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Mazal Tov to HIAS’s Dianne Lob, the new Chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, who began her term of service this month. Past Conference Chair Arthur Stark praises Lob’s “exceptional skills in leadership, management and interpersonal relationships,” and William Daroff, CoP’s CEO, notes how Lob’s background as the child of Holocaust refugees makes her especially well-suited to “help steer our community toward greater unity and shared purpose.” Malcolm Hoenlein, the Conference’s Executive Vice Chair, says: “The need for true achdut, unity, will be most important. We will need to stand together in the Conference to effectively address our common concerns. This and future generations count on it.” Lob pledges to “continue to build on our past successes and unify around our shared mission of strengthening the Jewish community, combatting antisemitism, and standing shoulder to shoulder with Israel.”
Click here to dedicate a future issue in honor or memory of a loved one.
30 April 2021
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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! |
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!
This month’s issue of Sephardi Ideas Monthly features Rabbi Marc D. Angel’s extended essay on one of the most important issues facing the Jewish world today, “Conversion to Judaism: Halakha, Hashkafa, and Historic Challenge.” Rabbi Angel is Founder and Director of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Shearith Israel: New York’s Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue, an ASF Advisory Board member, and the author and editor of 36 books. He is also one of the most learned and articulate representatives of Classic Sephardic Judaism.
Rabbi Marc D. Angel, PhD speaking at the Opening of Sephardic Journeys, a Center for Jewish History with American Sephardi Federation exhibition in The David Berg Rare Book Room, 28 May 2015.
Sephardic Journeys can be viewed online at Google Arts & Culture. (Photo courtesy of Irina Tsukerman)
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“Conversion & Classic Sephardic Judaism”
When it comes to the question of conversion, R’Angel is a relentless advocate for the traditional approach that, on the one hand, recognizes observance of Jewish law as a formal ideal, but, on the other hand, accepts that there is a broad spectrum of observance among the Jewish people. Historically, and crucially, the traditional approach to conversion never required a convert to fully commit to observing all of the mitzvot. Mainstream contemporary orthodox approaches, however, see Jewishness in almost exclusively religious terms, and they accordingly require a convert to fully commit to observing all of the mitzvot.
Before exploring contemporary approaches to the question of conversion, it’s first helpful to explore a basic question: what fundamentally distinguishes Classic Sephardi Judaism from the mainstream of contemporary orthodoxy? In short, while the Classic Sephardi way believes that Judaism is relevant for the nation of Israel as a whole, and in its present condition, mainstream orthodoxy, in both its Haredi and Modern iterations, considers Judaism to be relevant for the religious (“frum”) community. In other words, Classic Sephardi Judaism begins with the Jewish people as they are, while contemporary orthodox approaches begin with the Jewish people as they would ideally like them to be. |
Sephardic Journeys can be viewed online at Google Arts & Culture.
(Photo courtesy of Irina Tsukerman)
Before exploring contemporary approaches to the question of conversion, it’s first helpful to explore a basic question: what fundamentally distinguishes Classic Sephardi Judaism from the mainstream of contemporary orthodoxy? In short, while the Classic Sephardi way believes that Judaism is relevant for the nation of Israel as a whole, and in its present condition, mainstream orthodoxy, in both its Haredi and Modern iterations, considers Judaism to be relevant for the religious (“frum”) community. In other words, Classic Sephardi Judaism begins with the Jewish people as they are, while contemporary orthodox approaches begin with the Jewish people as they would ideally like them to be.
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Thus, orthodox jurists almost universally issue rulings according to the standards of the “frum” community, and there is an implicit expectation that the rest of the Jewish people will either come around to the more stringent “frum” way, or disappear. How did this strange situation, an historical anomaly, emerge?
