|
24 March 2017
Mabrouk/Mazel Tov to Association Mimouna, ASF’s friends, partners, and our co-presenters of the 20th NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival’s Opening Night, for inaugurating the Interactive Pavilion at the Lazama Synagogue in Marrakesh, Morocco. The Pavilion features exhibits on the Judeo-Moroccan heritage, including a touch-screen display for accessing Jewish historical sites documented by Diarna. Over 200 people were in attendance. |
Mabrouk/Mazel Tov to Association Mimouna, ASF’s friends, partners, and our co-presenters of the 20th NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival’s Opening Night, for inaugurating the Interactive Pavilion at the Lazama Synagogue in Marrakesh, Morocco. The Pavilion features exhibits on the Judeo-Moroccan heritage, including a touch-screen display for accessing Jewish historical sites documented by Diarna. Over 200 people were in attendance.
|
Jump to: Feature of the Week ◊ Upcoming Events ◊ Donate
|
|
“Greek Jewish community hails citizenship decision” By AFP/The Times of Israel
Salonica was a center of Jewish life until the ancient Jewish community was murdered during WWII. Today, only 5,000 Jews remain in Greece. Seeking to mend, in some small way, that historic injustice, the Greek Parliament recently offered citizenship to the descendants of Greek Holocaust survivors. According to David Saltiel, President of the Central Board of Jewish Communities, “This is a moral victory… [a] fresh step forward in the recognition of the history of the Holocaust and of Greek Jews.”
|
 Greek Jewish community head David Saltiel |
By AFP/The Times of Israel
Greek Jewish community head David Saltiel
(Photo courtesy of Gavriel Fiske/The Times of Israel)
 Rabbi Sasson Natan of Detriot’s Keter Torah Synagogue |
|
“Keter Torah/Beth Shalom event to mark 100 years of Detroit’s Sephardic community” By Louis Finkelman, Detroit Jewish News
Detroit’s Sephardi community is celebrating 100 years of communal life. Originally comprised of Mediterranean Jewish immigrants who spoke Ladino, Italian, Arabic, and French, Middle Eastern Jews have since been added to the mix, and the community is today known for “its wonderful social gatherings, annual Mediterranean Night Dinners and holiday parties… However, at the root of it all, [is] the continuation of the Orthodox Sephardic traditions of religiousness and spirituality.”
|
Rabbi Sasson Natan of Detriot’s Keter Torah Synagogue
(Photo courtesy of Detroit Jewish News)
By Louis Finkelman, Detroit Jewish News
Enrico Macias will be headlining the 20th NYSJFF’s Opening Night on March 30, 2017
(Photo courtesy of French Embassy in the United States)
Living legend and star performer at Opening Night of the upcoming New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival, Enrico Macias, performs one of the most famous Mediterranean songs from the past half-century, “Ya Rayeh” (O, Traveler).
|
“Arabic has a Jewish dialect, and these women speak it” By Patrick Cox, PRI
Jews spoke Arabic through the first half of the 20th century, but that ended when Jewish communities were expelled from North Africa and the Middle East. While Judeo-Arabic is fast vanishing as a spoken language, a discussion with three Judeo-Arabic speakers from Iraq, now living in Montreal, tells, “the unlikely story of the near-death and cultural revival of Judeo-Arabic.”
|
 Lisette Shashoua points out classmates in a school photo from her childhood in Baghdad. When they fled Iraq, most Jewish families were forced to leave everything behind. |
By Patrick Cox, PRI
Lisette Shashoua points out classmates in a school photo from her childhood in Baghdad. When they fled Iraq, most Jewish families were forced to leave everything behind.
(Photo courtesy of Alina Simone)
New York Sephardic Film Festival
March 30 – April 6, 2017
Center for Jewish History
15 W 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
The American Sephardi Federation presents the New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival’s 20th Anniversary Edition.
Through the poignant medium of film, the NYSJFF provides viewers with an understanding of the rich mosaic culture of Jews from the Middle East and greater Sephardic Diaspora. Select nights are dedicated to the Moroccan, Iraqi, Greek, and Yemenite Jewish communities.
