Reclaiming Identity: Jewish Refugees, Remembrance, & Redemption
In Memory of Albert Memmi, A”H, the late Tunisian-born French sociologist & giant of Sephardi literature. His works include The Pillar of Salt, The Scorpion, & Portrait of the Colonized. A recipient of the ASF’s Pomegranate Award for Lifetime Achievement at the 21st New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival, Memmi concluded his remarks on the complexity of identity & the tragic carnival of history by saying: “we just have to love each other”.
(Watch Rue Albert Memmi)
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The American Sephardi Federation’s Sephardi Ideas Monthly is a continuing series of essays and interviews from the rich, multi-dimensional world of Sephardi thought and culture that is delivered to your inbox every month.
This month’s issue of Sephardi Ideas Monthly introduces a first-of-its-kind global online event that was recently organized and broadcast by the ASF’s Institute of Jewish Experience, “Reclaiming Identity: Jews of Arab Lands and Iran Share Stories of Identity, Struggle, and Redemption.” Before introducing that event, however, it’s helpful to step back and appreciate how the ASF supports Sephardic Jewish life in two different but complementary ways.
On one level, the American Sephardi Federation perpetuates and celebrates classic Sephardi Jewish culture. On another level, the ASF preserves and honors Greater Sephardic Jewish history and experiences. These two goals often overlap, but they are characterized by different internal dynamics.
When it comes to classic Sephardi Jewish culture, you don’t need to be Sephardi to participate. Classical Sephardi Judaism is open, in principle, to all Jews. The classic 1992 essay, “Can Sephardic Judaism be Reconstructed,” written by the ASF’s founder and first president, Prof. Daniel Elazar (1934-1999), clearly states the principle. Prof. Elazar calls for the revival of “Classic Sephardic Judaism,” a tradition, “not given to excess, seriously Jewish, yet worldly and cosmopolitan.” Prof. Elazar then argues that the great shifts in modern Jewish life make it possible “to attract non-Sephardim” who are seeking a committed, open-minded and tolerant Jewish culture, “to the Sephardic way.”
In a deep sense, the open character of Sephardi Jewish tradition and culture is like American Jazz tradition and culture. While Jazz was pioneered and developed by Black Americans, you don’t need to be Black to play the music and to participate in the culture. So, too, classic Sephardi Judaism can be extended, elaborated, and refined by Jewish writers, artists, rabbis, and activists of various ethnic backgrounds. The price of admission is humble receptivity and serious study. Ethnicity isn’t a factor. This is why, when R’ Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel (1880-1953), the visionary first Sephardic Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel, opened his Yeshiva, Sha’arei Zion, in Jerusalem in 1940, he chose R’ Eliezer Waldenberg, a young Ashkenazi scholar, to be its leader. Origins are irrelevant when it comes to acquiring culture.
That said, the status of Greater Sephardi history and experience is different from classic Sephardi Jewish culture. Particular historical memories and experiences constitute the shared life of ethnic communities, and they cannot simply be “learned.” They can only be recognized and respected. One can learn about an ethnic community’s memory and experience, but if you are not a member of the community, the knowledge will necessarily remain one step removed.
The preservation and honoring of Greater Sephardi history and experience was the animating principle behind “Reclaiming Identity: Jews of Arab Lands and Iran Share Stories of Identity, Struggle, and Redemption.” Held during Sephardi / Mizrahi Heritage Month on 30 November—the Jewish Refugees Day chosen in 2014 by Israel’s Knesset to mark “The Departure and Expulsion of Jews from the Arab Countries and Iran”—the five-hour online conference featured scholars, leaders, artists, and activists from the US, Israel, Egypt, UAE, Netherlands, Canada, and France, who shared the complexities and difficulties involved in their personal or family experiences. Some of those complexities and difficulties include persecution at the hands of non-Jews and condescension at the hands of fellow Jews who, usually out of ignorance, consider Ashkenazi Jewish life to be normative Jewish life, simply. The Director of the ASF’s Institute of Jewish Experience, Dr. Drora Arussy, explained the event’s rationale accordingly:
Before we can instill a full pride in one’s heritage we must acknowledge the prejudice that is out there.
