#sephardi diaspora

[todaysjewishholiday]

12 Menachem Av 5784 (15-16 August 2024)

Throughout the Middle Ages, one of the recurring strategies of the Catholic Church to place pressure on Jews to convert were formal debates between champions of Christianity and Jewish communal leaders. These debates were not voluntary for their Jewish participants, and the goal was not a fair and effective discussion of differing views. Catholic leaders were convinced that theirs was the one true faith and that Judaism by contrast was fundamentally false and misguided, and since they were generally the debate judges, there was little chance of a fair hearing for the Jewish participants. The goal of the disputations was the humiliation of Jewish religious leaders, and they were often accompanied by burnings of the Talmud and other Jewish holy texts. And when, as often happened, Jews argued well enough to instead embarrass their overconfident Christian opponents, that too was dangerous. Christian leaders did not take embarrassment well.

The 12th of Av 5023 was the beginning of one such debate, known as the Disputation of Barcelona. Paulo Christiani, a Jewish convert to Christianity, insisted that he could prove the truth of Catholicism from the Talmud and Tanakh, much to the excitement of Christian leaders. They clamored for the king to force the Jews to debate Christiani so that he could demonstrate the superiority of the Catholic religion. Nachmanides, already in his 70s and well known throughout the Sephardi community, was given orders to appear at the royal court to act as the defender of Judaism. Knowing that the disputations were often made unequal by well founded Jewish fears of punishment for speaking negatively of Christianity and limits imposed in debate rules on Jewish participants, Nachmanides agreed to participate on the condition that the king clearly state in advance that both participants would have full freedom of speech and would not be punished for any of their statements during the debate. The king, seeing the fairness of this request, granted the condition.

Nachmanides and Christiani debated over the course of four days in front of the king and his court. While Christiani’s arguments might have been accepted by a Christian audience without familiarity with rabbinical writings, Nachmanides was easily able to demonstrate their logical inconsistencies.

At the end of the disputation, the king announced Christianity to be the winner, but awarded Nachmanides 300 gold coins for his arguments, calling it the best defense of a bad cause he had ever heard. Going even further, the king attended synagogue services on the Shabbat following the dispute and addressed his Jewish subjects directly.

The Dominican Order, of which Christiani was a member, crowed eagerly about their victory in the debate. Nachmanides, in response, published a transcript to allow the public to consider the matter for themselves. The Dominicans were outraged. They pressured the king to punish Nachmanides, insisting that while he had been permitted by royal decree to speak freely before the court, that freedom did not extend to publication. Nachmanides was exiled from his homeland. Success in defending Judaism was punished harshly. Nachmanides was never able to return home. Centuries later, the same antisemitic views that had motivated the forced disputation and his exile were being behind the expulsion of all Jews from the newly united realms of Aragon and Castile.

Today is also Erev Shabbat. Shabbat HaMalka will descend to comfort us. Her peace is a great consolation in a world full of strife and hardship.

[secular-jew]

The first beauty queen in Iraq was Jewish.

In 1946, Renée Rebecca Dangoor was crowned Miss Baghdad, and she became Miss Iraq the following year, making her the first and only Jewish woman to hold these titles.

Renée was born to a Jewish Baghdadi family in December 1925. Her father, Moshe Dangoor, was the son of Ezra Dangoor, a prominent rabbi in Iraq.

Iraqi Jews are one of the oldest and most historically significant Jewish communities, tracing their roots back to the Babylonian exile in the 6th century BCE. By 1948, Iraq was home to approximately 150,000 Jews. Today, nearly all have been forced to leave the country because of their Jewish identity.

[morgenlich]

what is your most jewish opinion on something

the ashkenazi minhag re: kitniyot is incorrect and silly imo especially as someone whose ideal diet is mostly vegetarian (i know you can make vegetarian k4p food without kitniyot but like. cmon)

[havatabanca]

[pro-anomalocaris]

Back in November of last year my Africana Studies professor painted himself into a corner by mentioning the word diaspora was used to refer to Jewish people originally, not that they're indigenous to Israel, only for a girl in class to ask where Jewish people were from, then. Because it was a small class where we all chimed in and group discussion was very casual, someone pointed at me and went, "I think his parents are from one of the -stan countries?"

