Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry

Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry
Author: Zion Zohar
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2005-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0814797067

Sephardic Jews have contributed some of the most important Jewish philosophers, poets, biblical commentators, Talmudic and Halachic scholars, and scientists, and have had a significant impact on the development of Jewish mysticism. Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry brings together original work from the world's leading scholars to present a deep introductory overview of their history and culture over the past 1500 years.

Sephardic Jews in America

Sephardic Jews in America
Author: Aviva Ben-Ur
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2012
Genre: History
ISBN: 0814725198

A significant number of Sephardic Jews, tracing their remote origins to Spain and Portugal, immigrated to the United States from Turkey, Greece, and the Balkans from 1880 through the 1920s, joined by a smaller number of Mizrahi Jews arriving from Arab lands. Most Sephardim settled in New York, establishing the leading Judeo-Spanish community outside the Ottoman Empire. With their distinct languages, cultures, and rituals, Sephardim and Arab-speaking Mizrahim were not readily recognized as Jews by their Ashkenazic coreligionists. At the same time, they forged alliances outside Jewish circles with Hispanics and Arabs, with whom they shared significant cultural and linguistic ties. The failure among Ashkenazic Jews to recognize Sephardim and Mizrahim as fellow Jews continues today. More often than not, these Jewish communities are simply absent from portrayals of American Jewry. Drawing on primary sources such as the Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) press, archival documents, and oral histories, Sephardic Jews in America offers the first book-length academic treatment of their history in the United States, from 1654 to the present, focusing on the age of mass immigration.

Sephardic Jewry and Mizrahi Jews

Sephardic Jewry and Mizrahi Jews
Author: Peter Y. Medding
Publisher: OUP USA
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2007
Genre: History
ISBN: 0195340973

This volume looks at the major and rapid changes undergone by Sephardic Jewry in the last 50 years, drawing on essays from the fields of demography, history, political science, literature, sociology, gender studies, and anthropology. Themes include identity and the invigoration of Sephardic Judaism.

Sephardi, Jewish, Argentine

Sephardi, Jewish, Argentine
Author: Adriana M. Brodsky
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2016-10-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 025302319X

“A much-needed monograph on the role of Sephardic Jews in Argentina, and . . . an important contribution to the study of Jews in Latin America overall” (Choice). At the turn of the twentieth century, Jews from North Africa and the Middle East were called Turcos (“Turks”). Seen as distinct from Ashkenazim, Sephardi Jews weren’t even identified as Jews. Yet the story of Sephardi Jewish identity has been deeply impactful on Jewish history across the world. Adriana M. Brodsky follows the history of Sephardim as they arrived in Argentina, created immigrant organizations, founded synagogues and cemeteries, and built strong ties with coreligionists around the country. Brodsky demonstrates how fragmentation based on areas of origin gave way to the gradual construction of a single Sephardi identity. This unifying identity is predicated both on Zionist identification (with the State of Israel) and “national” feelings (for Argentina), and that Sephardi Jews assumed leadership roles in national Jewish organizations once they integrated into the much larger Askenazi community. Rather than assume that Sephardi identity was fixed and unchanging, Brodsky highlights the strategic nature of this identity, constructed both from within the various Sephardi groups and from the outside, and reveals that Jewish identity must be understood as part of the process of becoming Argentine.

The Arabic Plotinus

The Arabic Plotinus
Author: Peter Adamson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2017-12-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781463207182

The so-called "Theology of Aristotle" is a translation of the Enneads of Plotinus, the most important representative of late ancient Platonism. It was produced in the 9th century CE within the circle of al-Kindī, one of the most important groups for the early reception of Greek thought in Arabic. In part because the "Theology" was erroneously transmitted under Aristotle's authorship, it became the single most important conduit by which Neoplatonism reached the Islamic world. It is referred to by such thinkers as al-Fārābī, in an attempt to demonstrate the agreement between Platonism and Aristotelianism, Avicenna, who wrote a set of comments on the text, and later on thinkers of Safavid Persia including Mullā Ṣadrā. Yet the "Theology" is not just a translation. It may in fact more accurately be described as a creative paraphrase, which takes frequent liberties with the source text and even includes whole paragraphs' worth of new material. Adamson's book offers a philosophical interpretation of the changes introduced in the Arabic version. It is argued that these changes were in part intended to show the relevance of Plotinus' thought for contemporary Islamic culture, for instance by connecting the Neoplatonist theory of the First Principle to theological disputes within Islam over the status of God's attributes. At the same time the paraphrase reflects a tendency to harmonize the various strands of Greek thought, so that a critique by Plotinus of Aristotle's theory of the soul is subtly changed into a defense of Aristotle's theory against a possible misinterpretation. The upshot, or so Adamson argues, is that the "Theology" needs to be read as an original philosophical work in its own right, and understood within the context of the ʿAbbāsid era.

