Sephardic Jews
The Latest
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Fast Forward ‘Racist’ Rabbi Urged To Drop Sephardic Bid
Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein informed Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu on Monday evening that it would be inappropriate for him to run for the post of Sephardi chief rabbi, in light of certain contentious remarks and the “legal difficulties” posed by his candidacy. Eliyahu, the current chief rabbi of Safed and the son of former Sephardi Chief…
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Food Where To Get a Jewish Bite in Montreal
Heading north to Montreal this summer? If you’re not, you should be. Aside from being the three months out of the year when the city doesn’t look like a snow globe, summertime is festival time in Montreal. From June until mid-September, the newly laid-out Place des Festivals is aglow with lights, sounds, crowds, music and…
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Opinion Revolt Grows Against ‘Racist’ Chief Rabbi Bids
The race for Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel keeps getting uglier. The lead contender, Safed’s municipal Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, is the subject of a legal investigation by state attorney general Yehuda Weinstein. Weinstein’s action comes in response to a formal complaint by Labor Party lawmaker Eitan Cabel over Eliyahu’s 2010 ban on sale or…
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Fast Forward ‘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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Fast Forward 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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Books 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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