My professor looked relieved when I nodded, only to then have his hopes dashed when I went, "My mom's part of the family is from Serbia. Before that they were from Spain." and the class's confusion spiked, resulting in them turning to him, certified race expert and dispenser of wisdom, to ask, "So where are they from?"

He hastily changed the topic to what was on the PowerPoint. Someone in the back went, "I mean, by Bible times they were hanging around the Middle East and travel sucked back then, so, like... I think they're from there?" and I saw this professor visibly have to keep it to together, as if deeply agitated by this observation.

The term refers to us, but we're not actually from a place. Displaced, but from nowhere, somehow simultaneously. Go back to your country, you have no country.

(Also if you're about to @ anyone on this post with, "wait aren't Romani Jewish people Jewish wanderers?" no, that's not the connotation you want to put on that. Just go with 'Romani Jewish'.)

Me: I wish goyim would make an effort to learn about Judaism and Jewish culture and history

Goyim: utterly butcher the terms “Zionism” “Ashkenazi” “Sephardi” “Mizrachi” “tikkun olam” “diaspora” “Holocaust”

Me: ok never mind, stop learning. No more effort. Don’t learn a new word ever again.

[fairuzfan]

- Sephardi Jew here. Thank you for your posts concerning Palestinian Jews. Jewish people who are ethnically North African/West Asian are consistently left out of these conversations. Make no mistake - the word "Mizrahi" was invented by Israel to literally strip Palestinian Jews of their identities during the beginning of the occupation. The message was to either assimilate with the Ashkenazi, or die as a Palestinian. The entire reason people struggle to find resources about the history of Palestinian Jews is because it has been purposefully obscured by the occupation. While I am not Palestinian, (that I know of, the other funny thing, diaspora members of the Sephari community often have trouble pinning down our exact heritage, I'll let you guess why) my ethnic background is Moroccan, Libyan, Maltese. Jews from the Iberian Peninsula and Mediterranean Sea have always been here, will continue to be here. You don't have to answer this publicly or anything, btw, I just really try to reach out to people who elevate the voices of the Jewish people from this area of the world. It profoundly touches my heart.

of course, no need to thank me. an aspect of the occupation is a lot of palestinian jews have been erased from palestinian history which is pretty heartbreaking as someone who makes it their lifegoal to preserve palestinian cultural heritage and spread it to people.

it is really difficult finding resources on jewish history in SWANA before it was touched by the occupation despite it being a fundamental part of swana history.... and part of that is from european colonialism and the other part of it is collaboration with european colonialists and swana governments.

if anyone has sources on swana jewish history (i know of hadar cohen and avi shlaim rn), please do let me know so i can look into it!!

[still-searching-for-something]

It's crazy to me that Kehila Kedosha Janina is the only Romaniote Jewish synagogue left in the entirety of the Western hemisphere, located in Manhattan. Romaniote Jews number some 57,000 worldwide, with 78% of them living in Israel. Romaniote Jews are not Sephardi or Ashkenazi, and constitute the oldest diaspora community in Europe, and have a presence in Greece dating to around 300 BCE, or around 2,300 years of recorded history. The Greek city of Thessaloniki is famous for having been a majority Jewish city for five centuries, the only such city in all of Europe.

I don't really know where I'm going with this, other than to note that it's sad how Kehila Kedosha Janina struggles to form a minyan every Shabbat, and that their distinct minhagim are being practiced less than ever. The history of the Jews in Greece is a fascinating one, and I feel it should get more attention and more life.

[disgruntled-detectives]

I love you religious Jews

I love you secular Jews

I love you Ashkenazi Jews

I love you Sephardi Jews

I love you Mizrahi Jews

I love you angry Jews

I love you grieving Jews

I love you scared Jews

I love you optimistic Jews

I love you Jewish languages

I love you Jewish humor

I love you Jewish art

I love you Jewish music

I love you every single Jewish holiday

I love you Jewish folklore

I love you Jewish Jewish food

I love you Jews in Israel

I love you Jews in the diaspora

I love you born Jews

I love you Jewish converts

I love each and every one of you.

