Good news: Stephanie is expanding ESCAPE FROM TEHRAN, into a full length play, from its current One Act format, and it will be showcased as part of the PLAYGROUND SHOWCASE, in November, 2024, in preparation for a full run, in the Bay Area, in June, 2025.
The 7 October Hamas massacre was the most recent in a long line of pogroms to afflict Middle Eastern and North African Jews in modern times. This month we commemorate the 83rd anniversary of the Farhud massacre of June 1941, which claimed the lives of at least 180 Jews in Iraq.
Michelle Huberman, creative director of Harif, will share a visual presentation detailing some of the massacres and murderous riots suffered by MENA Jews over the last 100 years.
IMPORTANT: Please note that no registration is required but for security reasons, only participants identified by name (ie not 'Ipad' or "Wonderwoman') will be admitted. The event will be live-streamed to the Harif Facebook page and recorded.
Israel’s Jewish humor show offers a serious message for a dark time: We will survive By Ben Sales May 23, 2024
"...So the show’s catalog includes spoofs of the story of Purim and the invention of the mezuzah, but it also features joke after joke about the Nazis, the Spanish Inquisition, the Yom Kippur War, the destruction of the Second Temple in ancient times and any number of other lachrymose episodes of the Jewish past.
...So after Oct. 7, the program confronted a question: What to do when the tragedy isn’t historical but current and — for many Israelis — ongoing?
This week, we got our answer: In unprecedented times, “The Jews Are Coming” did something unprecedented: It got serious..."
In Egypt, a piece of Jewish pottery suggests a woman’s role that was stolen from history - Rabbi Jill Hammer May 23, 2024
"...While the Temple in Jerusalem is the only Jewish temple mentioned in the Bible, there were other Jewish temples, including one in the Egyptian city of Elephantine. Built in the 6th century BCE and destroyed in 410 BCE by priests of the Egyptian god Khnum, the temple was a place where local Jews, often Israelite soldiers hired by Egypt, could offer sacrifices. According to some scholars, the description of the temple at Elephantine is similar to the mishkan, or tabernacle, described in the book of Exodus.
One of the interesting features of this community, aside from that it performed Jewish sacrifices outside of Jerusalem, is the presence of female functionaries in the temple..."
This story was originally published on My Jewish Learning.
*Annual New York Conference to mark the departure and exile of Jews from Arab Countries, 20 May 2024, Touro University, Brooklyn. With MK May Golan, Shimon Ohayon, Ben Dror Yemini, Sasha Goldstein-Sabbah, Haim Saadoun, Stanley Uruman, Sarina Roffé, etc
From Harif - Association of UK Jews from MENA - a London event:
*Why is the ethnic cleansing of MENA Jews more relevant than ever? Monday 20 May, 7:30 pm. Appeal for Yad Sarah. Lyn Julius will present her book UPROOTED. Donors get a free signed copy. Maida Vale Venue.
For complimentary tickets please email Michael Marks at michael@yadsarah.org.uk.
Jews from Arab lands are the missing piece of the Israeli-Palestinian discourse by American Syrian Jew Lisa Sayegh May 7, 2024
"...Over the past years, I have often been frustrated when I find people do not understand the trauma of the 700,000 Jews from all over the Middle East who were violently expelled from their countries in 1948 and how it resonates today. Pro-Palestinian activists who call out Israel as a “European settler colonial project” omit a critical part of the story that calls into question their claim. They ignore the Mizrahi majority in Israel who are descendants of Jews expelled from Arab lands when Israel was declared a state..."
How has Zionism changed since October 7? As the State Israel marks its 76th anniversary amid unprecedented challenges, what does the future hold? Israeli author and historian Gil Troy will offer an examination of Zionism at this particular moment and discuss how a renewed Zionist vision may present a path toward a brighter future and nurture a more hopeful tomorrow.
Don't miss this important lecture, followed by a question-and-answer session led by JTA Editor in Chief Philissa Cramer.
Harif UK Association of Jews from MENA presentation 7:00 pm UK/ 1100 am PT/ 2:00 pm ET / 8:00 pm Europe / 9:00 pm Israel
‘We are leaving Morocco for good after 600 years,’ David Corcos told his family as they made ‘aliya’ to Israel from Mogador (known today as Essaouira) in 1959. David’s ancestors...arrived in Morocco from Spain as ‘The King’s merchants’. They were part of a select group of Jews enjoying trading privileges in Morocco’s largest port, where half the residents were Jews. Today almost none are left.
Sydney Corcos is a researcher on the history of the Mogador community, which maintained close relations with Eretz Israel through the centuries... In 2020, Sydney closed a circle with Morocco, when he became involved with the establishment of Beit Dakira, a centre dedicated to the Jewish history of Mogador..."