I see November 30 as a day… to learn Jewish history in a way that embraces the greater Jewish community, to learn about the trials and tribulations, but also to learn about the strength that the mixing of the various exiles has brought to the greater Jewish narrative.
‘Reclaiming Identity’ is a platform that allows people to share the beauty of their heritage, the prejudice they may have endured or witnessed, and the impetus to reclaim that heritage with pride.
Beirut-born Sephardic refugee Rabbi Dr. Elie Abadie (Senior Rabbi of the Jewish Community of the Emirates/Rabbi of the Association of Gulf Jewish Communities/and Chair of the ASF’s Council of Sephardi Sages), similarly framed the event:
The stories of reclaiming identities represent the resilience of the Jewish people in general and Jews from Arab lands in particular. Documenting and sharing them is an integral part of the healing and self-acceptance process.
Fleur Hasson-Nahoum, the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, offered:
We shouldn’t just be commemorating getting kicked-out of somewhere. We should be celebrating our heritage; of when we lived somewhere, for good and for bad…. We are in a new era of going back to life in the Arab world, ironically but incredibly… [and] this is our moment for leadership and building the bridges that Sephardis know better than anyone else.
Other speakers at Reclaiming Identities included: the ASF’s President David Dangoor, Hakham Albert Gabbai (Rabbi of Mikveh Israel), Dr. Rachel Yadid (Executive Director of Eeleh BeTamar), Former US Deputy Special Envoy to Monitor & Combat Antisemitsm Ellie Cohanim, Egyptian Public Intellectual Tarek Heggy, Dr. Shimon Ohayon (Director of the Aharon and Rachel Dahan Center for Culture, Society and Education in the Sephardic Heritage at Bar-Ilan University), Ely Benhamo (National Director of Major Gifts at OneTable), Danny Hakim (founder of Budo for Peace as well as Chairman of Sport for Social Change and Israel Life Saving Federation), musicians Shani Oshra and Naama Perl Zadok, and more.
The next step? Arussy plans on continuing the conversation with a, “podcast series on ‘Reclaiming Identity’ launching in late January, 2022.” (Click here to support the ASF IJE).
Sephardi Ideas Monthly is proud to honor Greater Sephardi history and experiences by sharing with our readers the recent, remarkable ASF Institute of Jewish Experience event, “Reclaiming Identity: Jews of Arab Lands and Iran Share Stories of Identity, Struggle, and Redemption.”
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The American Sephardi Federation invites all individuals, communities, and organizations who share our vision & principles to join us in signing the American Sephardi Leadership Statement!
Please also support the ASF with a generous, year-end tax-deductible contribution so we can continue to cultivate and advocate, preserve and promote, as well as educate and empower!
Make checks payable to “American Sephardi Federation” @ 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY, 10011.
Email us at info@americansephardi.org if you are interested in discussing donating securities or planned giving options with a financial professional from AllianceBernstein.
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The Monthly Sage החכם החודשי
The sage for the month of December is Hakham Shlomo Mazouz (1908-82).
Shlomo Mazouz was born in 1908 on the Tunisian island of Djerba. Hakham Shlomo grew-up to serve as a rabbi and rabbinical judge on the island, and from 1935-36 he published the Mekatziel journal with original commentary on Halakha and Talmud.
Hakham Shlomo made Aliyah to Israel in 1956 and settled in the southern Negev town of Netivot. In Israel, Hakham Shlomo refused to work as a rabbi and instead earned his living by running a sewing supplies shop. In this way, he also earned the respect of Netivot’s residents.
