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In Honor of Nina Avidar Weiner, Founding President & Chairwoman Emerita of ISEF, author of Circles of Empowerment: From the Shores of the Mediterranean to The New World, as well as a Distinguished Member of the American Sephardi Federation’s Board of Directors, who recently made Aliyah. Click here to dedicate a future issue in honor or memory of a loved one.
29 April 2020
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The Sephardi Ideas Monthly is made possible by generous readers like you. Now there is a new way to show your support. Become a Patron of the Sephardi Ideas Monthly via Patreon and your name will appear in each edition along with essays and interviews from the rich, multi-dimensional world of Sephardi thought. Thanking you in advance!
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 Rabbi Yosef Qafih
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Rabbi Yosef Qafih
Rabbi Qafih (1917-2000) was a Yemenite-born rabbinical judge and scholar of Jewish theology who made aliyah in 1943. Once in Israel, Rabbi Qafih served on the country’s Supreme Rabbinical Court and translated the classics of the Jewish theological tradition—Rabbi Se’adya Gaon’s Book of Beliefs and Opinions, Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi’s Kuzari, Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed, and more—from Arabic to modern Hebrew. In addition to being expert in both the Jewish legal and theological traditions, Rabbi Qafih was a daring thinker who didn’t hesitate to attack conventional pieties. This month’s feature is a good example of his iconoclasm.
In his 1982 speech before the Knesset, “On Yemenite Jewry and the Land of Israel,” Rabbi Qafih noted that during two thousand years of exile Yemenite Jews always remembered that the Land of Israel was their true home. Modern Zionism, however, was a European Jewish movement created in response to the failure of assimilation: “‘Zionism’ was created as a remedy for the opposition to making aliyah, but without a malady, there is no need for a remedy.” |
In his 1982 speech before the Knesset, “On Yemenite Jewry and the Land of Israel,” Rabbi Qafih noted that during two thousand years of exile Yemenite Jews always remembered that the Land of Israel was their true home. Modern Zionism, however, was a European Jewish movement created in response to the failure of assimilation: “‘Zionism’ was created as a remedy for the opposition to making aliyah, but without a malady, there is no need for a remedy.”
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In other words, Yemenite Jewry never deviated from the traditional belief that Jews belong in the Land of Israel. Yemenite Jewish communities accordingly can be found in Jerusalem throughout history. With his acerbic tongue and dry sense of humor, Rabbi Qafih claimed, in front of Israel’s political elite, that Yemenite Jews were the true Zionists!
But wittiness aside, Rabbi Qafih’s speech highlights a profound distinction between Ashkenazi and Yemenite forms of Zionism. While Ashkenazi forms of Zionism originally responded to a crisis of identity and often constituted themselves, in turn, as rebellions against the Jewish tradition, Yemenite Jewry understood aliyah to be a fulfillment of the Jewish tradition. Continuity, not crisis, animated the Yemenite Zionist impulse.
What’s true of Rabbi Qafih’s Yemenite Zionism is generally true of Sephardi forms of Zionism. Using Professor Daniel Elazar’s terminology, the character of Sephardi Zionism, like Sephardi Judaism, can be characterized as classical, not romantic: respectful of the past, open to the challenges of the present, and marked by a noble simplicity.
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But wittiness aside, Rabbi Qafih’s speech highlights a profound distinction between Ashkenazi and Yemenite forms of Zionism. While Ashkenazi forms of Zionism originally responded to a crisis of identity and often constituted themselves, in turn, as rebellions against the Jewish tradition, Yemenite Jewry understood aliyah to be a fulfillment of the Jewish tradition. Continuity, not crisis, animated the Yemenite Zionist impulse.
Edited by Professor Yosef Tobi and Shalom Seri
Amallel Shir is an annotated anthology of Yemenite poetry, featuring poems (songs) for Shabbat, holidays, weddings, and other events. The poems are in Hebrew and Yemenite Judeo-Arabic.
*Exclusively available at the ASF’s Sephardi Shop
Edited by Dr. Rachel Yedid and Dr. Danny Bar-Maoz
Until about one hundred and thirty years ago, the Jewish community in Yemen was largely unknown. Despite the irregular connections that this ancient Diaspora held with the various centers of the world’s Jewry, knowledge about the community remained somewhat vague.
E’ele Betamar, ASF’s partner in presenting The Yemenite Conference: Shared Jewish Cultural Values of Jews & Muslims in Yemen, has embarked on a great research project that aims to document, preserve, research, and distribute Yemenite Jewry’s heritage by publishing books dedicated to exploring the various branches of Yemenite Jewish research.
Ascending the Palm Tree: An Anthology of the Yemenite Jewish Heritage features twenty-two articles, including several new studies that have been written specially for this book, along with dozens of photographs, which gives readers a glimpse into the special world of Yemenite Jews in the following areas: their history and their manner of life in their country of exile; the miraculous manner in which they emigrated to Eretz Israel; their costumes; the eye-catching, ornate decoration and architecture of their homes; the Jewish daughter’s way of life in Yemen; and the expression of all these in song, in storytelling, and in dance.
The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, Israel presents:
Live Webinar in Honor of Jazz Appreciation Month
Thursday, 30 April at 12:00PM EST (19:00 IDT)
Click here to connect
(Facebook Live; No registration required)
Join the live Webinar in Honor of Jazz Appreciation Month!
Featuring:
Mr. Terry Davidson, U.S. Embassy Counselor for Public Affairs, will discuss “The Jazz Ambassadors Program,” through which, beginning in 1956, the U.S. State Department began sending America’s most illustrious jazz artists on worldwide tours. How did this American art form become a successful means of cultural exchange?
and
Dr. Aryeh Tepper, from The Azrieli Center for Israel Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Director of Publications for the American Sephardi Federation, who will talk about “The Story of Israeli Jazz”: The past thirty years have witnessed the amazing rise of Israeli jazz. How did Israeli jazz develop its distinctive voice and what can the rise of Israeli jazz teach us about the spread of jazz throughout the world?
*The talk will be conducted in English.
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.
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/
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Copyright © 2020 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 © 2020 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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