A previous issue of la Djente  featured a review of my nonno  Alfredo’s wartime diary, “We Are Here! We Are Alive!”   (thank you Gloria Asher for the glowing review!). The diary sheds light on a network of unassuming heroes who saved my grandfather’s family from the Shoah.  Yet this diary represents only a fragment of a much larger unpublished memoir, spanning Alfredo Sarano’s childhood in Izmir to his final years in Bene Berak. The bulk of that memoir unfolds in Rhodes to wh

Most Ashkenazim consider Sephardic Jews to be exotic yet somewhat naive, given to colorful garb and spiced food and characterized by sincere yet simple religious devotion, with perhaps more than a dab of Kabbalistic superstition thrown in for good measure. Their rabbis, too, are mild-natured individuals, innocent of worldly knowledge and perspicacity, who may be good at rote memorization but are third-rate in intellectual depth. Not long ago, even some talmidei-hakhamim held

An original handwritten fragment of Maimonides’ Mishne Tora , held at  Cambridge The Greek word mythos , from which we get ‘myth’, ultimately means ‘storytelling.’ It embodies a more emotional experience. Such impassioned retelling contrasts with logos , rational thought. Myths are stories that are accorded a higher significance by people’s belief in them, factual or not. The Jewish tradition is full of mythic stories, from the biblical to the contemporary, and the communal t

Rabbi Eliyahu Benamozegh (1822-1900) Nineteenth century Livorno was home to a unique thinker whose life work centered on unity. Rabbi Eliyahu Benamozegh (1822-1900), whose parents were natives of Fez, Morocco, was orphaned at an early age. His guardians saw to it that this precocious child received a well-rounded education in Jewish and general subjects. Although as a young man he entered a business career, his real love was for religious and scientific thought. He went on to

The cover from the 1917 Brotherhood Gala brochure (Courtesy of David Saffan) The common answer today is: Yes. Even the Brotherhood’s own website indicates that the organization was established as a “volunteer mutual aid and burial society.”   But Ladino publications of the era tell a slightly different story.   During the early twentieth century, economic challenges, political changes, and war compelled many Sephardic Jews to leave the Ottoman Empire. Between 1908 and 1924, a

Benoun Torah Crown from the Kehila Grande of Rhodes For decades, artifacts and photographs related to the Jewish community of Rhodes have been carefully collected as part of a personal and communal mission to preserve its rich history for future generations. And despite the tragic deportation and murder of nearly all its Jews to Auschwitz, it is our role as their descendants to honor and remember their life stories, thus preserving the community’s legacy now and forever.  Tha

Republished with permission from the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust Photograph of Rabbi Leon J. Pessah...

Correspondence clipping from Congregation Mikveh Israel discussing the plight of recently arrived Sephardic Jews to Philadelphia from the...

A historical document that sheds light on a little-known aspect of the management of Jewish property in Greece during the Nazi Occupation...

One of the unresolved questions in the study of the history of the Jews of Greece relates to the devastating impact of the Holocaust. How...

Newly catalogued archives of the Jewish Community of Izmir, Turkey On December 17, 2024, an invaluable treasure of Jewish heritage was...

Mazal Bueno of Regina Algranti Soriano, passed down to to her great granddaughter, Rachel Pearle Hasson It was one of those Sunday...

As I stirred together sugar, water, lemon, oil, and henna powder, the scent bloomed—fragrant herbal bouquets weaving through the banquet...

Like Lady Liberty and her torch, my mother holds aloft her own precious symbol, the jar of homemade Harosset, prepared well in advance of...

A Jewish couple in Salonika in 1942 or 1943 (US Holocaust Museum). Judith Baumel coined the term “double jeopardy” to explain the double...

Greek-Jewish boxers Salamo Arouch, above, and Jacko Razon, photo below, both of Thessaloniki, were forced to fight other prisoners in...

Family photo. First row from left to right: Nava, Avram Hatem, Emel, Roza Hatem. Second row from left to right: Doron, Eliza Presented in...

Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel, the first Sephardic Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel, learning with young students in Jerusalem A quick...

Yaakov Hagoel, the Chairman of the World Zionist Organization, is the first Sephardic Jew to head up the global Jewish organization With...

Rabbi Dr. David de Sola Pool z"L Rabbi Dr. David de Sola Pool was the pre-eminent Sephardic Rabbi in America during the mid-twentieth...