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In Honor of Portugal’s President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa
13 February 2017 |
13 February 2017
Last month Sephardi Ideas Monthly began its exploration of Sephardi life in the Americas with Judith Laikin Elkin’s ground-breaking The Jews of Latin America, a study of Jews who fled from the Iberian Peninsula to the Western Hemisphere (see “The Hidden History of Jewish Life in Latin America”). Future essays will extend the trajectory of Elkin’s article, taking up in particular the history of North American Sephardi communities and shining a spotlight on distinguished Sephardi figures in American history.
This month, however, we linger in contemporary Latin America with Jacobo Sefami’s lecture, offered at Israel’s Open University and captured on YouTube, “Latin American Sephardi and Mizrahi Jewish Writers.”
 Jacobo Sefami (Photo courtesy of University California at Irvine) |
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Jacob Seframi
A Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of California, Irvine, Sefami specializes in contemporary Latin American literature, including contemporary Latin American Jewish writers. He is also the author of a novel, Los Dolientes (available in English translation as Mourning for Papa: A Story of a Syrian-Jewish Family in Mexico), that explores mourning rituals among Syrian Jews in Mexico City. In this month’s feature, Sefami examines how contemporary Latin American Greater Sephardi writers wrestle with memory and identity in their works. |
Jacobo Sefami
(Photo courtesy of University California at Irvine)
A Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of California, Irvine, Sefami specializes in contemporary Latin American literature, including contemporary Latin American Jewish writers. He is also the author of a novel, Los Dolientes (available in English translation as Mourning for Papa: A Story of a Syrian-Jewish Family in Mexico), that explores mourning rituals among Syrian Jews in Mexico City. In this month’s feature, Sefami examines how contemporary Latin American Greater Sephardi writers wrestle with memory and identity in their works.
This excerpt was an insert to a map of Suriname and Berbice. Paramaribo was the chief port city of this Dutch colony, now the capital of an independent Suriname. Number 13 in the key refers to the Portuguese Synagogue, Tzedek v’Shalom, whose interior has been reassembled at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel (Photo courtesy of The U.S. Library of Congress’ World Digital Library).
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)
The Last Address
Now 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
April 2016 through January 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 a new 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 viewing hours
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Copyright © 2016 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) 548-4486
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Copyright © 2016 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) 548-4486
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