Sephardic Jews
The Latest
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Breaking News ‘Don’t Sell to Arabs’ Rabbi Backed in Israel Race for Sephardic Chief
Most of the members of the Jewish Home Knesset faction support the election of Safed’s chief rabbi, Shmuel Eliyahu, as Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel. The MKs have voiced their support despite criticism of Eliyahu’s candidacy even within the religious Zionist movement because of racist statements he has made in the past. Haaretz checked and…
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Breaking News Meir Soloveichik Takes Helm at Shearith Israel
Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, the scion of a revered rabbinic family, is the new spiritual leader of the country’s oldest Sephardic synagogue, Congregation Shearith Israel. The synagogue, also known as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, announced the hire in a news release June 10. Soloveichik is the grandson of Ahron Soloveichik and the great-nephew of Joseph…
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Food A Taste of the Tenements
If you’re an American Jew, there’s a pretty good chance that somewhere, somehow, someone in your family made dinner on the Lower East Side. Though the area has been home to a countless nationalities and ethnic groups, it holds a special place in the hearts of American Jews, many of whom can trace their first…
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News Little Sign of Change at Syrian Charities After Scandal
An organization that declared its intent to bring transparency to charitable donations in Syrian Sephardic Jewish communities has gone silent three years after its inception. Shortly after the July 2009 arrests of three prominent Sephardic rabbis who had used charity funds in a money-laundering scheme, the Sephardic Community Federation instituted a compliance plan for charitable…
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Culture Discovering Louisa May Alcott’s Jewish History on Portuguese Tour
Louisa May Alcott was often told as a child that her dark hair and dark eyes came from her Sephardic Jewish ancestry. Her mother, Abigail May Alcott, who had similar coloring, had learned this from her father, Joseph May, a late 18th-century Boston businessman whose Portuguese Jewish ancestors immigrated to Sussex, England, just before 1500….
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Opinion Israel’s Shas, Right-Wing Kingmaker Party, Takes Sharp Turn to Left
Barely four months after the political earthquake of the January 22 Knesset elections, Israeli politics are about to undergo another seismic shift. This one will bring less drama, but it just might have a deeper impact on the system. The catalyst is Arye Deri, the onetime Haredi wunderkind and convicted felon, who returned on May…
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News African Island’s Lost Jewish Heritage
A Portuguese rabbi and a Moroccan diplomat stood shoulder to shoulder in a Catholic cemetery here while 200 mourners howled in grief as they buried a resident of this island off the western coast of Africa. The foreigners had come to Cape Verde’s main cemetery earlier this month not to bury a local, but for…
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Breaking News Spanish Jewish Museum Opens in Granada — and Founders Wed at Opening
A Spanish couple that built a Jewish museum in Granada celebrated its opening day by getting married there. Gabriel Perez and Beatriz Cavalier got married during the dedication ceremony earlier this month of the Sephardic Museum of Granada – a small institution they set up in the southern Spanish city after years of fundraising and…
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Fast Forward Why neo-Nazis marched in Ohio this weekend, and almost every weekend in the US
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Opinion The group behind Project 2025 has a plan to protect Jews. It will do the opposite.
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Opinion Just about every interpretation of Trump’s narrow election victory is wrong
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News Texas schools want to add Queen Esther to the curriculum. Here’s why Jews (and many Christians) are opposed.
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Fast Forward Three arrested in murder of rabbi in United Arab Emirates; Israel denounces ‘despicable antisemitic act’
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News Trump promised peace in the Middle East. Will his 2020 plan be the blueprint?
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Fast Forward Rep. Ritchie Torres, outspoken pro-Israel advocate, is dropping hints that he could run for NY governor
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Fast Forward Ursula Haverbeck, infamous German Holocaust denier known as ‘Nazi grandma,’ dies at 96
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