Hakham Shlomo had nine children, including Rabbi Yehezkel Mazouz (a rabbi in Netivot), Manny Mazouz (a Supreme Court Judge), Yemima Mazouz (legal counsel to the Ministry of Finance) and Shula Ben-Zvi (Director of the Israel Land Authority). Manny, who did not remain religiously observant after high school, testified that his father believed that all people, including his own children, have the right to choose their own direction in accordance with their understanding.
Hakham Shlomo Mazouz passed away on 20 Januar 1982 (25 Tevet, 5742). Among his books are Kerem Shalom, laws governing interest; Hesheq Shlomo, original commentary on the Talmud; Sho’el U’Meshiv, Responsa in four parts corresponding to the four parts of the Shulchan Aruch; and Midrash Shlomo, original commentary on the Book of Proverbs.
The following passage from Midrash Shlomo treats the interdependence of all creatures and the responsibility to constantly recall the good that we have received from others:
‘The world is built by love’ and all creatures are interdependent and must help one another, whether with their bodies or their monies. An individual who has been granted a favor by another must nevertheless always remember the favor, by saying ‘When will I have the opportunity to reciprocate and do him a favor….’
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Exploring Sephardic Customs and Traditions
By Hakham R’Marc D. Angel, Ph.D
Over the centuries, Jewish communities throughout the world adopted customs that enhanced and deepened their religious observances. These customs, or minhagim, became powerful elements in the religious consciousness of the Jewish people. It is important to recognize that minhagim are manifestations of a religious worldview, a philosophy of life. They are not merely quaint or picturesque practices, but expressions of a community’s way of enhancing the religious experience. A valuable resource for Sephardim and Ashkenazim alike.
Our Story: The Jews of Sepharad; Celebrations and Stories
By Lea-Nora Kordova Annette and Eugene Labovitz
Celebrations and Stories, a special publication of the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education with the American Sephardi Federation, is an essential work that enhances the teaching of Sephardi history, traditions, and cultures.
The life cycle and calendar sections are designed to horizontally connect to the teaching of customs and ceremonies from the Spanish & Portuguese, Syrian, Judeo-Spanish, and Moroccan traditions. Other sections include translations of classic texts and poetry, tales of our history’s heroes, and classroom activities.
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Upcoming Events or Opportunities
The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:
New Works Wednesday with Shira Klein
Join us for a New Works Wednesday with Dr. Shira Klein who will be discussing her new book Italy’s Jews from Emancipation to Fascism (Cambridge University Press).
Wednesday, 12 January at 12:00PM EST
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About the book:
How did Italy treat Jews during World War II? Historians have shown beyond doubt that many Italians were complicit in the Holocaust, yet Italy is still known as the Axis state that helped Jews. Shira Klein uncovers how Italian Jews, though victims of Italian persecution, promoted the view that Fascist Italy was categorically good to them. She shows how the Jews’ experience in the decades before World War II – during which they became fervent Italian patriots while maintaining their distinctive Jewish culture – led them later to bolster the myth of Italy’s wartime innocence in the Fascist racial campaign. Italy’s Jews experienced a century of dramatic changes, from emancipation in 1848, to the 1938 Racial Laws, wartime refuge in America and Palestine, and the rehabilitation of Holocaust survivors. This cultural and social history draws on a wealth of unexplored sources, including original interviews and unpublished memoirs.
About the author:
Dr. Shira Klein is Associate Professor of History at Chapman University. She has won awards from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, the Yad Hanadiv/Beracha Foundation, and the USC Shoah Foundation.
Click here for more about the book.
Sponsorship opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org
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The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:
The Qur’an and its Relationship to Torah and Judaism
Why does the Qur’an refer so extensively to the contents of the Torah? Are there differences between the way the Qur’an and the Torah tell the stories of Abraham, Moses, Joseph, and other Biblical characters?
What does the Qur’an say about the Jews whom Muhammad encountered in his lifetime, especially in Medina between 622 CE and his death in 632 CE? Is the Qur’an anti-Jewish? Did the Islamic view of the Torah and Jews change over time?
