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26 January 2018
Mazel tov to Marci Melzer, ASF’s talented former Operations Manager, and best wishes to her and her new employer, the Sephardic Academy of Manhattan, a school with whom ASF shares an intellectual tradition (Classic Sephardic Judaism), as well as Board Members and supporters. |
Mazel tov to Marci Melzer, ASF’s talented former Operations Manager, and best wishes to her and her new employer, the Sephardic Academy of Manhattan, a school with whom ASF shares an intellectual tradition (Classic Sephardic Judaism), as well as Board Members and supporters.
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“Israel Is Home From Home For This Ethiopian” By Paula Slier and Andre Toporvski Dryzun, Forbes Woman Africa
Pnina Tamano-Shata remembers the Israeli soldiers who flew her out of Sudan to Israel when she was a young child: “They gave us water and candie.s…” Tamano-Shata went on to become the first Ethiopian woman to serve in the Knesset and to host a show on mainstream TV. Her advice to the Israeli government? “They… forgot a really important thing – to ask us what we wanted. Only in the third decade did we find our voice and start saying to the government it’s not a problem of money, you need to work more on integration.”
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By Paula Slier and Andre Toporvski Dryzun, Forbes Woman Africa
 Blue Like Me, a film about Siona’s work (such as the 15 foor diameter porcelain floor pictured above), was screened at the opening of ASF’s Baghdadis & the Bene Israel in Bollywood & Beyond Exhibition, 3 November 2015 (Image courtesy of Siona Benjamin) |
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“Indian Jews in America: Finding Self in World of Transitions” By Aswati Anand, Little India
Siona Benjamin’s art explores her complex identity as an Indian Jewish woman in America: “I was not Indian enough in India, and not Jewish enough for European Jews.” Benjamin has also studied Indian Jewish life in Israel: “Indians still try to hold on to their Indian Jewish customs, even in Israel. I attended a wedding in Tel Aviv that was like a Bollywood party!”
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Blue Like Me, a film about Siona’s work (such as the 15 foor diameter porcelain floor pictured above), was screened at the opening of ASF’s Baghdadis & the Bene Israel in Bollywood & Beyond Exhibition, 3 November 2015
(Image courtesy of Siona Benjamin)
By Aswati Anand, Little India
International Ladino Day: A Celebration of Story and Song
Sunday, January 28
2:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Leo & Julia Forchheimer Auditorium and
The Paul S. and Sylvia Steinberg Great Hall
Center for Jewish History
15 W 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
Join the American Sephardi Federation for a festival of stories and songs celebrating Ladino, the remarkable language also known as Judeo-Spanish.
Dr. Jane Mushabac will perform excerpts from her highly acclaimed 2016 novel, rich with Ladino expressions: His Hundred Years, A Tale. Also hear wonderful singer/accordionist Jane Carver; renowned Sephardic thought leaders, Rabbi Marc Angel and Rabbi Nissim Elnecavé; and a musical finale by the illustrious Trio Sefardi, with Howard Bass, Tina Chancey, and Susan Gaeta, who has toured with the legendary Flory Jagoda.
In 2013 Yitzhak Navon, Israel’s 5th President and Director of the National Authority for Ladino, endorsed the idea of International Ladino Day. Since then, celebrations have been held in Jerusalem, Seattle, Istanbul, Madrid, Dallas, and Forest Hills. This will be the first festival in Manhattan!
Ladino is a bridge between cultures—it’s a Spanish language that includes words in Hebrew, Turkish, Arabic, and more. It was the mother tongue of Jews in the Ottoman Empire for 500 years. In the early 20th century, about half a million people spoke Ladino. Now there are 50,000-100,000 speakers. The international resurgence of interest in Ladino and its culture is seen in distinguished university programs, publications, and events of many kinds.
Co-presented by The American Jewish Historical Society and American Sephardi Federation
Light refreshments will be served.
Please click here or call (800) 838-3006 to purchase tickets
The Jews of Afghanistan: History and Muslim-Jewish Relations
Sunday, January 28
6:30 – 9:30 p.m.
Hudson Yards Synagogue
347 W 34th Street
New York, New York 10001
Join us for a special lecture and book signing on the Jewish community of Afghanistan’s history, culture, and Muslim-Jewish relations. Spanning from the community’s origins to the development of it’s Jewish institutions, come learn about the story of a Jewish community that lived in relative peace with its Muslim neighbors. Books will be available for purchase and signing after the program ($20). A portion of book royalties is donated to UNICEF’s “Let Us Learn” project in Afghanistan that supports child literacy, especially for girls.
