Jewish Africa Conference Past, Present, and Future
The American Sephardi Federation (ASF) and Association Mimouna presented their Jewish Africa Conference from Sunday, January 27th through Tuesday, January 29th at the Center for Jewish History in New York City.
The event was intended to coincide with International Holocaust Remembrance Day, for we are one people. We share in each other’s successes and feel each other’s tragedies.
Organizers El Mehdi Boudra, left, and Jason Guberman at the Jewish Africa Conference in New York, Jan. 29, 2019. (Josefin Dolsten)
Opening night was attended by more than 300 people who viewed the exhibitions in the various galleries and were then presented with an Ethiopian feast. The buffet had an ethnic flavor and was quite sumptuous. We would like to give a shout-out and a yasher koach to Jason Guberman, Executive Director of the American Sephardi Federation, for organizing this conference with the Association Mimouna, an organization founded by Moroccan Muslims to educate about Jewish history in their country as well as an increased interest in Africa in the Jewish community. “This idea of Jewish Africa grows out of [our connection with Association Mimouna] and our working together and the recent pivot to Africa of many in the Jewish community, of many in the Moroccan community, of Israel of course, looking to Africa and seeing both some of the oldest and some of the newest Jewish communities,” he said.