"The pro-Palestinian demonstrators tend to reject Zionists of all stripes. That leaves pro-Israel progressives in a lonely place: deeply critical of Israel’s right-wing government, but also appalled by a protest movement that challenges the very legitimacy of Israel, and hesitant to join a Jewish right that wants to clamp down on free speech and attack higher education.
“I think most of the progressive Jewish world we are talking about probably fits somewhere in the middle of these extremes,” said Colton-Max. “As a parent of college kids, what terrifies me is that there is no safe space for them at all.”
At a Manhattan synagogue, ‘normie’ pro-Israel liberals stage a last stand
Andrew Silow-Carroll May 5, 2024
This year, JIMENA is proud to highlight our Holocaust page specially designed for Jewish K-12 educators, part of our Sephardi & Mizrahi Education Toolkit.
This resource is crafted to help educators introduce students to the experiences and stories of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews during the Holocaust—a perspective often underrepresented in Holocaust education.
Our toolkit provides educational materials that include first-hand accounts, lesson plans, and multimedia resources to ensure a comprehensive and inclusive approach to Holocaust education. By bringing these narratives into classrooms, we aim to foster a deeper understanding of the Holocaust's impact on all Jewish communities and the diverse histories of our people.
Join Yeshiva University Professor Neil Rogachevsky — co-author of “Israel's Declaration of Independence: The History and Political Theory of the Nation's Founding Moment” — for a two-part deep dive on how the declaration helped Israel become the state it is today.
Your course fee gets you:
Two live and interactive lessons on the Israeli Declaration of Independence
Recordings of both lessons so you can review what you learned or missed
Original translations of the discussions that shaped the declaration
Suggestions for resources and books to extend your learning
Ahead of Israel’s Independence Day this year, get an in-depth lesson about the country’s founding document and the many debates that shaped it, with the co-author of a book on its history.
Seder Sources and Resources
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
Apr 19, 2024
"...THE FOUR QUESTIONS
An 1887 edition of the Arbeter Fraynd– a socialist paper published in London– reworked the Four Questions ("Why is this night different than all other nights?"– which is actually one question and four answers...
Their edition read as one might expect a poor laborer to say:
Ma nishtane, why are we different from Shmuel the manufacturer, from Meyer the banker, from Zorach the money lender, from Reb Todros the rabbi? They don’t do anything and they have food and drink during the day and also at night at least a hundred times over, we toil with all our strength the whole day and at night we have nothing to eat at all..."
Living wages, workers rights, glaring inequality, and class warfare are nothing new, but in today's economy they are urgent issues. Predatory capitalism is a tyrant we must escape from.
Soon, Jews around the world will celebrate Passover, a story of resistance and return. From persecution and slavery under a tyrannical ruler to liberation and the beginning of our return to Eretz Israel, it is a story foundational to the Jewish experience. In the face of threats by tyrannical rulers today, we stand steadfast in our identity as Jews, as Jews whose diasporic experience heralds from the Middle East and North Africa, and as Jews who support the existence of Jewish life in our ancestral homeland. Just as before, we will triumph over those who wish to destroy us, and we will continue to advocate for peaceful coexistence for all peoples in the region, so we may live our lives free from persecution, antisemitism, and hate.
The People of Israel Live, today, tomorrow, and forever. Am Israel Chai.
Sarah Abrevaya Stein is the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Director of the Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies, as well as Professor of History and the Viterbi Family Chair in Mediterranean Jewish Studies at UCLA. She is the award-winning author or editor of ten books, including, most recently, Wartime North Africa: a Documentary History, 1934-1950 (Stanford University Press, co-authored with Aomar Boum). She lives and surfs in Santa Monica, CA.
MPORTANT: Please note that no registration is required but for security reasons, in the Zoom room only participants identified by name (ie not 'Ipad' or "Wonderwoman') will be admitted. The event will also be livestreamed to the Harif Facebook page.
A Queens-based Holocaust survivor remembers her real-life rescuer played by Anthony Hopkins in ‘One Life’
By Steve North April 10, 2024
"...It was only in 1999 — 60 years after the event — that she discovered she was one of 669 children, the majority of them Jewish, who’d been saved from the Nazis by Nicholas Winton, a British stockbroker.
Winton’s extraordinary scheme to rescue Czech children by bringing them to the UK was first recognized publicly on a BBC television show in 1988, where he was reunited with dozens of those who owed their lives to him. Now, a new feature film, “One Life,” chronicles the courageous, perilous humanitarian project. Anthony Hopkins stars as Winton, who in early 1939 spent a month in Prague — just six weeks before Germany occupied Czechoslovakia — and concocted a complex plan to raise money, forge documents and find homes for as many Jewish children as possible in England..."