The response of European Jewish rabbinic leaders to this widespread breakdown of traditional Jewish life was to circle the wagons and emphasize, “mitzvah observance as the essence of Judaism – in order to differentiate clearly between themselves and the reformers.” In other words: the “real” Jewish community punctiliously observes all of the mitzvot, often according to the most stringent interpretations of Jewish law, while the rest of Jewry doesn’t. Once this new definition was in place, it was a small step to redefine conversion as a, “process… entailing a full commitment by the convert to observe all the mitzvoth.” This approach characterizes the mainstream orthodox approach today, across the board. R’ Angel tells a couple of family anecdotes to illustrate how widespread this approach has become:
Likewise
Sephardi Ideas Monthly is happy to introduce our readers to R’Marc D. Angel’s learned and important essay, “Conversion to Judaism: Halakha, Hashkafa, and Historic Challenge.” R’ Angel’s approach to the question of conversion is, in the best tradition of Classical Sephardi Judaism, true to classical Jewish sources and humane in its approach to the problems facing the Jewish people. |
The Jewish community underwent cataclysmic changes during the course of the nineteenth century. While most of world Jewry was religiously observant in 1800, a large majority were no longer devoted to halakhic tradition by 1900. Nineteenth-century Orthodox rabbinic leadership had to cope with the rise of Reform Judaism, the spread of Haskala, the breakdown of communal authority over its members, the defection of Jews from Torah and mitzvoth-and from Judaism altogether.
When I was a rabbinical student at Yeshiva University (1967-70), we learned ‘practical halakha’ from Rabbi Melech Schachter… In a 1965 article, Rabbi Schachter wrote: “Needless to say, conversion to Judaism without commitment to observance has no validity whatever, and the spuriously converted person remains in the eyes of halakha a non-Jew as before.” When, a generation after me, my son Hayyim studied for semikha at Yeshiva University (1991-1995), his teacher of ‘practical rabbinics’ told his students not to perform a conversion unless they were willing to bet $100,000 of their own money that the convert would be totally observant of halakha. Essentially, he was echoing the view that conversion to Judaism equals 100% commitment to observe the mitzvoth.
[W]hen all is said and done, the Talmud, Rambam, Shulhan Arukh and a host of great halakhic authorities do not espouse the stringent, restrictive views relating to conversion…
The halakha provides leeway and multiple views about the nature of the conversion process. Halakhic Judaism should not be constricted to only one halakhic view, and certainly not to the most rigid and restrictive view. It must be recognized that different legitimate halakhic positions are available… The honor of God, Torah and the Jewish people are at stake.
Sephardi Ideas Monthly is happy to introduce our readers to R’Marc D. Angel’s learned and important essay, “Conversion to Judaism: Halakha, Hashkafa, and Historic Challenge.” R’ Angel’s approach to the question of conversion is, in the best tradition of Classical Sephardi Judaism, true to classical Jewish sources and humane in its approach to the problems facing the Jewish people.
| Feature: Moroccan Piyyut for Shimon Bar Yohai’s Hillula |
The Hillula, or festive celebration marking the passing of the rabbinic sage, Shimon Bar Yohai, is being observed on this Lag La’Omer. The former Chief Sephardi Rabbi of Israel, R’ Shlomo Amar, composed the lyrics to a piyyut in honor of Bar Yohai, which is performed in this video by the great contemporary Moroccan-Israeli payytan, R’ Maymon (Meni) Cohen.
The Monthly Sage החכם החודשי
Hakham Ovadia Hadiah
(Photo courtesy of the KIAH – Alliance Israélite Universelle)
The sage for the month of April, 2021, is Hakham Ovadia Hadiah (1890-1969).
Born in 1890 in Aleppo, Syria, little Ovadia’s family moved to Jerusalem in 1895. Ovadia had four main teachers growing-up: his father (Hakham Shalom Hadiah), Hakham Shalom Bochbot, Hakham Yitzhak Alpiah, and Hakham Yitzhak Shreim. After becoming an accomplished scholar, Hakham Obadia married Shulamith, joined the Beit El Kabbalist Yeshiva in Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter, taught at the flagship Porat Yosef Yeshiva, and gave Torah classes in Jerusalem’s Ohel Moshe neighborhood.
In 1939 Hakham Obadia was appointed a religious judge in Petach Tikva. Then, in 1951, he was elected to the Great Rabbinic Court in Jerusalem and to the Chief Rabbinic Council. Having returned to Jerusalem, Hakham Obadia reinstated the study of kabbala at the Beit El Yeshiva, which had been destroyed during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence.
Hakham Ovadia Hadiah passed away on 20 Shevat, 5729 (1969), and was buried in Jerusalem’s Har HaMenuchot cemetery.
Hakham Ovadia Hadiah’s writings include Yaskil ‘Avdi – an eight-volume work on the four parts of the Shulchan Aruch; De’a VeHaskel, a collection of responsa on Kabbala; Va’yikakh Ovadiahu – four volumes of sermons; ‘Eved HaMelech – original commentary on Maimonides; and ‘Avda D’Rabban, an original commentary on the Talmud.
