The Sephardic Brother: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, including your family background, Sephardic heritage, and history with the Sephardic Brotherhood?
Arielly Levy: Sure! I am Sephardic and Ashkenazi from both sides of my parents. My grandfather Sol Niego zt”L is the Sephardic member of my family on my mother’s side, and my middle name is Niego, which is my grandfather’s last name, so I’ve always felt a special connection to my Sephardic heritage. I grew up outside of Boston where there isn’t really a strong Sephardic community. Even though I knew I was Sephardic and was interested in it growing up, I didn’t have the same types of opportunities to explore it through organized community.
When I started college, I had the opportunity to actively explore my Sephardic roots through the ASF Sephardi House Fellowship. I was a part of their inaugural cohort, and later directly connected with the leadership of the Sephardic Brotherhood, which now I’m proud to say I’m a member of our Central Council like my grandfather once was. I’m really excited to hopefully provide more programming for college students like myself.
When my grandfather was sick, I started getting particularly interested in the classes the Sephardic Brotherhood had provided through the Sephardic Digital Academy. During the worst of COVID-19, my mother and I would participate in so many different educational series, particularly the Ladino 101 courses.
Sephardic Brother: That’s a beautiful way to keep your Papou Sol’s legacy alive. Can you tell us about some of the interesting things you’ve been doing on your campus at the University of Pittsburgh to enhance Sephardic life?
Ariella Levy: This past semester, we had a special film screening of The Forgotten Refugees for both Sephardic and non-Sephardic students. We don’t really learn about Jewish refugees who were expelled from Arab and Muslim countries after the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948. We have a Taste of Diaspora event coming up as well, where we’re bringing in foods from all the different countries where Sepharadim fled after the Inquisition in 1492, including Turkey, Greece, the Netherlands, and a few others. My largest event was last year, where I planned what’s called Ignite Shabbat at Hillel, where we have a special themed Shabbat weekend, and this one was a Sephardic Shabbaton. We had some delicious Sephardic foods for Shabbat Dinner, and had a special visiting educator join us for a Sephardic Havdalah. The next day, we had Helene Jawar Pienere do a Sephardic cooking demonstration for people to learn how to cook our foods themselves. Every time I’ve met a Sephardic person in Pittsburgh, I’ve always tried to get them involved and meet other Sephardic friends on campus, even if it’s not a formal event.
Sephardic Brother: That’s amazing! How many Sephardic students would you say are at the University of Pittsburgh?
Ariella Levy: It’s hard to tell. Our Hillel serves all the different schools in Pittsburgh, including Carnegie Mellon University. I would say between 20-30 students with Sephardic and Middle Eastern backgrounds. We’re still seeing more come out of the woodwork overtime, so I think there could be more.
Sephardic Brother: What’s your hope for the new generation of Sepharadim in America? You’re 4th generation Sephardic here in the US, and things have changed from 100 years ago. So what does the future of Sephardic life to you look like?
Ariella Levy: One of my big goals is to make Sephardic students feel more welcomed and accepted on college campuses. Even now, it can be hard for non-Sepharadim to understand history and our unique identities; that they’re an integral part of the Jewish experience. I want that to be more prominent so it’s easier to build Sephardic life and community on campus.
I think that a lot more non-Sepharadim need to know what Sephardic Judaism is. Even the other day my mother was telling me some random Jewish person was asking her “what kind of Jewish last name is Niego?” as in it couldn’t really be Jewish. It was very off putting. People need to understand not every Jewish name ends in -berg or -stein.
I definitely want more Sepharadim to get involved in the community, and at least recognize there is a Sephardic community in America for them. I personally want to be closer to a large Sephardic hub like NYC after college. I still believe that smaller communities like Pittsburgh can find that sense of Sephardic community, even if they’re not in a hub. I also want to get involved in the Greek Jewish Young Professionals Network so I can learn more about my identity, Torah values, and history, and help build community myself.
The Sephardic Brother: What do you think is the most important motivating factor for you to be involved in the community? Why choose now?
Ariella Levy: I chose now partially because I was made aware of the opportunities out there for Sepharadim. I wouldn’t have known about the opportunity for the Sephardic Fellowship if it wasn’t first for connecting through the Sephardic Digital Academy and for a staff member at my Hillel telling me about this fellowship. Part of it was random chance. She mentioned that “I noticed you mentioned in your campus learning fellowship that you spent part of the Summer learning about Sephardic history and Ladino through the Sephardic Digital Academy. You should apply for this upcoming fellowship.” It was really the right person, right time kind of thing.
But of course, my core interest stems from the Sephardic Brotherhood and my grandfather’s involvement, and with his recent passing in 2020 that really made me want to become reconnected with my roots.
The Sephardic Brother: You’ve mentioned to us that you’re a double major in Psychology and Spanish. Was the Spanish prompted by your Sephardic heritage, or was it something you were just personally interested in?
Ariella Levy: It was absolutely because of my Sephardic identity. I even wrote one of my college supplement essays on the Common App about wanting to learn Spanish because of being Sephardic. The question for the essay was “What makes you unique?” So I wrote about my middle name Niego because that was pretty special to our family history. However, at that point in high school, I hadn’t learned as much as I wanted to. I was able to learn some Spanish in high school and read some of the Sephardic Brotherhood’s newsletters with my grandpa and we would try to translate some of the Ladino.
The Sephardic Brother: How’s your Ladino coming along?
Ariella Levy: Right now my Ladino is not nearly as good as I want it to be! It’s difficult at the moment because I’m in two high level Spanish classes and some of the vocabulary between modern Spanish and Ladino can be quite different. The conjugations when I’m speaking from what I’ve learned in modern Spanish can also mess my Ladino up a bit. However, when I read Ladino I can mostly understand all of it. I sometimes have to look up a few words here and there but thanks to the weekly La Boz Sefaradi Brotherhood newsletter, the Ladino quotes of the week and the Djoha stories have helped me a lot. One of my goals for after college is to become better at speaking Ladino.
The Sephardic Brother: Amazing! Thanks so much for speaking with us. Mersi muncho!
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