Evolve
Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations
An Initiative of Reconstructing Judaism
The holiday of Pesakh/Passover is called Zeman Heruteinu—the Season of Our Liberation. We remember and re-enact the Exodus from Egyptian slavery, and we are prompted to rededicate ourselves to working for the liberation of all people today and for our own liberation from the personal constraints we each face. We offer three new approaches to this process, and have collected past Evolve essays about Pesakh by:
THE JEWISH HEROES OF OPERATION TORCH
ONLINE FILM PREMIERE & DISCUSSION
TUESDAY 9 APRIL 2024
7:00 pm UK/ 11:00 am PT/ 2:00 pm ET / 8:00 pm Europe / 9:00 pm Israel
Joint event between Harif and the Yad Ben Zvi Institute in Jerusalem. The story of the Jewish and French resistance of 1942 in Algiers, which helped change the course of WWII, remains largely untold. Some 315 of the 388 resistors – mostly young and inexperienced - were Jews. Overnight, the group managed to gain control of strategic points in the city of Algiers, paving the way for the Allies’ ‘Operation Torch’ – the November 1942 invasion of Algiers.
IMPORTANT: Please note that no registration is required but for security reasons, only participants identified by name (ie not 'Ipad' or "Wonderwoman') will be admitted. For copyright reasons, only the post-film discussion will be recorded.
16 Takes On the "Kushite Wife" Verse That Have Nothing To Do With White Supremacy
they had other things going on in the ancient world, you know
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
Apr 1, 2024
"...Africanist & archeologist Solange Ashby– whose research has focused on gender in ancient Kush– argues that women in that society had an "unusually high status," and that a number of queens not only served as solo rulers (with the title Kandake) but also as priestesses & in deep relationship w/ deities found only among kings Egypt. She also asserts that later years, marked by "increased importance on indigenous Nubian traditions," saw "women ...attain unheard-of power."
It's possible that in earlier, pre-Egyptian traditions– of which we have less writing & other material culture– women also had higher status, or served as prophets, or that non-queens might also have occupied some sort of religious functionary role..."
Calling all Jewish history fans: Seize this exclusive opportunity to view the award-winning film "Sevap/Mitzvah" (2023).
Director Sabina Vajrača's short film tells the incredible true story of a Jewish and Muslim friend duo who save one another's lives over the course of decades. As the Ustasha (Croatian Nazi collaborators) close in on Bosnia's Jewish communities in the 1940s, Zejneba Hardaga hides her Jewish friend Rifka Kabiljo's family in her home. Then, 50 years later, Rifka saves Zejneba as the siege of Sarajevo begins.
With your $10 movie ticket, you’ll get access to the short film and a live Q&A session with director Vajrača on April 2 that will dive into her real-life inspiration, her process, future projects and more.
Register now for access to the movie and discussion with the director:
Please join the University of Kentucky Jewish Studies Program for two upcoming lectures.
On Wednesday, April 3rd Dr. Raymond Deluca (University of Kentucky) will deliver the final lecture in the "Jewish Ukraine" series. Titled, "Dissent, Hybridity and Post-History in Contemporary Ukrainian Poetry and Film," the lecture will take place at 6 pm in the Alumni Gallery at WT Young Library and also on Zoom at the following link: https://uky.zoom.us/s/88929360927
On Tuesday, April 16th, Ranana Dine (University of Chicago) will give the Luckens lecture at 7 pm on her prize-winning essay. The Luckens Prize is given annually to acknowledge outstanding graduate student work in the field of Jewish Studies. Titled, "Capturing Corpses: The Advent of Photography and Jewish Death," Ms. Dine's lecture will take place on Zoom at the following link:
A Cooper Union art student’s paintings recall her Israeli family’s roots in a community shattered on Oct. 7 By Julia Gergely March 11, 2024
"...“In the art world, in recent years, there’s been a lot of focus on figurative art... This is probably the most popular form of art on the market right now — art about gender or race or ethnicity or sexuality,” Arad said. “So it’s very interesting to me that in this environment, there’s suddenly now a push towards discrediting and diminishing [Israeli and Jewish] identity.”
“The reason I’m doing this is to create work in this format that’s accepted — making work about one’s identity, but about an identity that is hated, and sometimes not even hated — sometimes just people refuse to acknowledge it exists,” she added. “In a way, every painting is just proof — you can’t say [Israeli identity] does not exist, because every painting says ‘here I am.’”