In the following passage from Va’yikach Ovadiahu, Hakham Ovadia explains the virtue of writing down one’s original scholarly conclusions and interpretations, especially when those conclusions and interpretations are simple and straightforward:
I have seen the following explanation, similar to the one in Sefer Hassidim… Anyone to whom the Holy One, blessed be He, has revealed something, and who is capable of writing yet does not write it down, is robbing the One who revealed the matter to him, for it was revealed only so as to be written. As it says, ‘For every deed God will bring into judgement, and every hidden thing; whether good or bad.’ Such a person causes it to become hidden, whether that which has been revealed and not written down is good or evil. The text was precise in saying ‘for every hidden thing’ – for that person hides what he or she has not written and, to clarify, this also refers to the simple things that an author might consider not good enough to publish. This, too, will be brought into judgement, all the more so because Heaven delights more in matters that are simple and straightforward… Asked why he writes simple things, the Pri Megadim (Rabbi Joseph ben Meir Teomim, 1727–1792, Galicia) replied that the time will come when the world will tire of cleverness, and when simple explanations will prove to be more useful…For this reason I have spared no expense for those more simple writings, for they are favored by the Holy One, blessed be He, over sophistry and covert, allegorical moral preaching.
By Rabbi Dr. Marc D. Angel
Hakham Rabbi Benzion Uziel (1880-1953) was one of the leading rabbinic figures of his generation. He served as Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv-Jaffa and Salonika before becoming the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel (1938), a post he held until his death.
A scion of great Sephardic rabbinical families, he was also well-steeped in the teachings of the Ashkenazic tradition. A staunch traditionalist, he was innovative and sensitive to the challenges to modernity. He was a religious Zionist who taught respect for all Jews, even those who were not religiously observant. He was deeply devoted to the particular teachings and norms of halakhic Judaism, while also maintaining a universalistic outlook and a genuine concern for the well-being of the non-Jewish population within Israel.
Rabbi Uziel was a prolific author. His volumes of responsa, Mishpetei Uziel, are models of halakhic erudition, clarity and sensitivity. Various speeches, sermons, and addresses were included in a volume, Mikhmanei Uziel, reflecting not only Rabbi Uziel’s worldview, but also the pressing issues within the Jewish community of his time. Shaarei Uziel is a two-volume work dealing with the laws of guardianship of orphans and with the laws of charity in general. Hegyonei Uziel is a two-volume work in which Rabbi Uziel presents a general philosophy of Judaism.
This book draws on the various published writings of Rabbi Uziel to present his grand religious worldview rooted in Classic Sephardic Judaism. He dealt with issues that are of continuing concern to the Jewish people, such as conversion, halakhah in a modern Jewish state, the role of women in Jewish law, Jewish nationalism, and tolerance.
by Rabbi Dr. Marc D. Angel
Special Edition for the American Sephardi Federation
Published to mark Shearith Israel’s 350th anniversary, Remnant of Israel a Portrait of America’s First Jewish Congregation tells their individual stories as well as the history of the Congregation, explaining its origins, its rituals, and its traditions. It is profusely illustrated with portraits, historical documents and ritual objects. This book tells a fascinating story, one that will appeal to anyone interested in the history and culture of the Jewish People, of New York City, and of the United States.
Exclusively available at the ASF’s Sephardi Shop
The Jewish Effendiya: Between Jewishness and Middle-Classness in Modern Egypt with Dr. Alon Tam
Dr. Alon Tam will explore the social history of the diverse and cosmopolitan Jewish community in Egypt, with a special emphasis on the city of Cairo, in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. He will examine such issues as migration, modernity, social mobility, cultural capital, community building, and relations with the larger Muslim society in which those Jews lived. Looking at those themes from the special perspective of performing social identities in various public spaces around Cairo promises to shed new light on the very meaning of Jewishness in actual, everyday life.
Sunday, 2 May @ 10AM PDT ◊ 1PM EDT ◊ 8PM Cairo/Jerusalem ◊ 9PM Dubai
Co-Presented by the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Alon Tam is a social and cultural historian of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times, and of that region’s Jewish communities. His research interests broadly include urban history, social relations and identities, historical anthropology, culture and politics. Tam received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 2018 with an award-winning dissertation about Cairo’s coffeehouses, while his current research focuses on Jewish social identities in twentieth century Cairo. A recent fellow at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies in Philadelphia, Tam presently holds the Rabin-Shvidler Postdoctoral Fellowship at Columbia and Fordham.
Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org
Shashmaqom: The Musical Tradition of Bukharian Jews
Join us to learn about the rich musical tradition of Bukharian Jews, as we listen to a live performance from world-famous musicians, Roshel and Yura Rubinov, as well as expert insights from ethnomusicologist Dr. Evan Rapport & Ruben Shimonov, ASF Broome & Allen Fellow & Director of the American Sephardi Federation’s Sephardi House Fellowship. This program is a student-led community project by Eli Khaim, one of the inaugural fellows of the ASF’s Sephardi House Fellowship, a new, year-long learning, leadership development, and enrichment experience that is designed to immerse Jewish college students in the multifaceted history, traditions, and intellectual legacy of the Greater Sephardic world and advance Jewish unity on campus.
Tuesday, 4 May @ 2:40 PDT ◊ 5:40 EDT
Click here to watch on Zoom!
Meeting ID: 267 476 1019
Passcode: 6
Co-Presented by The Center for Traditional Music and Dance (CTMD) and Hillel at Baruch
Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org
New Works Wednesdays with José Alberto R. Silva Tavim
The Diasporas of Jews and New Christians of Iberian Origin between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean
This book consists of a set of contributions, with different themes and chronologies, on the general theme of Jews of Iberian origin after the late 15th century conversions, that is, with an official Christian identity; and also about welcoming others, of remote Portuguese origin or not, in contemporary Portugal, but also in other longitudes, such as Egypt and Brazil, in different and sometimes even adverse circumstances.
In the light of the dispersion between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, one can visit, as an example, the fortunes of some of these New Christians in Portugal, and their presence, assuming again a Jewish identity, in Diaspora lands, in Europe and in the New World. Modernity reveals the resistance in Portugal of an awareness of being Jewish; and also that, alongside this phenomenon, the arrival of other Jews, especially from the Maghreb, is more than just a return, it is actually another stage of permanence in completely different contexts with regard to people’s origins, their activities, acceptance and respect for its identity.
Wednesday, 5 May at 12:00PM EST
About the speaker:
Editor José Alberto R. Silva Tavim will share insights into the book along with some of the contributors: Hugo Martins, who is in Potsdam with a German research grant, published an article in English about the Jews of Hamburg in the 17th century; Angela Benoliel Coutinho (Portuguese-Cape Verdean) wrote about the migration of Jews from Morocco to Portugal and Cape Verde in the 19th and 20th centuries; and Luís Filipe Meneses, from the University of Belo Horizonte (Brazil), wrote an article about a Brazilian Jewish writer of Moroccan origin – Leão Pacífico Esaguy.
Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org
The Remarkable Religious Creativity of Egyptian Rabbis in Modern Time with Professor Zvi Zohar
Egyptian Jews in 19th and 20th centuries were a tremendously diverse and vibrant community, comprised of indigenous Jews (Rabbanites and Karaites) whose families had been living in Egypt for hundreds of years, joined by Jews from near and far attracted by the economic upswing under Muhammad ‘Ali, the opening of the Suez Canal (1869) and the start of British rule (1882). European influence on life in Egypt was manifold, especially among the urban upper and middle classes of which most Jews were part. One result was, significant changes in the cultural, social and religious beliefs and behaviors of many segments of the Jewish community. These changes raised many novel issues requiring creative and wise responses on the part of the rabbis of Egypt. To their great credit, the leaders of Egypt’s two largest Jewish communities—Cairo and Alexandria—made excellent decisions in their choice of rabbis, of whom quite a few combined deep classical Sephardic rabbinic learning with a willingness to creatively address a series of major issues and come up with novel and courageous decisions and guidelines for their community. In our upcoming two sessions we will study together and discuss several of their most interesting positions as reflected in their own words.
Thursday, 6 and 13 May @ 9AM PDT ◊ 12PM EDT ◊ 7PM Cairo/Jerusalem ◊ 8PM Dubai
About the speaker:
Zvi Zohar is a Senior Research Fellow of the Kogod Research Center at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. He is the Chauncey Stillman Professor of Sephardic Law and Ethics at Bar-Ilan University, where he teaches in the Faculties of Law and Jewish Studies. He also heads the Rappaport Center for Assimilation Research and the Strengthening of Jewish Vitality, and is editor in chief of the international Journal of Law, Religion and State. At Shalom Hartman Institute, he heads the Alan and Loraine Fischer Family Center for Halakha.