How should verse 9:29 of the Qur’an and mentions of the dhimmi status of Jews be read? In the 1,300 years after the foundation of Islam, for Jews living in Muslim lands, did these verses act as a “humiliation” or as a “protection”?
Sunday, 16 January at 12:00PM EST
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About the speaker:
Rick Sopher has a financial background and is the CEO of Edmond de Rothschild Capital Holdings, which he joined in 1993. He is the Chairman of the world’s longest established investment fund of its type. Prior to that he worked at BDO Stoy Hayward, where he was appointed the youngest ever partner. He has received various industry awards, including the Outstanding Contribution Award from Hedge Fund Review and the Decade of Excellence Award by Financial News.
Rick graduated from Cambridge University and has more recently worked in the area of interfaith relations with the Woolf Institute, Cambridge as a member of their Council.
During the lockdown period, Rick convened an online dialogue between Professors of Religion at the world’s leading universities to discuss the relationship between the Qur’an and the Bible, and has himself dialogued with Muslim leaders on the subject.
Rick was awarded the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur in 2007 from President Chirac for his contribution to religious education in France and is Chairman or Director of several educational charities in the UK.
Sponsorship opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org
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The American Sephardi Federation, the Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America, the Sephardic Foundation on Aging, and the Shearith Israel League Foundation proudly present:
Salud i Vida: The 5th Annual New York Ladino Day!
Featuring scholar Eliezer Papo
Sephardic Nonagenarians: A Panel by Bryan Kirschen
Estreyikas d’Estambol Children’s Choir “Kantiga,” a Ladino Short Story by Jane Mushabac
Trio Sefardi: the Musical Finale!
Sunday, 30 January at 2:00PM EST
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Ladino is a bridge to many cultures. It is a variety of Spanish that has absorbed words from Hebrew, Turkish, Arabic, French, Greek, and Portuguese. The mother tongue of Jews in the Ottoman Empire for 500 years, Ladino became the home language of Sephardim worldwide. While the number of Ladino speakers has sharply declined, distinguished Ladino Day programs like ours celebrate and preserve a vibrant language and heritage. These programs are, as Aviya Kushner wrote in the Forward, “Why Ladino Will Rise Again.”
Since 2013, International Ladino Day programs have been held around the world to honor the Ladino language, also known as Judeo-Spanish. January 30th marks New York’s 5th Annual Ladino Day curated by Drs. Jane Mushabac and Bryan Kirschen for the American Sephardi Federation.
Print © loannia, mid-19th c. Sephardi & Romaniot Jewish Costumes in Greece & Turkey. 16 watercolours by Nicholas Stavroulakis, published by the Association of the Friends of the Jewish Museum of Greece, Athens, 1986. (Scan courtesy of the Jewish Museum of Greece)
Sponsorship opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org
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The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:
Museum Mondays:
The Museum for Islamic Art, Jerusalem
Tour the Museums from the comfort of your own home with Nachliel Selavan, the Museum Guy.
Monday, 31 January at 12PM EST
Tour the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center in Or Yehuda
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About Your Tour Guide:
Nachliel Selavan created and delivered an integrated learning and museum tour program for both school and adult educational settings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and has hosted similar pilot visits to a dozen museums in North America, and a few museums in Europe and in Jerusalem. He also teaches and engages audiences through virtual tours and social media. He has recently completed a year long Tanach Study podcast called Parasha Study Plus, delivering a weekly episode of Archaeology on the Parasha, and is now on his second podcast and a new video series reviewing every book in Tanach, called Archaeology Snapshot.
Sponsorship opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org
The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:
The Jews of Italy and the African Empire
This project examines the causes, nature, and consequences of Italian Jews’ support for imperialism. I argue that between the 1890s and 1930s, Italian Jews took an active part in racializing and controlling indigenous Libyan and Ethiopian Jews. Moreover, by promoting the empire and upholding a racial hierarchy between Europeans and Africans, Italian Jews unwittingly contributed to their own downfall, since Italy’s antisemitic campaign (1938-1945) borrowed heavily from earlier anti-black legislation and propaganda.