[the-catboy-minyan]

"Jews are not native to Israel, they're colonizers!!!" ok, tell me then:

what does the word Judaism references? what's the meaning of the word diaspora, and and then where are diaspora Jews really from? when was Jerusalem built? what was the name of the region Israel and Palestine are on currently 3000 years ago? what is the "promised land" from the story of the exodus? where does the story of Chanukkah take place? what do people say during Jewish marriage ceremonies? what would DNA results show for ancestry of Jews who are not recent converts (ashkenazi, mizrahi, and Sephardi)? what do the 7 species represent? what were the major groups present in Palestine for the past 2000 years? where was Hebrew first developed as a language?

isn't even 1 of these enough for you to understand that Jews have a connection to the land? come ON.

[newnitz]

Ashkenormativity

Ashkenormativity is the assumption that the default Jew is the Ashkenazi one. It is a term coined by Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews to explain our alienation from the rest of the Jewish community, from my lived experience specifically from the Diaspora Jewish community.

I'm half-Ashkenazi, but that half is pretty secular. When it comes to major Jewish holidays, I've always done them with my maternal grandparents, who, despite being secularized, still respect their cantor roots to the point of not wanting to skip on a holiday or even shorten the Seder(until one hilariously bad one). So the only minhag I've known was the Sephardi one.

In Israel, this was a non-issue.

The most I heard about differences is how Sephardim and Mizrahim emphasize table manners because unlike Ashkenazim, they actually eat on the table.

When I left Israel and moved to a place hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest Jewish community, I finally realized how much I need our community. So like everyone on lockdown, I sought it online, where Jewish cultures is bagels and casual use of Yiddish, two things completely foreign to me. I mean we have bagels in Israel, but they're not the meme they are among US Jews. They're nowhere near as popular as a pita. So when I had to look up what "davening", "shul" and "shanda" meant, I first got the sense I don't actually belong.

But the people using those terms as a day to day weren't the ones who actively made me feel unwelcome. In fact, those were more likely to acknowledge my confusion and explain. The ones who alienated me are the antizionist Jews from the Anglosphere, who ignore and revise non-Ashkenazi history and even history of Ashkenazim outside the Global North, who blame modern Hebrew for the decline of Yiddish which they frame as the traditional Jewish language, ignoring how that pushes down communities that traditionally spoke Ladino, Juddeo-Arabic, Amharic and more, and overall infantilize and dismiss families like mine who built a good life for ourselves in Israel and rose to the position to actively combat Ashkenazi hegemony, and remove the agency of my former classmates who take a stand against it, all in favor of superimposing the race politics of the Anglosphere onto Israel.

So the Columbia university definition of singling out "white Jews" is quite inaccurate. Under ashkenormativity, an Ashkenazi JoC would find themselves better represented than the white-presenting members of my Sephardi(or raised according to that half) family. It's another reductivist attempt to superimpose European guilt onto Jews by erasing half of us. Specifically, the half that lives in Israel.

Goyim, ashkenormativity doesn't belong to you. Stop using it as a shield to be antisemitic. Stop using it as anything regarding inter-community issues, it's our term to use within our community.

[todaysjewishholiday]

16 Menachem Av 5784 (19-20 August 2024)

The 16th of Av in 5645 saw the death of a great leader within the Jewish community of Great Britain— and indeed, all of Europe and the Mediterranean. This giant was not a rabbi or a sage but a financier, statesman, and philanthropist, who had spent the first half of his life doing his best to assimilate into the upper echelons of British society, and the remainder very deliberately reasserting his Judaism and doing all he could for global Jewish welfare. He died nine months into his hundredth year of life, having witnessed a full century of historical and social transformation at the height of the Industrial Revolution.

Moses Haim Montefiore was born in 5545 in Livorno, Tuscany to a large Sephardic merchant family with interests spread across Europe. He was named for his paternal grandfather, the patriarch who had relocated the family from Livorno to London forty years prior, and came into the world while his parents had returned to Tuscany on business for the family’s firm. Montefiore left school at a young age to begin work in another trading firm, and at the age of 18 became a trader in the London Stock Exchange. For the next thirty years he expanded his business and focused on attaining markers of social respectability, joining both the Freemasons and the local militia as Britain entered the Napoleonic Wars. Soon, through his own efforts and the good fortune of becoming brother-in-law and then stockbroker to Lord Rothschild, the British representative of the famous banking family, Montefiore’s fortune expanded exponentially. In addition to business, Montefiore devoted himself to the popular social reform campaigns of the era, including the promotion of charity hospitals and the abolition of slavery. In 1827, Montefiore and his wife went on a long voyage throughout the Mediterranean that included a visit to Jerusalem. The visit profoundly altered the course of Montefiore’s spiritual life. While he had always been proud of his Jewish heritage, Montefiore had been casual in his religious practice until his first experience of the holy city. While there, he committed himself to Shabbat and kashrut observance, and to attendance at the Torah readings in the synagogue on the second and fifth days of each week in addition to attendance at Shabbat services. He began traveling with a personal shochet and his own kashered dishes so that even when attending soirées and banquets with wealthy gentiles he would always have kosher food available. He also brought his own minyan of devoutly Jewish staff members and a personal Torah scroll so that his business travels would not interfere with his participation in religious services.

