Sephardi Ideas Monthly
Sephardi Ideas Monthly is a continuing series of essays from the rich, multi-dimensional world of Sephardi thought.
Sephardi Ideas Monthly (SIM) is a monthly newsletter emailed to our subscribers that explores cultural, political and spiritual vitality in Sephardi Jewish life and history. Each SIM includes an introduction that mediates between the monthly feature and our readers, while previous SIMs have explored piyyut (liturgical soul music), Sephardi poets and writers, the Classic Sephardi Judaism of hakhamim such as R’ Uziel and R’ Kapach, Sephardi histories (from Sudan to Cuba to India), Sephardi activists on U.S. college campuses, and various aspects of American Sephardi history and experience. We invite you to subscribe, too.
2024
22 March
Building the Land from Sephardi Jerusalem to Jazz Age Shanghai
31 January
Iraq’s Jewish Beauty Queen Remembers Shanghai
2023
22 December
An Introduction to the Civil War within Islam
1 November
Aryeh Tepper and Greg Thomas discuss Oct. 7th on Straight Ahead: The Omni-American Podcast
25 October
Ben Shapiro hosts the ASF’s Director of Publications, Aryeh Tepper
1 August
American Excellence: Jews and the Jazz Tradition
29 June
When Excellence is a Necessity: Bilahari Kausikan on the Singapore-Israel Connection
29 May
Jazz-Age Shanghai’s Surprising Sephardi Significance
11 April
The Meaning of Mimouna!
31 March
Singapore’s Sephardic Success: An Interview with Nash Benjamin
28 February
Rooted Cosmopolitans: From the Sassoons to Sun Yat-Sen
31 January
Jews in Asia: From the Baghdadis to Ben Gurion & Beyond
2022
29 December
The Omni-American Future’s Sephardi Dimension
28 November
Enlightening & Empowering Jewish Students on Campus
31 October
The Problematic Power of Musical Instruments in the Bible
7 September
The Message from Makkah: True Islam is Anti-Extremism
15 August
Salman Rushdie Lives: Islamism in Iran Revisited
30 June
Islamism in Iran: The Qutb & Khamenei Connection
31 May
Birthplace of the Brotherhood: Understanding & Overcoming Islamism in Egypt
1 May
Islamist Intolerance: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Scribbler
31 March
Islamic Tolerance: The Anti Muslim-Brotherhood League
28 February
Telling Your Story: Reclaiming Sephardi/Mizrahi History
31 January
Israel’s Baqqashot Breakthrough
2021
29 December
Reclaiming Identity: Jewish Refugees, Remembrance, & Redemption
29 November
The Omni-American Vision: Culture, Not Race
19 October
We are many, let us also be one
30 September
The Great Payytan of Gaza: R’ Yisrael Najara
19 August
“Sephardi Gaza: Unlearning Jewish History”
28 June
The Farhud: A Passionate & Piercingly Sharp Poetic Tribute
31 May
The Sephardi Modus Vivendi & Jewish Unity
30 April
Conversion & Classic Sephardic Judaism
30 March
The Meaning of Mimouna!
28 February
The New Jewish Activism: Isaac de Castro
29 January
Haim Sabato’s Classic Sephardi Sensibility
2020
28 December
Uncovering Challah’s Sephardic Roots
23 November
A Mizrahi in MAPAI: Sephardi Agency in ‘Aliyah Activism
28 October
Exclusive SIM Interview: Dr. Mijal Bitton on Hakham Professor R’José Faur, A”H
27 September
Exorcising the Anti-Maimonidean Demons
17 August
A Sephardic Sage’s Re-Articulation of Judaism as Maimonidean Humanism
28 July
Albert Memmi’s Multitudes
30 June
Hakham Henry Pereira Mendes’ Perspicacity & Progress
29 April
Rabbi Yosef Qafih’s Address on Yemenite Zionism
27 April
Special Yom Ha’Atzmaut Edition: The Sephardi Shibat Zion in Israel Education
16 March
Exclusive SIM Interview: Prof. Moreno on MENA Jewish Migrations
27 January
Globalizing Jewish Studies: Moroccan Migrations to Latin America
2019
23 December
The Twists & Turns of Greater Sephardic Migrations to Latin America
18 November
Medieval Hispano-Hebrew Poets & Their Modern Alchemists