Contemporary Sephardic and Mizrahi Literature

Contemporary Sephardic and Mizrahi Literature
Author: Dario Miccoli
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2017-04-21
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1315308576

In the last few years, the fields of Sephardic and Mizrahi Studies have grown significantly, thanks to new publications which take into consideration unexplored aspects of the history, literature and identity of modern Middle Eastern and North African Jews. However, few of these studies abandoned the Diaspora/Israel dichotomy and analysed the Jews who moved to Israel and those that settled elsewhere as part of a new, diverse and interconnected diaspora. Contemporary Sephardic and Mizrahi Literature argues that the literary texts produced by Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews who migrated from the Middle East and North Africa in the 1950s and afterwards, should be considered as part of a transnational arena, in which forms of Jewish diasporism and postcolonial displacement interweave. Through an original perspective that focuses on novelists, poets, professional and amateur writers – from the Israeli poets Erez Biton and Shva Salhoov to Francophone authors such as Chochana Boukhobza, Ami Bouganim and Serge Moati – the book explains that these Sephardic and Mizrahi authors are part of a global literary diaspora at the crossroads of past Arab legacies, new national identities and persistent feelings of Jewishness. Some of the chapters emphasise how the Sephardic and Mizrahi past and present identities are narrated, how generational and ethno-national issues are taken into account and which linguistic and stylistic strategies the authors adopted. Other chapters focus more explicitly on how the relations between national societies and different Jewish migrant communities are narrated, both in today’s Israel and in the diaspora. The book helps to bridge the gap between Hebrew and postcolonial literature, and opens up new perspectives on Sephardic and Mizrahi literature. It will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of Jewish and Postcolonial Studies and Comparative Literature

Bukharan Jews and the Dynamics of Global Judaism

Bukharan Jews and the Dynamics of Global Judaism
Author: Alanna E. Cooper
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2012-12-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0253006430

Part ethnography, part history, and part memoir, this volume chronicles the complex past and dynamic present of an ancient Mizrahi community. While intimately tied to the Central Asian landscape, the Jews of Bukhara have also maintained deep connections to the wider Jewish world. As the community began to disperse after the fall of the Soviet Union, Alanna E. Cooper traveled to Uzbekistan to document Jewish life before it disappeared. Drawing on ethnographic research there as well as among immigrants to the US and Israel, Cooper tells an intimate and personal story about what it means to be Bukharan Jewish. Together with her historical research about a series of dramatic encounters between Bukharan Jews and Jews in other parts of the world, this lively narrative illuminates the tensions inherent in maintaining Judaism as a single global religion over the course of its long and varied diaspora history.

A Sephardi Sea

A Sephardi Sea
Author: Dario Miccoli
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2022-07-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0253062942

A Sephardi Sea tells the story of Jews from the southern shore of the Mediterranean who, between the late 1940s and the mid-1960s, migrated from their country of birth for Europe, Israel, and beyond. It is a story that explores their contrasting memories of and feelings for a Sephardi Jewish world in North Africa and Egypt that is lost forever but whose echoes many still hear. Surely, some of these Jewish migrants were already familiar with their new countries of residence because of colonial ties or of Zionism, and often spoke the language. Why, then, was the act of leaving so painful and why, more than fifty years afterward, is its memory still so tangible? Dario Miccoli examines how the memories of a bygone Sephardi Mediterranean world became preserved in three national contexts—Israel, France, and Italy—where the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa and their descendants migrated and nowadays live. A Sephardi Sea explores how practices of memory- and heritage-making—from the writing of novels and memoirs to the opening of museums and memorials, the activities of heritage associations and state-led celebrations—has filled an identity vacuum in the three countries and helps the Jews from North Africa and Egypt to define their Jewishness in Europe and Israel today but also reinforce their connection to a vanished world now remembered with nostalgia, affection, and sadness.

Foundations of Sephardic Spirituality

Foundations of Sephardic Spirituality
Author: Rabbi Marc D. Angel, PhD
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2011-09-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1580235166

Who were the Sephardic Jews of the Ottoman Empire? What lasting lessons does their spiritual life provide for future generations? “How did the Judeo-Spanish-speaking Jews of the Ottoman Empire manage to achieve spiritual triumph? To answer this question, we need to have a firm understanding of their historical experience.... We need to be aware of the dark, unpleasant elements in their environments; but we also need to see the spiritual, cultural light in their dwellings that imbued their lives with meaning and honor.” —from Chapter 1, “The Inner Life of the Sephardim” In this groundbreaking work, Rabbi Marc Angel explores the teachings, values, attitudes, and cultural patterns that characterized Judeo-Spanish life over the generations and how the Sephardim maintained a strong sense of pride and dignity, even when they lived in difficult political, economic, and social conditions. Along with presenting the historical framework and folklore of Jewish life in the Ottoman Empire, Rabbi Angel focuses on what you can learn from the Sephardic sages and from their folk wisdom that can help you live a stronger, deeper spiritual life.