identity, religious intolerance, and female empowerment, The Poetry of Secrets will sweep readers away with its lush lyricism and themes that continue to resonate today.

Tuesday, 26 May @ 9AM PDT ◊ 12PM EDT ◊ 5PM London ◊ 7PM Jerusalem ◊ 8PM Dubai

Sign-up Now!

Co-Presented by the Jewish Heritage Alliance and the Rabbi Arthur Schneier Program for International Affairs

The Jews of the Caucasus: The Multifaceted History of Kavkazi and Georgian Jews

Jewish history runs very deep in the Caucasus—an ethnically, linguistically, and religiously diverse region at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. Jewish communities have existed continuously in Georgia, Azerbaijan and the North Caucasus (including Dagestan and Chechnya) for centuries, if not millennia. Join us in exploring the histories and cultures of this region’s oldest Jewish communities. Our first session will focus on Kavkazi Jews (also known as Mountain Jews, Gorsky Jews, or Juhuro), and the second session will highlight the story of Georgian Jews.

Sunday, 27 May & 3 June @ 9AM PDT ◊ 12PM EDT ◊ 5PM London ◊ 7PM Jerusalem ◊ 8PM Dubai

Sign-up Now!

Co-Presented by COJECO and the ASF Young Leaders

Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org

The Department of Anthropology & Archeology at the University of Calgary, King’s College London, the International Network of Jewish Thought (Universidad Complutense of Madrid), & the American Sephardi Federation present:

Sephardi Thought and Modernity 2021 Webinar Series

A monthly lecture from February through June 2021, presenting different experiences of Sephardi modernization in different places and times.

On Thursdays at 12:00PM EDT 
(10:00AM MDT)
PLEASE NOTE NEW TIME

20 May
Gabriel Abensour (Hebrew University of Jerusalem): Rabbi Yosef Knafo’s Struggle for Democratization of Knowledge in Fin de Siècle Essaouira

17 June
Yuval Evri (King’s College London) and Angy Cohen (University of Calgary): Foreign in a familiar land: language and belonging in the work of Jacqueline Kahanoff, Albert Memmi, and Jacques Derrida.

Sign-up for the Webinar Series Now!
(Complimentary RSVP)

The intention of this series is to spark the interest in processes of Jewish modernization not exclusively mediated by Europeanization. The questions we will be dealing with are related to non-dichotomic identities, multiplicity and loss of language, colonization, social transformation, and intellectual responses to it. We will approach these questions by looking at Jewish-Arab influences, the Sephardi response to European modernization, the responses of the rabbinic leadership and the work of Sephardi intellectuals.

Series organized by Yuval Evri (King’s College London) and Angy Cohen (University of Calgary).

Tell Your Sephardi-Mizrahi Story

With award winning author Gila Green

Have you always wanted to write your life story? Gila Green’s new Middle Eastern flavored Autofiction Workshop explores a writing form that pushes beyond memoir and borrows fiction techniques. Inventing your own dialogue and creating details can often free you from the need to stick to the facts, opening the door to a deeper story with emotional truth at its center. This zoom course includes a weekly lesson and in-class exercise. Instructor feedback will be provided on weekly writing assignments (up to 1,000 words). Short readings will feature Middle Eastern writers that include authors such as: Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Rachel Shabi, and Ariel Sabar. The workshop is open to women and men of all writing levels.
Special bonus for this session: 4,500 manuscript editing at the end of the course included.

On Thursdays
27 May- 24 June at 11:00AM EDT
5 online sessions

Sign-up Now!
(Registration required for the full course; Space is limited)
The workshop is open to women and men of all writing levels.

About Gila Green:
Gila Green’s novels feature characters of Sephardi, Yemenite, and mixed Middle Eastern heritage because she couldn’t find any Jewish stories that reflected her experience growing up and decided to write them herself. Her novel-in-stories White Zion explores one Yemenite family’s journey from Sanaa to Jerusalem to Canada. In Passport Control, heroine Miriam Gil struggles to understand her Yemenite father’s past against a trove of family secrets. Gila is an author, a creative writing teacher, an EFL college lecturer, an editor, and a mother of five. When she’s not exploring the Middle East in her novels, she migrates to South Africa in her continuing environmental young adult series that takes place in Kruger National Park. In addition to her four published novels, her short works have been featured in dozens of publications including: Sephardic Horizons, Jewish Fiction, Jewish Literary Journal, Fiction Magazine, Akashic Books, The Fiddlehead, and others.

Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org

The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:

The Persian Experience

Sign-up now!

Jews lived in the Middle East, and particularly Iran, even before the advent of Islam. Iran has a long history with varying dynasties, dynastic changes, and evolving borders and Jews have been there continuously throughout these changes. Throughout the ascent of Islam in its different forms, Jews were integrated at times more and at times less economically. There were times of intellectual and spiritual growth as well as suppression and persecution. All this will be addressed and discussed in a historical context.

The course is divided into seven units:

1. The Ancient Period – the settlement of the Jews in Iran, Acaemenid, Parthian, and Sassanian times
2. 7th to 9th Centuries – The emergence of Islam, Islam and the Jews, Dhimma, and Jewish religious streams
3. 13th to 18th centuries – Mongols, Jewish Persian poets, Safavid times
4. Mid-18th century to 19th century – Invasion, dynasties, and persecutions
5. The latter part of the 19th century – Interactions with World Jewry, legal status and conversions
6. Early 20th century – Modernization and education, constitution revolution, Zionism
7. The 20th century – Pahlavi dynasty, Revolution, Mashadis, and Migration

Dr. Daniel Tsadik
Dr. Daniel Tsadik, a former professor of Sephardic and Iranian Studies at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, has been awarded The Prime Minister’s Prize (Israel) in 2020 for the Encouragement and Empowerment of Jewish Communities in Arab Countries and Iran for The Jews of Iran and Rabbinic Literature: New Perspectives, published by Mosad Ha-Rav Kook.
Tsadik researches the modern history of Iran, Shi’ah Islam, and Iran’s religious minorities. A Fulbright scholar, he earned his Ph.D from the History Department at Yale University.

Dr. David Yeroushalmy
Born in Tehran, David Yeroushalmy completed his primary and part of his secondary education at the Alliance Israelite school in Tehran. He immigrated to Israel in 1961 and upon completing his secondary education he enrolled in the Department of Middle Eastern History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Completing his B.A. in Middle Eastern Studies and in Political Science, he served in the Israeli Army as an officer. He pursued his doctoral studies at Colombia University New York, in the Department of Middle East Languages and Cultures. He specialized in Persian and Hebrew languages and literatures. D. Yeroushalmy was appointed lecturer in the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel-Aviv University, where he has been teaching Persian language and Iranian history and culture. His Book entitled The Judeo-Persian Poet Emrani and His Book of Treasure, was published by E.J. Brill Publishers, Leiden, in 1995. Dr. Yeroushalmy’s current research focuses on the communal and cultural history of Iranian Jewry in the course of the nineteen-century.

Ms. Lerone Edalati
Lerone Edalati is a member of the Mashadi community of New York. In addition to her role as Associate Director of Donor Relations at ISEF, she researches and records the history and current practices of the Mashadi Jews. She holds a BA from NYU in Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies, and an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from The Graduate Center, CUNY. She is a Broome & Allen Fellow at the American Sephardi Federation and is currently gathering oral histories of Iranian Jews in NY.

Dr. Hilda Nissimi
Dr. Hilda Nissimi is the chair of the Generatl History Department at Bar Ilan University. Her most current research focuses on the formation adn change of identity layers in crypto-religious communities, with a particular focus on Mashadi Jews. Her book, The Crypto-Jewish Mashadis, was published in 1985 and remains the main text on the study of that population. She has written numerous articles on identity and forced conversions.

This course is made possible with the support of The Shazar Center, Israel.

For more information and other ASF IJE online course offerings visit: https://courses.instituteofjewishexperience.org/

The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:

The Crypto Experience
The Global History of Secret Jews

An online course presented in 10 minute episodes.
Learn at your own pace.

