Tag Archives: Sephardic Jews

Jews from the Ottoman Empire pioneered the Christmas-lights market a century ago — but nativism, antisemitism and Islamophobia obscured this history. People look at a home decorated with Christmas lights in the Dyker Heights area of New York City on Dec. 8. (Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images) Americans spend more than half …

Pfizer’s brand-new Covid-19 vaccine, which has 90 percent effectiveness, has proven to be the biggest, most optimistic news by far in a year of mostly jaw-droppingly awful news. The much-anticipated discovery brought to the limelight the name of the pharmaceutical company’s Chairman and CEO, Albert Bourla. Dr. Bourla is a …

By Roberto Loiederman In 1952, on South La Brea Avenue, a restaurant called Robaire’s opened for business. It had stereotypical Parisian décor, a fantasized French atmosphere and a very French menu. But did you know the founder and owner was not French, but a Sephardic Jew who emigrated from Tunisia? …

English version En 1639, Ӏοѕ judíos sefaradíes ԁе Ámsterdam, muchoѕ ԁе lοѕ cuales habían huido ԁе la opresión religiosa que ѕе vivía еn sus países natales como España у Portugal, fundaron una escuela у lugar ԁе reunión que еѕ muestra ԁе su libertad religiosa recién adquirida. Hoy en día Etz Haim (“Árbol ԁе la vida” еn hebreo), еѕ la biblioteca judía más antigua en el mundo …

Versión en castellano In 1639, Sephardic Jews in Amsterdam—many of whom had fled religious oppression in their home countries of Spain and Portugal—founded a school and meeting place that was a testament to their newfound religious freedom. Today, Ets Haim (Hebrew for “Tree of Life”), is the oldest functional Jewish library …

In seeking to shed light on Sephardic women from French North Africa within the greater Holocaust narrative, I searched the USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive for oral testimonies. With a collection of more than 54,000 video testimonies of survivors and witnesses of genocide, I located 20 testimonies by women …

Lea Michele expresses surprise upon learning about her family roots from UW Sephardic Studies Chair, Professor Devin Naar (whose partial profile is visible). Still from the trailer for the current season of TLC’s Who Do You Think You Are? Episode to air May 1 at 9 pm EST. Check local listings …

On Wednesday evening, the Manhattan GOP formally nominated Rebecca Harary as the Republican candidate for the New York State Assembly’s District 73. If Harary defeats her Democratic opponent, incumbent Dan Quart, she says she would represent Manhattan’s Upper East Side as the first Sephardic Jewish woman elected to government in the …

By Josh Nathan-Kazis Part 13: Chatham Square I met up with my girlfriend in Casablanca two days later. (We went to Fez. I asked her to marry me. She said yes!) When we returned to Madrid the following Saturday for a stopover on the way home to New York, the …

By Josh Nathan-Kazis Part 12: ‘Even If You Don’t Speak Ladino’ I flew back to Madrid from Lisbon on an afternoon flight. The garbage was worse. Even in nicer neighborhoods, piles of junk hugged the sides of buildings. A windblown plastic bag wrapped itself around my leg. A week and …

By Josh Nathan-Kazis Part 11: ‘Not Meat or Fish’ I arrived in Lisbon shlubby and tired. The pockets of my jacket were sagging with old receipts and boarding passes, and I worried that I smelled like a budget airline departure lounge. I had lunch at a restaurant on a terrace …

By Josh Nathan-Kazis Part 10: ‘Yo El Rey’ One night while walking home in Toledo’s ancient judería, Carmen Gomez Gomez noticed something on the side of a building she had never seen before. At around eye-level, deep in the red brick, there was a series of connected lines gouged deep …