East of the River celebrates the release of its new album Ija Mia on AVIE records.
The album braids together the rich vocal and instrumental music of the Sephardic diaspora with the soundscapes of its people, from North Africa through the Ottoman Empire. Nina Stern and Daphna Mor are joined by acclaimed Armenian-American oud player and composer Ara Dinkjian, Silk Road Ensemble founding member Shane Shanahan, Palestinian multi-instrumentalist Zafer Tawil, and innovative Israeli bass player Tal Mashiach.
This Moroccan Passover Apricot Cake Is Lighter Than Air
With flavors of almond, orange blossom and citrus.
By Joanna Nissim | March 31, 2024
“Pellebe” is a Judeo-Arabic word used by the Jews of Morocco, who mainly hail from Spain. As well as for Passover, this popular cake is often made for birthdays and other celebrations throughout the year. It is often layered up with the orange marmalade called ma’azumor and sometimes also topped with meringue, making it extra decadent! Some start or finish the Yom Kippur fast with a slice of the cake and a coffee that has sweet egg cream added — and any leftovers are, of course, served as a breakfast cake, I see no better way to start the day!"
April marks the one-year anniversary of Savor's official launch!
To celebrate, we are now making FREE to everyone our digital portal!! In the portal, you have access to ALL Savor songs along with matching recipes and cooking videos recorded by an array of world-class female chefs. We are so proud of the work we have done this year and we are equally proud to share it with you in this way...
Welcome to the Savor Digital Portal, where you can listen to all of the music and lyrics from Savor paired with recipes and cooking videos with our roster of female chefs who each promotes and preserves Sephardic culture in her work.
Sunday, April 7
How to Make a Moroccan Passover Feast
A flavor-packed seder meal awaits you in this hour-long cooking class.
A moist lamb tagine slow-cooked with saffron, apricots and much more. A soothing North African fava bean soup. A bright citrus and fennel salad. Rich charoset truffles. You can easily cook this Moroccan Passover feast!
In this hour-long class, Rachel Emquies Sheff and Sharon Gomperts — AKA the Sephardic Spice Girls — will teach you how to incorporate centuries-old Moroccan-Jewish techniques and flavors into your seder meal this year.
In addition to the live instruction on Zoom, all registrants will receive recipes and a recording of the class.
Savor and Lilith are here to spice up your Passover and soothe your spirit! On Sunday, April 7, 1-2:30 pm ET| 12-1:30 pm CT| 10-11:30 am PT, join Chef Susan Barocas and Ladino singer Sarah Aroeste for an afternoon of Sephardic food and music to make it your best Passover ever! Learn to make two iconic Sephardic Passover dishes with Susan, sing along with Sarah—and bring all of your Passover cooking questions. We're here to help.
With participating sponsorship from Women of Reform Judaism, this virtual event is made possible at no cost to participants—all you need to do is tell us you’re coming.
A video about the ways that many Sephardim celebrate Purim. Sara Malka's videos are always interesting. 🙂 (And yes, I know, there are some minor factual errors in this, but it doesn't detract from the beauty of the video.)
The event is sponsored by JIMENA.org, JCCSF and will be moderated by podcaster Asal Ehsanipour. About the Speakers:
Danielle Dardashti: ...is an Emmy award-winning documentary writer/producer, a former on-air TV news reporter, and a Moth StorySLAM champion who has been featured on NPR’s Moth Radio Hour. She is the co-author of the Jewish Family Fun Book (Jewish Lights) and co-founder & Creative Director of live storytelling show StoryBoom...
Dr. Galeet Dardashti: ...is a trailblazing vocalist, composer, and anthropologist of Middle Eastern Jewish culture. She is widely known as leader of the all-woman Sephardi/Mizrahi ensemble, Divahn. In her new award-winning release, Monajat, she sings and composes around remixed samples of her famed Iranian grandfather with an acclaimed ensemble of musicians...
Jewish schools must embrace Sephardi and Mizrahi culture
What do students learn about Sephardi and Mizrahi artists? What melodies are used in prayer? How are holiday programs structured?
By TY ALHADEFF
"...Our resources on the devastating impact of the Holocaust on Sephardi & North African communities will provide useful guidance for many Jewish educators and be able to offer a more thorough & comprehensive lesson plan.
