Seattle Sephardic Brotherhood: Doreen and Joseph S. Alhadeff

 Community Interest

For those of you who are not aware, Joseph S. Alhadeff, a long time Brotherhood Board member, and his wife Doreen Alhadeff, have spent the last 2-1/2 months in Spain working on a number of Sephardic cultural initiatives on behalf of the Seattle Sephardic community. All of these activities affect our community, both for us and for our future generations. The following is an update of their activities:

The current activities sponsored by the Spanish government and the 24 cities that have specific ties to the Sephardic Jewish communities that thrived in Spain before the expulsion in 1492, are quite amazing. These activities are mainly due to Doreen’s specific work every day at Casa Sefarad – Israel. (Check out the web site) casasefarad-israel.es. This organization, which is fully funded by the Spanish government, works on social and cultural programs for the Spanish community and Sephardic communities worldwide. For example, there is a new and incredible exhibit at Centro Sefarad – Israel right now about the recent uncovering of an entire Synagogue and community during a construction excavation in the city of Lorca in the south of Spain. This was the first indication known that there was at one time an entire Sephardic community in Lorca. They are also working with Casa Sefarad- Israel to bring the exhibit that was recently at MOHI in Seattle about Jewish owned businesses, «Shalom, Open for Business», to Spain to be exhibited at the Centro Sefarad – Israel exhibition center. This outreach by the Spanish government is totally cultural and not religious.

One of the platforms that Centro Sepharad – Israel has is Erensya. Among its main lines Sefarad-Israel Center founded and maintains the Erensya Platform to unleash the meeting and cooperation of the Sephardic communities in the world among themselves and with the administration and the Spanish society.

The Erensya effort through Centro Sefarad-Israel is the extension of the Spanish administration towards maintaining stable ties with the Sephardic world, and to inform our society of their uniqueness, their history and their desires. Beyond the institutional bond, the effort is to extend a cooperative program that includes cultural, social, and academic initiatives. This is the specific program that Doreen and Joseph have been working on while living in Spain.

Spain has just hosted the third Erensya worldwide conference from April 27th through the 1st of May of this year. The conference began in Madrid and moved to Avilla, Spain and included about 70 Sephardic representatives from 33 communities’ worldwide.

The first conference was held in Sophia, Bulgaria four years ago, the second in Istanbul, Turkey two years ago, and now the third in Spain. These are held every two years with 1-3 delegates from each community around the world invited to participate. Doreen and Joseph, in addition to helping with the organization of the conference, were the official Seattle Sephardic Community delegates to the conference for this year. This is the first time anyone from our Seattle community has participated in Erensya.

Much of this activity is the result of the visit last year by Centro Sefarad – Israel representatives to Seattle, and their participation last September, together with Al Maimon and Joel Benoliel, on a Cultural Mission to Spain. This activity is also the result of the interest in our community shown by the Spanish Honorary Consul for Washington and Oregon. Seattle has been chosen by Centro Sefarad – Israel as a «special city» because of its unique and special Sephardic community.

In addition to the Erensya activities, they are working on helping to finalize the process under which people worldwide with history of families being expelled from Spain will be eligible for Spanish (EU) citizenship. That process has been passed by the Spanish Parliament and is in the House for any proposed amendments to the law. A final draft of the law and its conditions will be out soon. It will probably be about six months before they will begin the actual process of issuing the passports. This process will have some significant conditions attached to it. More on this later.

Working with Al and Joel, Joseph and Doreen have formed a new Seattle organization which is named the Seattle Sephardic Network. This organization is structured to be a central place for the greater Seattle community to share what’s going on in the community and the world for Sephardic Jews. It’s also being specifically designed to reach out to those who are not involved in the culture but have familial history that they are interested in, and also to the young people of our community. A web site is now complete and available at: www.seattlesephardicnetwork.org. There will be many informative links on this site for anyone interested in our history, heritage and current activities in our community. We will keep you abreast of this exciting move for our community.

Lastly, through contacts with the University of Washington, they, together with Al and Joel, are involved in assisting with Study Abroad programs for college and high school students in Lyon, Spain, where the beautiful Spanish campus of the U of W is located. These programs are for various lengths of stays in Lyon and consist of a number of different curricula. Anyone interested in pursuing a study stay in Spain for themselves, a child or grandchild, should please contact Doreen, Joseph, Al or Joel for more information.

So, Joseph and Doreen have stayed very busy and are enjoying the life living in Madrid. This is a very exciting time for the Sephardim around the world. We hope that you and others will be excited to share in some of the wonderful events and will participate as they develop. Letting others in the community know about these activities is crucial, so please spread the word. We cannot lose our precious culture and must preserve it for future generations.

Ben Babani, President

Seattle Sephardic Brotherhood