Professor Zohar’s main area of research is the history and development of halakha from the earliest times to present. He has a special interest in the halakhic writings of Greater Sephardic rabbis in modern times. Professor Zohar has published more than 100 books and scholarly articles in Hebrew, English, French, and German.
His most recent book in English, Rabbinic Creativity in the Modern Middle East, was published in 2013 by the Hartman Institute’s Kogod Library of Judaic Studies in conjunction with Bloomington Academic Press.
Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org
A Virtual Coffeehouse in 21st Century Cairo
As we are limited in our outings, we invite you to a virtual coffeehouse. Coffeehouses in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Cairo were an urban hub for Jewish working and middle-class men, as well as for a growing number of women. Together with Dr. Alon Tam we will recreate the atmosphere with music, good stories, and good conversation. Each person who registers at least a week in advance will receive some traditional (kosher) coffee and treats to share together at the coffee house.
Traditionally, Cairo’s coffeehouses hosted politicians, revolutionaries, and journalists; immigrants and locals; and people from different ethnic, racial, and religious communities. Coffeehouses were a fundamental social, cultural, and political institution for Jews from across the region. In our virtual coffeehouse we will introduce the history of coffeehouses in Egypt, especially in Cairo listen to some music, discuss the coffee and treats, and share some culture of the time and place.
Deliveries are limited to mainland US and Israel. Space is limited to 25 participants. Register this week!
Sunday, 9 May @ 10AM PDT ◊ 1PM EDT ◊ 8PM Cairo/Jerusalem ◊ 9PM Dubai
Co-Presented by the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Alon Tam is a social and cultural historian of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times, and of that region’s Jewish communities. His research interests broadly include urban history, social relations and identities, historical anthropology, culture and politics. Tam received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 2018 with an award-winning dissertation about Cairo’s coffeehouses, while his current research focuses on Jewish social identities in twentieth century Cairo. A recent fellow at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies in Philadelphia, Tam presently holds the Rabin-Shvidler Postdoctoral Fellowship at Columbia and Fordham.
Sponsorship and Naming opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org
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
Co-Presented by the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania
Born in Uzbekistan, raised in Seattle, and currently based in New York City, Ruben Shimonov is an educator, community builder, and social entrepreneur with a passion for Jewish diversity. He previously served as Director of Community Engagement and Education at Queens College Hillel. Currently, Ruben is the Founding Executive Director of the Sephardic Mizrahi Q Network, an organization that is building a supportive and much-needed community for LGBTQ+ Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews. He also serves as Vice President of Education & Community Engagement on the young leadership board of the American Sephardi Federation (ASF), Director of Educational Experiences & Programming for the Muslim-Jewish Solidarity Committee, and Director of the Sephardi House Fellowship—a new leadership development initiative for college students. He is an alumnus of the COJECO Blueprint and Nahum Goldmann Fellowships for his work in Jewish social innovation, and has been listed among The Jewish Week’s “36 Under 36” young Jewish community leaders and changemakers. Ruben has lectured extensively throughout the world on the histories and cultures of various Sephardic and Mizrahi communities. He is also a visual artist specializing in multilingual calligraphy that interweaves Arabic, Hebrew and Persian.
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 1:00PM EDT
(11:00AM MDT)
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:
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/
Sponsorship opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org
The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:
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/
The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:
The Global History of Secret Jews
An online course presented in 10 minute episodes.
Learn at your own pace.
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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/
“We have to unite our energies together. All Jews, together…. If we are united, all Sephardim and also Ashkenazim, together… we will see the light!”
~Enrico Macias
The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience is uniquely dedicated to ensuring that today’s Jews know our history; appreciate the beauty, depth, diversity, and vitality of the Jewish experience; and have a sense of pride in Jewish contributions to civilization.
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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 a proud partner of the Center for Jewish History (15 West 16th St., New York, NY, 10011). American Sephardi Federation | http://www.AmericanSephardi.org | info@americansephardi.org | (212) 294-8350
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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 a proud partner of the Center for Jewish History (15 West 16th St., New York, NY, 10011).
American Sephardi Federation | http://www.AmericanSephardi.org | info@americansephardi.org | (212) 294-8350
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