Sephardic Jews
The Latest
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Fast Forward Why Amsterdam’s Spectacular Sephardic Jewel Goes Candle-Lit For Yom Kippur
(JTA) — As one of Europe’s oldest and most impressive Jewish buildings, this city’s Portuguese Synagogue is known far and wide for its majestic beauty. Its architect is said to have drawn inspiration from Solomon’s Temple. While the Portuguese Synagogue was later eclipsed by even larger and more magnificent shuls — like the one on…
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Community Your Ultimate Guide To The Laws Of Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur Eve And Teshuva (Repentance) • The guiding rule in observing Yom Kippur is maintaining a balance between respecting the sanctity of the day and one’s physical health. • According to Shulhan Arukh (Code of Jewish Law), the practice of doing Kapparot with chickens should be eliminated. • We must ask for forgiveness and reconcile with…
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Community 713 Sephardic Jews Obtain Portuguese Citizenship
About 8,800 persons have applied for Portuguese citizenship since the start of a program that enables Sephardim from other countries who can prove their Jewish-Portuguese heritage to obtain nationality, and 713 have been successful in their effort. Only 1 candidate has so far been turned down. The program began in December of 2014, and applications…
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News When Sephardic Salonica Burned A Century Ago — Only To Be Destroyed Again
(JTA) — A century ago, on Aug. 18, 1917, a massive fire roared through the Mediterranean port city of Salonica, Greece, then home to the largest and most dynamic Ladino-speaking Sephardi Jewish community in the world. According to local legend, the fire erupted one Sabbath afternoon amid World War I when the coals of a…
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Food The Secret Jewish History Of Rum
Today is National Rum Day. Little-known fact: Rum has some very Jewish origins. Sure, it’s not the syrupy, cloyingly sweet atrocity known as Manischewitz. But rum, which is derived from the molasses of sugarcane, was perfected by Jews escaping another atrocity: the Inquisition. In the year 1500, Brazil was claimed by the Portuguese and many…
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News This 400-Year-Old Jewish Library Survived The Inquisition — And Hitler
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Livraria Ets Haim is the world’s oldest functioning Jewish library. As such, it is no stranger to the prospect of imminent destruction. Founded in 1616 by Jews who fled Catholic persecution in Spain and Portugal, the three-room library is adjacent to Amsterdam’s majestic Portuguese Synagogue in the Dutch capital’s center. The 30,000-volume collection…
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Fast Forward Fallout For England’s Top Sephardic Rabbi Over Statements About Homosexuality
(JTA) — The United Kingdom’s top Sephardic rabbi has “stepped aside from the day-to-day activity” of the country’s Sephardi rabbinical court amid a furor over his statements about homosexuality. Rabbi Joseph Dweck, who serves as senior rabbi at London’s S&P Sephardi Community, came under fire after saying at a lecture last month that societal acceptance of homosexuality…
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Community Sorry, Rabbis: Gay Men Can’t Be Happy With Women — I Married One And I Know
As some in the Sephardi world stand in an uproar as one rabbi opens a dialog around homosexuality, I am grief stricken. Rabbi Joseph Dweck, Chief Rabbi of the Spanish Portuguese community in London, recently gave a class discussing homosexuality in the context of Jewish texts. His words in no way permitted that which is…
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