Sephardi and Mizrachi Jewry: Past and Present

Professor Yitchak Kerem is a visiting AJU Israeli historian on Sephardic Jewry, filmmaker, editor of e-mail publication Sefarad, the Sephardic Newsletter and Sephardic genealogist, co-author of prize-winning Guidebook for Sephardic and Oriental Genealogical Sources in Israel, and moderator for Israeli Hebrew radio broadcast Diaspora Jewry.

The course will survey highlights of Sephardic and Eastern Jewish history and culture. Through lectures, music, and film we’ll explore the Sephardic legacy of exemplary Jewish communities like Salonika, Izmir, Sarajevo, and Rhodes; great rabbis like Yosef Caro, Haim Palachi; noted Sephardic religious poets like Shlomo Alkabetz, and Yisrael Najara; view rare specimens of Judeo-Spanish theater; listen to Sephardic romansa music; taste Sephardic holiday cuisine, study their annihilation in the Holocaust in Salonika, Greece, the former Yugoslavia, Italy, Rumania, and Northern and Eastern Europe; and view contemporary Sephardic Jewry in Israel, Europe, and the Americas between assimilation and cultural heritage perpetuation. Other topics included:

Iberian expulsions and migration to Morocco and Syria, acculturation into Judeo-Arabic culture, and the Moroccan and Syrian Jewish Diasporas.
Migration of anusim (Marranos) from Portugal and their migration to Western Europe and the formation of the Portuguese Nacion.
The cultural heritage of Eastern Jews; Iraq, Kudistan, Iran, Buchara (Uzbekistan), and B’nai Israel and Cochin (India).
The Rise and Fall of Sabbataeanism 

Available – Add course to online Registration 

Dates:  Tue • Jan 20-Mar 3
 
Number of Meetings:  7 sessions
 
Meeting Duration:  8-10pm
 
Tuition:  $128
 
Registration Fees:  $15