Please sign-up now!
Total cost of the course is $75.00

The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience is proud to present “The Crypto Experience,” an online course on Crypto-Jews. It is part of a series of online courses on a variety of topics that make up the robust Jewish experience.

For hundreds of years there have been descendants of Crpto-Jews, who have covertly kept some of their traditions while maintaining a very different public persona. It is a question of identity, be it Huegenot, Catholic, Sephardi, or Mashadi. Professing one faith on the outside and another on the inside speaks to our quest for defining identity today.

These questions of identity that we think are so new and so relevant are really rather old questions under different circumstances. In this course Dr. Hilda Nissimi (Bar Ilan University) presents an overview of crypto societies historically and in the context of today. She challenges the participants to ask themselves difficult questions like: What defines identity? If I project this outer self, how do I keep my real me? Who is the real me? Am I the me before the expression of an outer facade? Is it a new me?

The course discusses these questions as they pertain to Jews, specifically. What does it mean to be a Jew? What do I have to keep if I want to call myself a Jew? Am I allowed to change? Am I the person to decide? Who will decide? How can anyone decide under such circumstances?

In order to understand this in historic and cultural contexts, world-renowned scholars and experts in the field have joined Dr. Nissimi and will be presenting the challenges facing a range of crypto societies: 

Huegenots – Dr. Hilda Nissimi
Spanish-Portuguese Crypto Society – Dr. Ronnie Perelis (Yeshiva University)
Bildi’in of Morocco – Professor Paul Fenton (Sorbonne Université, Paris) 
Mashhadi Jews of Iran – Dr. Hilda Nissimi
Tracing Jewish Roots – Genie and Michael Milgrom
Growing Up Mashhadi– Reuben Ebrahimoff

For more information and other ASF IJE online course offerings visit: https://courses.instituteofjewishexperience.org/

The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:

The Greek Experience
Explore the world of Greek Jewry from the ancient Romaniote to the Sephardim and others who made it to and through Greece.

An online course presented in 10 minute episodes.
Learn at your own pace.

Please sign-up now!
Total cost of the course is $75.00

Jews have been in Greece since before the Temple was destroyed. They were in Greece upon the founding of the Greek Orthodox Church. Community members, known as Romaniote, made their way through Venice, Byzantium, Spain, across the Ottoman Empire, and beyond.
 
Dr. Yitzchak Kerem provides an overview of the unique languages, liturgical nuances, and communal life of Jews across Greece. Dr Kerem spent significant time living in Greece and researching Greek and Sephardic history. Photographs, maps, and personal accounts provide course participants with a full picture of the unique nature of the Jews of Greece and its surroundings.
 
In the course, participants will look at major influential points in Greek Jewish history. They will explore The Golden Age of Salonika, a time when Greece’s northern city was a hub of Jewish scholarship. Kerem introduces the tension arising in the Greek Jewish community because of Shabtai Tzvi and the Sabbateanism movement that brought with it false messianism and conversion to Islam, at least outwardly.
 
The course looks at when the Alliance Israélite Universelle moved in and the Sephardic culture in Greece developed a rich secular culture with its own novels, theater, and music. 
 
This is part of the greater Jewish heritage and history that is often overlooked. ASF IJE online courses will bring to life all parts of the greater Jewish Experience.

For more information and other ASF IJE online course offerings visit: https://courses.instituteofjewishexperience.org/

Copyright © 2021 American Sephardi Federation, All rights reserved. Thank you for opting (on our websites, at an event, or by email) to receive American Sephardi Federation Programming Updates and Publications. We apologize if this message was sent in error. The American Sephardi Federation is located at the Center for Jewish History (15 West 16th Street, New York, New York, 10011). www.AmericanSephardi.org | info@AmericanSephardi.org | (212) 294-8350 unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences

Copyright © 2021 American Sephardi Federation, All rights reserved.

Thank you for opting (on our websites, at an event, or by email) to receive American Sephardi Federation Programming Updates and Publications. We apologize if this message was sent in error.

The American Sephardi Federation is located at the Center for Jewish History (15 West 16th Street, New York, New York, 10011).

www.AmericanSephardi.org | info@AmericanSephardi.org | (212) 294-8350


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