Co-presented by American Sephardi Federation
Light sushi dinner will be served before the event.
Please click here to purchase tickets
Jewish Spain in American Tongue:
The Sephardic Return of Emma Lazarus
Tuesday, January 30
7:30 – 9:30 p.m.
Kovno Room
Center for Jewish History
15 W 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
Emma Lazarus, the nineteenth-century Sephardic American poet and translator, expressed an identity particularly engaged with the Jewish legacy of medieval Spain. This ASF Young Sephardi Scholars Series Lecture by 2018 Broome & Allen Fellow Leonard Stein will explore Lazarus’s proto-Zionism, sexuality, and advocacy for a compassionate American society, positions informed by her readings of al-Andalus and the Spanish Inquisition as interpellated by contemporary German Jewish scholars. Comparing her poetry with these historical sources reveals how her famous work against anti-Semitism and nationalist chauvinism stem from a commitment to her ancestral past.
Leonard Stein is a Connaught International Doctoral Scholar for the Centre for Comparative Literature in a collaborative program with the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto. His research compares medieval Jewish-Iberian identity with modern literature from the Sephardic diaspora. He currently serves as the President pro tem and program chair for the Society for Crypto Judaic Studies and editor for the University of Toronto Journal of Jewish Thought. His newest publications include “Jubanidad and the Literary Transmission of Cuban Crypto-Judaism” for the forthcoming edited volume, Caribbean-Jewish Crossings: Atlantic Literature and Theory (University of Virginia Press), and “The New Literature of Hip Hop Music” for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Music Studies.
Promotional Co-Sponsors:
American Jewish Historical Society & Leo Baeck Institute
Reservation required. Space is limited.
Please click here or call (800) 838-3006 to purchase tickets
The IV International Shashmaqam Forever Yunus Rajabi Memorial Concert
Monday, February 5
7:30 – 10:30 p.m.
Leo & Julia Forchheimer Auditorium
Center for Jewish History
15 W 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
The American Sephardi Federation invites you to join Muslim and Jewish masters of Shashmaqam from Uzbekistan and the USA for performances of classical Central Asian music as it was experienced in the royal courts of the Emirs of the Bukharan Empire more than 100 years ago.
The IV International Shashmaqam Forever, a two-day Festival in Queens and Manhattan, will bring together Muslims and Jews to celebrate the legacy of the Peoples Artist of Uzbekistan, Yunus Rajabi. The Memorial Concert will feature virtuosi vocalists and instrumentalists performing Shashmaqam, one of the world’s most sophisticated and refined classical musical systems developed through centuries of cultural collaboration. Shashmaqam was recognized by UNESCO as a masterpiece of humanity’s intangible cultural heritage. Literally meaning six maqam (“maqam” is roughly equivalent to the concept of mode or scale in Western music), Shashmaqam is a canon of instrumental melodies and poetic texts set to music.
Previously presented at Carnegie Hall, Shashmaqam Forever has been described as a unique cultural event link[ing] the Bukharian Jewish community, Uzbek-Americans, and their historic homeland. Founded by Bukharian Times Editor-in-Chief and composer Rafael Nektalov and philanthropist David Mavashev, who directs the Izkhak Mavashev Foundation – Institute of Bukharian Jewish Heritage in Diaspora, Shashmaqam Forever is an event like none other, a bridge between communities and a celebration of culture, said Nektalov, Everyone is encouraged to attend.
Festival presenters include The Bukharaian Jewish Congress of the USA and Canada, American Sephardi Federation, Bukharian Jewish Community Center, Turkistan-American Association, Uzbek-American Art Foundation, and MiRaf Entertainment with the support of the Republic of Uzbekistan’s Cultural Ministry, Embassy to the United States, Consulate General at New York, and Permanent Mission to the United Nations.
The IV International Shashmaqam Forever Concert is dedicated to Yunus Rajabi (1897-1976), a composer, musician, and scholar who collected, systematized, and transcribed more than a thousand songs and pieces from the Shashmaqam repertoire. His life’s work ensured that Shashmaqam survived Soviet suppression.