We are excited about the potential to create change on a large scale in day schools across the country. Adaptations and adoptions of Sephardic pedagogies and worldviews into modern educational spaces can naturally help Jewish schools become more inclusive of all students, especially those who are ethnically & culturally diverse. With this approach, schools will be able to provide students with a deeper & more accurate understanding of Jews worldwide & in the United States in particular..."
How Israel’s Black Panthers radicalized its Mizrahi Jews, and changed the country by Andrew Silow-Carroll March 17, 2024
"...[Golda] authorized the police to arrest 15 people under what today is called administrative detention, where you don’t need to bring actual charges. This was in the emergency code enacted by the British...
And of course, it backfired. Anyone with any kind of liberal leaning in Israel was asking, “Why are you arresting people?” Word gets out very quickly that raids are happening. And then every bohemian, every left-winger, every kind of professor, all these respectable people descend on City Hall to join the protest. And then they marched over to the police station where some of the Panthers are being held & demand their release. And that taught the Panthers a lesson that what they were doing was very provocative and...they knew that they were onto something.
"#Sephardic#Jews are a #Jewish#diaspora group primarily tracing their roots to the Iberian Peninsula, though the term is often used to refer to historical Jewish communities surrounding the Mediterranean and throughout the Middle East who share similar customs.
In the late 15th century, both the Spanish and Portuguese monarchs expelled Jews from their countries, creating large migrations and a scattered diasporic community."
@histodons@israel@palestine#histodons Had to lookup “baronet” 🫢 … the #Sephardic “Montefiores” are a household name in #Israel. We all learn about these (anti-#Zionist) philanthropists, albeit with some disdain. Luckily for the proto-zionist movement, though, they were there to help the failing early settlement attempts outside the established historically Jewish centers in Palestine.
These “pioneers” were mostly Russians, with no experience in farming and totally alien in Palestine. They started arriving in very small numbers in the middle of the 19th century, escaping violent pogroms in the Pale of Settlement. In #Palestine they lived apart from the indigenous #Jewish communities of Jerusalem, Jaffa and elsewhere. Luckily for them though, when the first attempt was just about to go under, and right before they started packing, someone stepped-in the to help.
One famous such fail was of the so called “First Aliyah”. Avraham Muyal (Moyal), born in Morocco in 1847, stepped-in. He was a businessman who lived in Jaffa, and unlike them, spoke Arabic and had good working relationships with the local population, as well as Ottoman officials. He was also Baron Edmond de Rothschild’s business partner. Rothschild was persuaded to finance and transform the almost abandoned first agricultural enterprise…
When the Zionist movement retroactively wrote its own teleological narrative of pioneering and hardship in the “deserted” and “empty” old land, they couldn’t completely avoid mentioning these families’ contributions, unlike Moyal’s…
@israel@palestine Had to lookup “baronet” 🫢 … the #Sephardic “Montefiores” are a household name in #Israel. We all learn about these (anti-#Zionist) philanthropists, albeit with some disdain. Luckily for the proto-zionist movement though, they were there to help the failing early settlement attempts outside of the established historically jewish centers in Palestine. These “pioneers” were mostly Russians, with no experience in farming and totally alien in Palestine. They started arriving in very small numbers in the middle of the 19th century, escaping violent pogroms in the Pale of Settlement. In #Palestine they lived apart from the indigenous #Jewish communities of Jerusalem, Jaffa and elsewhere. Luckily for these them though, when the first attempt was just about to go under, and right before they started packing, someone stepped-in the to help. One famous such fail was of the so called “First Aliyah”. Avraham Muyal (Moyal), born in Morocco in 1847, stepped-in. He was a businessman who lived in Jaffa, and unlike them, spoke Arabic and had good working relationships with the local population as well as Ottoman officials. He was also Baron Edmond de Rothschild’s business partner. Rothschild was persuaded to finance and transform the almost abandoned first agricultural enterprise… When the Zionist movement retroactively wrote its own teleological narrative of pioneering and hardship in the “deserted” and “empty” old land, they couldn’t completely avoid mentioning these families’ contributions, unlike Moyal’s… https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jul/08/simon-sebag-montefiore-i-worked-down-a-south-african-goldmine-at-1