Sephardic Jews
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Fast Forward Shearith Israel Will Appeal Loss in $7M Shul vs. Shul Feud With Touro Synagogue
— Congregation Shearith Israel in New York will appeal a federal court ruling last month stripping its control of the historic Touro Synagogue in Rhode Island. The Manhattan congregation filed a notice Tuesday saying it will appeal to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in an effort to reverse last month’s decision concerning its…
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Fast Forward 1941 Baghdad Pogrom Commemorated With Candle Lightings
WASHINGTON — The author of a work on the Nazi-era massacre in Baghdad believed to have precipitated the Jewish exodus from Iraq is commemorating its 75th anniversary with candle lightings in four cities. Edwin Black, who in 2010 published “The Farhud,” about the June 1-2, 1941 massacre of at least 180 Jews in Baghdad, will…
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News Turkish Jews Proudly Defend Last Sephardic Homeland — Even as Some Flee
A prominent Turkish-Jewish businessman and politician, Cefi Kamhi is chairman of an Istanbul-based consulting agency and television distribution company. He heads three councils for Turkey’s foreign economic relations board, and represents his home country in the European Jewish Parliament. His wife is Muslim. Yet after several assassination attempts, Kamhi is under 24-hour police protection to…
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Opinion Inside the Western Hemisphere’s Only Romaniote Synagogue — and Its Greek Jewish Festival
Most of the year, the stretch of Broome Street between Allen and Eldridge Streets, on the Lower East Side in New York City, is fairly quiet. The majestic Kehila Kedosha Janina overlooks Chinese restaurants and repair shops as cars and motorbikes speed by on Allen Street’s southbound branch. But this Sunday, the block was crowded…
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Fast Forward Rhode Island Congregation Wins $7M Shul vs. Shul Legal Battle Over Shearith Israel
The Rhode Island congregation that worships at the United States’ oldest synagogue owns that house of worship and its assets, a federal judge ruled on Monday, rejecting a New York synagogue’s claim to oversight. The ruling follows a four-year legal battle that began when members of the Touro Synagogue in Newport tried to sell a…
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Opinion Jews of Color Get Personal and Political at First-Ever National Gathering
If you want to get black Jews, Mizrahi Jews and a Palestinian-American Muslim to burst into tears at the same time, invite Yavilah McCoy to talk about hair. Speaking at the opening plenary of the Jews of Color National Convening, which took place May 1–3 in Manhattan, McCoy gestured at the woman beside her, a…
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News Meet the Congolese Politician with Jewish Roots — and Presidential Potential
The Democratic Republic of Congo is at a crossroads: Its next election, scheduled for the fall, could be the first open presidential race in 50 years. One rising star and potential candidate is a man named Moïse Katumbi, business tycoon and former governor of mineral-rich Katanga, in the south of the country. Katumbi is a…
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Opinion When Ashkenazi Jews Eat Kitniyot on Passover, Is It Cultural Appropriation — from Sephardim?
How do millions of Ashkenazi Jews react when, after hundreds of years, they finally get permission to eat kitniyot on Passover? We’re about to find out. Last December, the Conservative movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards approved a teshuvah, a Jewish legal ruling, permitting the consumption of kitniyot on Passover. Kitniyot — foods like…
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Opinion New York’s Israel Day parade was a shanda — but not because of Mamdani
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Opinion How can I live freely as a Jew in a world where strangers rip my mezuzah off my doorframe?
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News Floyd Mayweather showered cash on Jewish causes — and now he’s suing their ‘Robin Hood’ alleging $175 million got diverted
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Opinion Israeli and diaspora Jews live in different realities. The Israel Day parade proved it