The Counsellor to King Mohammed VI of Morocco, Mr. André Azoulay, is to receive the American Sephardi Federation’s Pomegranate Award for Lifetime Achievement on Opening Night, 30 March. Counsellor Azoulay’s fête, co-presented with Association Mimouna, will feature live performances by French-Algerian recording legend Enrico Macias, Kuwaiti star and human rights activist Ema Shah, Israeli-Moroccan singer Neta Elkayam and Amit Hai Cohen, and French-Moroccan opera singer David Serero, the great-grandson of Morocco’s former Chief Rabbi, Haim David Serero of Fez.
Opening Night plus VIP Festival Pass = $100
Festival Pass excluding Opening Night = $50
Young Professionals Night= $25
Individual Film = $10
Click here or call 1.800.838.3006 for Program Listings, Film Descriptions, and Pass & Ticket Options
Click here or call 917.606.8266 for Sponsorship & Advertising Opportunities
Special Announcement
Sephardic Birthright Trip Summer 2017
Sephardic Communities in New York, Miami, and Seattle, are joining together to create a Sephardic Birthright Israel Trip this Summer from August 7th to August 17th! If you’ve never been on Birthright before and want to go to Israel for free, this is your chance! For 10 days, you’ll be able to travel around the country with amazing people with Sephardic, Greek, and Turkish backgrounds, all while exploring everything Israel has to offer. You’ll be able to ride camels in the desert, raft down the Jordan River, explore the Old City in Jerusalem, and a whole lot more.
The trip is totally free and anyone between the ages of 18 and 26 who hasn’t been on a Birthright Israel trip before is eligible. What’s more, we are working on creating an extended portion of the Trip to Greece! Even if you’ve been to Israel before on a non-birthright trip you may still be eligible.
Register HERE today and be sure to select the “Sephardic Experience” Trip. Registration takes less than 10 minutes and no final commitment is necessary. If you have any question, be sure to email us at info@sephardicbrotherhood.com and be sure to check out some of the amazing pictures from last year’s trip and our promo video made by one of our very own trip participants!
Note: While not an ASF program, ASF is proud of the members of our Young Leadership Board who are involved in organizing this trip
When Baghdadi Jews Baruch and Ellen Bekhor (née Cohen) succumbed to the camera’s gaze for their denaturalization pictures in 1951, they became stateless. Ellen was in her eighth month of pregnancy. Permitted to bring no more than a few kilos of belongings out of Iraq, Ellen carried their wedding picture and ketubah in her pocketbook. Laissez-Passer, Royaume D’Irak by Leslie Starobin (2016)
Through April 2017
in ASF’s Myron Habib Memorial Display
Center for Jewish History
15 W 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
The American Sephardi Federation proudly presents excerpts from The Last Address, a multi-year, photo-montage series and oral history and book project by award-winning artist Leslie Starobin that explores the enduring texture of memory and culture in the lives of Greater Sephardic families from dispersed Jewish communities in Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Iran, and Lebanon.
Leslie Starobin is a Boston-area photographer and montage artist. Her work is in the permanent collections of many academic (Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University) and public (Jewish Museum, MoMA) museums. Starobin is the recipient of numerous grants, including from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New England Foundation of the Arts/Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture. Most recently, she received two Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Research Grants for this series, The Last Address.
Her exhibition in ASF’s Myron Habib Memorial Display is sponsored in part by CELTSS: The Center for Excellence in Learning, Teaching, Scholarship and Service at Framingham State University in Massachusetts, where Starobin is a Professor of Communication Arts.
Please click here for additional information and viewing hours
Portugal, The Last Hope: Sousa Mendes’ Visas for Freedom
Through June 2017
Center for Jewish History
15 W 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
The American Sephardi Federation, Portuguese Consulate of New York, the Sousa Mendes Foundation, and the Municipality of Almeida, Portugal proudly present an exhibition in the Leon Levy Gallery honoring Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the courageous and creative Portuguese diplomat who saved Salvador Dali, the authors of Curious George, and thousands of other Holocaust refugees.
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
|
Copyright © 2017 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 St., New York, New York, 10011). www.AmericanSephardi.org | info@AmericanSephardi.org | (212) 548-4486 |
Copyright © 2017 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 St., New York, New York, 10011).
www.AmericanSephardi.org | info@AmericanSephardi.org | (212) 548-4486
unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences