Sephardic Communities in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Greece

11 November 2016 Mazel tov to Leo Baeck Institute President Ronald B. Sobel and Executive Director William Weitzer on the success of last night’s LBI Annual Award Dinner honoring Robert M. Morgenthau

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“Jewish Salonica: A Great Sephardic Community”  By Michael Curtis, American Thinker In his new book, Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece, Devin E. Naar, a member of ASF’s Academic Advisory Board and Chair of Sephardic Studies at the University of Washington, explores Jewish life in the city once known as la madre de Israel (“the mother of Israel”). In particular, Naar investigates: “how Salonica Jews tried to reconcile their obligations and relationships as Jews with the city, the Greek state, and their communal Jewish activities.”

Devin E. Naar stands amidst Aristotle University’s Holocaust memorial  (Photo courtesy of Iosif Vaena)

“Jewish Salonica: A Great Sephardic Community” 
By Michael Curtis, American Thinker

Devin E. Naar stands amidst Aristotle University’s Holocaust memorial 
(Photo courtesy of Iosif Vaena)

Old Sephardic Synagogue, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (Photo courtesy of Bjoertvedt/Wikimedia Commons)

“In majority-Muslim Bosnia and Herzegovina, a small Jewish community still thrives” By Maya Shwayder, Deutsche Welle One-thousand Jews live in Muslim-majority Bosnia and Herzegovina, with 600-700 in Sarajevo. The community isn’t exactly growing, “[b]etween 2002 and 2012, there were 43 funerals and two newborn babies,” but is stable and there is very little anti-Semitism in the country. To get into Sarajevo’s main synagogue, you simply knock on the door: “there is no security guard, no metal detector, no pat-down and no intense questioning about who you are and why you are there.”

Old Sephardic Synagogue, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
(Photo courtesy of Bjoertvedt/Wikimedia Commons) “In majority-Muslim Bosnia and Herzegovina, a small Jewish community still thrives”
By Maya Shwayder, Deutsche Welle

Feature of the Week: Por Que Llorax, Blanca Nina (“Why Do you Weep, Fair Child?”)
 

“Discovering Afghanistan’s 1,000-year-old Jewish life”  By Sara Y. Aharon, The Jerusalem Post Two-hundred and fifty recently discovered texts from Afghanistan’s Medieval Jewish community are now on display at Israel’s National library. The well-preserved documents were written in Persian, Arabic, Judeo-Persian, Judeo-Arabic, and Hebrew, and they include prayers that will be familiar to anyone who has visited a synagogue on Shabbat: “These are the same words that we say every Shabbat… but this is from Afghanistan a thousand years ago.”

ASF proudly co-published Sara Y. Aharon’s book, From Kabul to Queens: The Jews of Afghanistan and their move to the United States

“Discovering Afghanistan’s 1,000-year-old Jewish life” 
By Sara Y. Aharon, The Jerusalem Post

ASF proudly co-published Sara Y. Aharon’s book, From Kabul to Queens: The Jews of Afghanistan and their move to the United States

The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, a novel by Sarit Yishai-Levi

November 13th at 3PM
Center for Jewish History 
15 W 16th Street
New York, NY 10011

Join the American Sephardi Federation and author Sarit Yishai-Levi for a reading and discussion of her award-winning book, The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem. Described by a reviewer as a “romantic and engaging novel [which] has been an Israeli bestseller for more than two years” and which is now an international bestseller available in English translation from St. Martin’s Press, Yishai-Levi explores the lives of four generations of Sephardi women who come together and apart in the vibrant city of Jerusalem from the Golden Age of Hollywood to the 1970s.

Sarit Yishai-Levi is a renowned Israeli journalist, notable for being the first Israeli to interview Yasser Arafat. She has also interviewed major political and cultural figures like Muhammad Ali, Ariel Sharon, Leah Rubin, and Hugh Hefner. In researching her novel, Sarit has become an expert in Israeli history and Sephardic culture (she is an eighth-generation Jerusalemite–a rare heritage to claim!), and as readers and reviewers alike have commented, the novel truly brings both to life in new and exciting ways.

Reviews, photographs, an author interview, and excerpt are available here.
 

Please click here to make a reservation
Complimentary; Space limited

Liberated Libyan Holocaust Survivors (Photo courtesy of Yad VaShem)

Benghazi Bergen-Belsen Special Staged Reading with Yossi Sucary and La MaMa

November 14th at 7PM
Center for Jewish History 
15 W 16th Street
New York, NY 10011

Join the American Jewish Historical Society and American Sephardi Federation in celebrating the English-language publication of Benghazi Bergen-Belsen (click here to readThe Sephardi World Weekly’s coverage), the first novel exploring the experiences of Libyan Jews in the Holocaust. Hear a staged reading from the upcoming theatrical adaptation of the novel, premiering at La MaMa in March 2017, and meet author Yossi Sucary for the post-reading Q&A session. 

Please click here to make a reservation
(Tickets:$7 AJHS or ASF Members; $15 General Admission)

We were Neighbors:
Remembering Middle Eastern Jewish Communities

November 30th at 7PM
Center for Jewish History 
15 W 16th Street
New York, NY 10011

ASF is presenting compelling voices and visuals in honor of the date chosen by the Knesset to commemorate the Middle Eastern Jewish experience. The event will feature:

• scholarly, first-person reflections by award-winning writers Lucette Lagnado (The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family’s Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World) and André Aciman (Out of Egypt)
   
• exhibitions by Leslie Starobin (The Last Address, a multi-year, photo-montage and oral history and book project exploring the enduring texture of memory and culture in the lives of Sephardic families from dispersed Jewish communities, including Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Iran, and Lebanon)

  and

  Zion Ozeri/David Suissa (who are presenting photographs that capture the last remnants of once vibrant Jewish communities in Yemen, Tunisia, and Morocco, as well as the perpetuation and reinterpretation of Sephardi traditions in Israel today)
   

• exclusive Diarna: Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life digital documentation on endangered sites and the last primary source generation
   

Please click here to make a reservation
Complimentary

Portugal, The Last Hope: Sousa Mendes’ Visas for Freedom

Through January 2017Center 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 “Connect, Collect, and Celebrate” Sephardi culture throughout the year with engaging programs and compelling publications. 

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 located at the Center for Jewish History (15 West 16th St., New York, New York, 10011). www.AmericanSephardi.org | info@Sephardi.House | (212) 548-4486 unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences

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 located at the Center for Jewish History (15 West 16th St., New York, New York, 10011).

www.AmericanSephardi.org | info@Sephardi.House | (212) 548-4486


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