4 November
Jews, Music, & the Magreb: An Interview with Dr. Chris Silver
9 September
Habiba Messika: North Africa’s First Superstar
19 August
Tangier’s Jazzmen — and their Afro Spanish Jewish Moroccan Producer
8 July
Jewish Spain in American Tongue: Emma Lazarus’ Sephardic Return
17 June
R’Buzaglo’s Song of Loves
31 May
Sephardi Spotlight Interview: Enrico Macias
15 April
Unexoticizing Jewish Experience: Prof. Elazar on Cochin’s Jewish Community
11 March
Shot Twice but Survived: Ethio-Jazz’s Journey to the Promised Land
12 February
Flying with Angels: An Artist’s Journey from Ethiopia to Israel
24 January
Ethiopian Jewry & the Rich Diversity of Jewish Life: An Interview with Rabbi Dr. Sharon Shalom
2018
10 December
Venezuela’s Fading Moroccan-Sephardi Flavors
12 November
A Patriotic Sephardic Stand Against Prejudice
09 October
Saving Monticello: The Sephardi Saviors of Jefferson’s Legacy
12 September
The ‘Secret Jews’ of San Luis Valley
13 August
Across the Borderland: Crypto-Jews in the American Southwest
09 July
Doreen Carvajal’s Tale of Survival, Identity, and the Inquisition
12 June
The Last Inquisition
16 May
Jewish Resilience and Renaissance in Northern Portugal
09 April
The Converso Comeback
12 March
Southwestern Crypto-Judaism: Fighting Opprobrium and Erasure
12 February
Continuity & Controversy: Crypto-Jews in the American Southwest
08 January
A Dream Deferred: The Andalusian-Italian Sephardi Tradition in America
2017
11 December
Continuity, not Rupture: Sabato Morais’s Sephardi Rabbinic Humanism in Victorian America
13 November
Daniel J. Elazar’s Covenant and the American Founding
09 October
Daniel J. Elazar’s Covenant and Constitutionalism
19 September
Daniel J. Elazar’s Covenantal Politics
21 August
The Cuban Jewish Story of Survival
10 July
La Amérika’s America
12 June
Judeo-Spanish Jews in America
09 May
The Sephardi Atlantic: Three Crypto-Jews in the New World
10 April
The Statue of Liberty’s American Sephardi Poet
13 March
From the ‘Jerusalem of the Balkans’ to the Goldene Medina
13 February
Latin American Sephardi Writers
09 January
The Hidden History of Jewish Life in Latin America
2016
12 December
A Living Genizah: The Beta Israel’s Journey from Sinai to Ethiopia to Israel
14 November
The Spirit of Kahena: Visual Art and Amazigh-Jewish Identity
10 October
Revitalizing the Roots: Borochov Drops Boomerang
19 September
The Living Legend of Andalusian Music
08 August
Re-Imagining Jewish-Moroccan Music and Identity: Pluralism, Women’s Voices, and Piyyut
18 July
The Legacy of Jo Amar: Moroccan Paytan and Israeli Pop Star
16 June
Khartoum’s Jewish Community: A Proper Burial
09 May
In Search of Matrouz: Andalusian Piyyut Through the Eyes of a Non-Jewish Moroccan
11 April
‘Berber’ Beginnings to Moroccan Piyyut
14 March
The Many Paths to Piyyut
08 February
Revitalizing the Roots: An interview with Itamar Borochov
11 January
No Greater Love
2015
14 December
Piyyut, Convivencia, and the Contested Visions of al-Andalus
9 November
The Power of Piyyut: An Interview with Yair Harel
12 October
Yehuda Halevi: My Heart is in the East
16 September
Solomon Ibn Gabirol: An Andalusian Alphabet
11 August
The Lost Andalusian Jewish Culture
13 July
A Nation’s Soul Is In Its Music
8 June
Jazz, Piyyut, and Jewish Identity
11 May
Piyyut is Jewish Soul Music
13 April
Rabbi Yosef Qafih’s Address on Yemeni Zionism
10 March
An original translation of Rav Ouziel’s “Spiritual Will to the Jewish People”
9 February
An original essay by Rabbi Daniel Bouskila
12 January 2015
Dr. Zvi Zohar’s “What All Jews Can Learn From Great Sephardic Rabbis of Recent Centuries”
2014
8 December
Rabbi Angel’s “Models of Sephardi Rabbinic Leadership”
11 November
Daniel J. Elazar’s “Can Sephardic Judaism be Reconstructed?”