Shashmaqam masters performing at the Concert will include:
Khasan Rajabi (Uzbekistan) – vocalist, tanbur (long-necked plucked lute), sato (bowed lute)
Roshel Rubinov (USA) – vocalist, tanbur
Tahir Rajabi (Uzbekistan) vocalist, rubab (lute with skin-covered deck)
Roman Tolmasov (USA) -vocalist, tanbur
Aziz Rajabi (Uzbekistan) – vocalist, tanbur
Ilyusha Khavasov (USA) – vocalist
Ulmas Allaberganov (Uzbekistan) vocalist, tanbur
Abohay Aminov (USA) – vocalist
Rustam Khajimametov (Uzbekistan) vocalist
Osher Barayev (USA) – doire (hand drum)
Jahongir Tuvdiev (Uzbekistan) – ghijak (bowed spike fiddle), vocalist
Nodir Djuraev (Uzbekistan) – vocalist
Ezro Malakovs Youth Shashmaqam Ensemble (USA)
The day before the Concert, on Sunday, February 4, a scholarly symposium on Central Asian Classical Music: Yunus Rajabi and his Jewish musical environment, will be held at the Bukharian Jewish Community Center (106-16 70th Avenue, Forest Hills, New York). Researchers participating include: Prof. Walter Zev Feldman (New York University in Abu Dhabi), Prof. Steven Blum (CUNY Graduate Center), Rafael Nektalov (President of the Shashmaqam Forever Festival), Prof. Evan Rapport (Eugene Lang College at the New School), and Zoya Tajikova.
We are grateful for the support and assistance of the following individuals and organizations: Nastel Technologies, Inc., CASC (Central Asia Seed Company), Aziz Mamev, Ben Kurbanov, Michael Yusupov, Versailles Palace, and Star Entertainment.
Media sponsors: The Center for Traditional Music and Dance, Queens Tribune, The Bukharian Times, Zamon Times newspapers, Nadejda – Hope Magazine, KaykovTV.
Reservation required.
Please click here or call (800) 838-3006 to purchase tickets
Nosotros: Strengthening Bonds Between Jewish and Latino Communities
Through February 15, 2018
in ASF’s Leon Levy Gallery
Center for Jewish History
15 W 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
The Philos Project and American Sephardi Federation cordially invite you to “Nosotros,” an art exhibit featuring the work of two renowned Latino artists, Angel Urrely (Cuba) and Carlos Ayala (Puerto Rico)–as a symbolic recognition and “step forward” to improving Jewish-Latino relations. We thank the Dominican artist, Juan Bravo, for exhibiting his pieces for the exhibit’s Opening Night. Each piece reflects the shared roots of Jewish and Latino communities and expresses hope for a more positive future from the perspective of each respective artist.
Each artist has displayed their works in hundreds of exhibits in both the US and Latin America, having many of them included in some of the most coveted collections in the world. We are very excited to bring them and their works to celebrate the importance of uniting us (or Nosotros), the Jewish and Latino communities, and having this art displayed in a very powerful way at the American Sephardi Federation at the Center for Jewish History.
Artists:
Angel Urrely is to the point. This son of Cuba does not beat around the bush. At least not for what the brush comes to reveal—his theory is clear and sharp. Each frame creates a specific, assertive and brutal connection. The reading of his work is—from the perspective of the viewer—very simple, to the point that if you assume an interpretation of what you are reading, believe me: Urrely is addressing exactly what you are thinking. Urrely has something to tell you and will let you know one way or another.
Carlos Ayala presents himself as the “Benjamin” of the tribes, the youngest of them all. This son of Puerto Rico presupposes that his youth may seem an obstacle to you, so he shows you his clutched fists from the introduction. This young man is fierce. Carlos shows us the deepest pains experienced by man, and brings them to an entertained, distracted and ill-bred public. He does not sit down to dream on the Caribbean coast and wait for boats loaded with promises. He does not have the time for it, but rather wants to remind you that even at the best moments pain is present. And at any moment it can befall us.
We look forward to having you join us!
Please click here for additional information and viewing hours
Donate now and your tax-deductible contribution will help ASF preserve and promote the Greater Sephardi history, traditions, and culture as an integral part of the Jewish experience!
Contact us by email or phone (917) 606-8266 to learn about giving opportunities in honor, or memory of loved ones
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Copyright © 2018 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) 548-4486 |
Copyright © 2018 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) 548-4486
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