This book breaks new ground; using non-traditional sources, it is the first study to inquire what ordinary European Jewish women and men thought about empire and how they engaged with it in their daily life. The Italian case is uniquely fertile for examining the relationship between Jews and race; Italy’s forays into Eritrea, Somalia, and Ethiopia, home to the Beta Israel, triggered the earliest significant encounter between white Jews and sub-Saharan black Jews. As such, Jews and Race also speaks to emerging interest in the history of Jews of color and broadens the study of intra-Jewish racism.
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Tuesday, 1 February at 12:00PM EST
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About the Speaker:
Dr. Shira Klein is Associate Professor of History at Chapman University. She has won awards from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, the Yad Hanadiv/Beracha Foundation, and the USC Shoah Foundation.
Sponsorship opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org
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The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:
New Works Wednesday with Dina Danon
Join us for a New Works Wednesday with Dr. Dina Danon who will be discussing her book The Jews of Ottoman Izmir: A Modern History (Stanford University Press, 2020), a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in Sephardic Culture.
Wednesday, 2 February at 12:00PM EST
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About the book:
This lecture will tell the story of a long-overlooked Ottoman Jewish community in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Drawing extensively on a rich body of previously untapped Ladino archival material, the lecture will also offer a new read on Jewish modernity. Across Europe, Jews were often confronted with the notion that their religious and cultural distinctiveness was somehow incompatible with the modern age. Yet the view from Ottoman Izmir invites a different approach: what happens when Jewish difference is totally unremarkable? What happens when there is no “Jewish Question?” Through the voices of beggars on the street and mercantile elites, shoe-shiners and newspaper editors, rabbis and housewives, this lecture will underscore how it was new attitudes to poverty and social class, not Judaism, that most significantly framed this Sephardi community’s encounter with the modern age.
About the author:
Dina Danon is Associate Professor of Judaic Studies at Binghamton University. She holds a doctorate in History from Stanford University. She is the author of She was recently a fellow at the Katz Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where she began work on a new project on the marketplace of matchmaking, marriage, and divorce in the eastern Sephardi diaspora. She is currently at work, with Nancy Berg, on a co-edited volume entitled Longing and Belonging: Jews and Muslims in the Modern Age.
For here more about the book.
Sponsorship opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org
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The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents:
The Jew who Ruled Persia: The Story of Sa’ad ad-Dawla
Sa’ad ad-Dawla was a Persian Jew from the city of Abhar. Being a master in recovering delayed taxes, he was able to rise in the ranks of the Mongol Ilkhanate that ruled all of Persia and Iraq. He had personal interactions with Ilkhan Arğun, where he demonstrated a strong compunction against corruption, a facility with languages, knowledge about minute matters throughout the lands, and the ability to cure the Ilkhan of disease. The led to Arğun appointing him as the Grand Vizier of the Ilkhanate in 1289, the most powerful position in the country below the Ilkhan himself. Despite the offense that many Muslims took to having a Jew in such a position of power, the Buddhist Arğun defended him and gave him a long leash to improve the Ilkhanate.
Sunday, 6 February at 12:00PM EST
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Complimentary RSVP
(Please consider a suggested donation of $10: https://tinyurl.com/DonateASFIJE)
About the Speaker:
Richard Sassoon is an Iraqi-American of Jewish heritage who graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and Fordham University Law School with a J.D. and with an LL.M. in European Business Law from Madrid’s Universidad Pontificia Comillas. He currently works at UnitedLex as a Contract Manager, but has previously held roles at Samsung Engineering, J.P. Morgan, and several law firms. Richard sits on the ASF Young Leaders Board and is a recipient of the ASF Broome & Allen Fellowship. Richard has a long-standing interest in diverse cultures and regions, having visited over fifty different countries, meeting various high-level diplomats with Jewish organizations, working on three continents, and handling legal documents in five languages.
Sponsorship opportunities available:
info@americansephardi.org