The newly devout business magnate then devoted his full energies, talents, and extensive connections to advocating for the welfare of the Jewish diaspora. He traveled to Morocco, Istanbul, Rome, Russia, and numerous other destinations specifically to use his considerable influence to combat antisemitic policies and pressure government to ensure Jewish subjects the same rights given to other citizens. Time and time again, Montefiore’s interventions were crucial. He also raised funds— and donated a significant proportion of his own wealth— to Jewish causes around the world, and especially for the welfare of the Jewish community in and around Jerusalem.

When his wife died, Montefiore had a replica of Rachel’s Tomb built as a mausoleum for her, and also established a yeshiva in her honor. He lived as a widower for another 23 years, still actively involved in a large number of charitable causes, before he was buried there beside her.

[secular-jew]

The Jews of Iraq are one of the most ancient communities of the Middle East.

Jews arrvied in Iraq in 586 BCE, and later drafted the Talmud in the Babylonian cities of Pompedita, Nahrdeah, and Surah (Modern day Fallujah).

[mixmangosmangoverse]

I genuinely think a lot of people don't understand how different the Israeli Ashkenazi experience is from the diaspora (especially American)

I can understand slang words my Mizrahi friends use very easily but I don't understand any of the usual Yiddish phrases associated with Ashkenazi Jews. My perception of Judaism, even though I'm Ashkenazi, is formed by a lot by Mizrahi and Sephardi cultures because that's just how it is in Israel

I can't relate to many depictions of Jews in media that isn't Israeli or at least by majority Jews because the Yiddish speaking white passing barely religious (usually self hating) Jew just isn't a type of person I know or relate to

I think a lot of people who've never been to Israel don't realize how different the culture is here

[spindrifters]

my nana died yesterday. she was 94, and beautiful. the boys at her university used to call her champagne. she was a leo. an actress. a youth counselor. a labor union organizer. a mystic. very much the main event. she got to live a long and fantastic life, and I will miss her so, so much.

but I want to talk about something.

my nana had a difficult relationship with jews. not her own judaism. other american jews.

she was sephardi in ashkenormative america to begin with, already had serious beef to start. the ashki temple in her city refused to bury her father in the only jewish graveyard because he wasn't a member. she was a microminority within a minority that had no grace at the time for her.

it didn't help that she was born in the 1920s and watched over the course of the 20th century and the aftermath of the horrors of the shoah as zionism went from an unpopular fringe movement to something that took over and corrupted the establishment of her faith. my nana was a staunch and vocal antizionist, like her parents before her.

it isn't lost on me, the irony of her maiden name.

israel.

something that long predates the establishment of the settler colonial state in palestine. it was never meant to be what it's become. did you know that jews didn't used to have last names? we had patronyms. christians forced us to take their idea of surnames around the 17th century. most ashkenazim picked their trades. gold or silver or cohen. for sephardim, it was popular to go with where they lived at the time or where they had once had roots. mitrani and lousada and taranto. maybe it was so they could find each other in the diaspora.

but my ancestors took it a step further. they chose to go with israel. the name of that diaspora. the unifying tribal name, that needs no physical land to identify itself. it means one who wrestles with god. it was something beautiful, once. like my nana. for her sake, I hope one day it could be again.

may her memory be a revolution.

[mariacallous]

Offal, aka organ meats, are about to make a comeback. Yes, I predict that brains, livers, spleens, tongues and testicles will feature heavily on the menus of Israel’s (and the diaspora’s Jewish/Israeli-style) hottest eateries by this time next year — if they aren’t already. Why? Because young chefs are increasingly inspired by traditional Jewish dishes, driving a return-to-roots style of cooking. And these old-school classics are notably innard-heavy.

Offal is an oxymoron; it’s both a poor-person food, which is why it was so popular in the shtetl, and a celebratory food, eaten on Shabbat and festivals. Many Sephardic cultures consider it a delicacy. Read on and decide for yourself.

Let’s start with an old Ashkenazi classic: chopped liver. While for me, it will always be in style, many of my contemporaries don’t feel the same. Luckily, young Jewish chefs have already set their sights on it, and may well have the power to convert millennial diners. Take Anthony Rose’s recipe in “The Last Schmaltz,” which sears the livers, then deglazes the pan with arak before blending, serving the chopped liver with thyme-scented caramelized onions.

Another well-known offal dish is the Jerusalem mixed grill. Made with chicken giblets and lamb parts, and seasoned with onion, garlic, black pepper, cumin, turmeric and coriander, this classic street food is believed to have originated sometime between 1960-1970 at one of two (now feuding) restaurants in Jerusalem’s Machaneh Yehuda Market. While the Jerusalem grill is far younger than most Jewish offal dishes, it originated in a similar way: Butchers had a surplus of unwanted offal so they sold it off cheaply, then some savvy chefs turned the offal into a desirable dish. The mixed grill was one of the first offal dishes to receive multiple modern makeovers. At his restaurant Rovi, Yotam Ottolenghi adds baharat onions and pickles, while Michael Solomonov included a Jerusalem grill-Southern dirty rice hybrid in “Israeli Soul.“

Of course, this is not the first dish based around grilled offal; Tunisian Jews liked to throw a selection of lamb or veal innards onto the grill, which they called mechoui d’abats, and Baghdadi Jews sought a similar smokiness, which they achieved by cooking chicken livers on the tandoor.

Roman Jews preferred their offal battered and fried, rather than grilled. Few know that their famed carciofi alla giudia (deep-fried artichokes) was often served alongside fried sweetbreads, livers, and — most notably — brains. North Africa’s Sephardi communities loved their brains, too, commonly serving them in an omelet called a meguina or menina on festive occasions. Meir Adoni referenced this love in his brain fricassee — a North African-French fusion dish of veal brains inside a croissant with harissa and preserved lemon — at his New York restaurant Nur.

Offal was also commonly used to add a depth of flavor to a soup or stew. Yemenite Jews — one of the few communities who continue to cook traditional offal dishes — make a soup with bulls’ penis and cows’ udders, while Eastern European Jews, particularly of Polish descent, continue to add kishke  — a sausage made of stuffed beef intestine — to their weekly Shabbat cholent. A slow-cooked stew called akod is one of the better-known dishes of Tunisian Jewish cuisine, where tripe flavored with cumin, garlic, harissa and tomato paste is the star of the show. Moroccan Jews eat a similar dish on Passover, which ditches the tomato paste but adds liver, heart, and beef dumplings.

Admittedly, there are some offal-based dishes that may find it trickier to stage a comeback. Ptcha – an aspic that reached its height of popularity in shtetl-era Ashkenazi communities — is arguably top of the list. However, it’s not without hope; ptcha was actually born in Turkey in the 14th century as a peasant soup made with lamb’s feet, served hot. This, I’d wager, is a more palatable gateway (it’s basically bone broth) to the Eastern European version, which opts for calves’ feet and allows the soup to cool and set into a jelly, thanks to the gelatin in the hooves.

It only takes one dish to change your view of offal from weird and unappetizing to tasty and versatile. If livers, brains and tripe were good enough for our ancestors, not to mention famed chefs, who are we to turn up our noses? Happy eating!

[spacelazarwolf]

help me figure something that me n my friend have been arguing abt (we’re both jews shes ashkenazi im sephardi/mizrachi i need another non-ashkenazi opinion abt this and all my jewish mutuals r ashlenazi)

is yiddish the ‘mother tongue’? and if it is, does that mean that all jews should speak it, ashkenazi or not?

yiddish is the diaspora language that primarily ashkenazi jews spoke and some still speak. other diaspora groups had/have different diaspora languages depending on where they spent the diaspora. i’m taking a judeo italian class, and am hoping to take ladino (largely spoken by sephardi jews) as well.

yiddish is the mother tongue…for people whose communities spoke it. it is not The One Jewish Mother Tongue, and to say that all jews should speak it for that reason is ashkenormative as fuck.