For centuries, the superpowers of the time competed to control Mogador (Essaouira), which became Morocco’s leading port. Colonial influence exerted an amazing effect on the Jews: many thrived and benefited from protection and foreign citizenship. Historian of Moroccan Jewry Sidney Corcos will tell us what made this city unique.
Tuesday 27 April 2021, 7:30 pm UK time. With Maisie Meyer. A virtual tour of India’s ancient Jewish communities: Bene Israel and Cochin Jews, Baghdadi Jews in Bombay and Calcutta, and the much smaller groups of Bene Manashe and Bene Ephraim.
Tuesday 4 May, 7:30 pm UK time Although the smallest of India’s minorities, Jews played as important a role in the world’s largest film industry, Bollywood. Almost all of India’s earliest silent movie stars were female Baghdadi Jews: Salochana, Miss Rose, Pramila and Nadira. Our lecturer Kenneth X Robbins is a psychiatrist, collector of south […]
Tuesday, 11 May 2021 - 7:30pm UK time A ketubah (plural ketubot) has been an integral part of Jewish weddings for over 2,000 years. Written in Aramaic, the traditional text specifies the husband’s financial obligations towards his wife, thus ensuring her protection and security should the marriage end through divorce, desertion, or death. The ketubah is one of the earliest documents granting women legal […]
Thursday, 13 May - the date of the German 1943 Surrender in Tunis. 7:00 pm UK time/ 11:00 am PT/ 2:00 pm ET/ 8:00 pm Europe/ 9:00 pm Israel How did the Holocaust affect the Jews of The Middle East and North Africa? Had the Allies not won the battle of El Alamein in 1942, […]
Wednesday 19 May, 7:30 pm. Interview with diplomat and academic Efrat Sopher about her late grandfather Meir Ezri, an unsung hero. Ezri was appointed by David Ben Gurion and served as Israeli ambassador to Iran for 15 years from 1958 to 1973. His achievements included assisting fleeing Iraqi Jews and marshalling aid for the Qazvin […]
Sunday 30 May, 5 pm UK. Harif (UK association of Middle Eastern & North African (MENA) Jews) and the Montreal’s Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue are joining forces to organise a Zoom commemorative event for the 80th anniversary of the Farhud. The Farhud is the name given to the Shavuot massacre of Jews in Iraq on […]
Tuesday 8 June, 7:30 pm UK time. Did you know that Sephardi Jews from Morocco came to Brazil and Peru from 1810 onwards during the rubber boom, and settled in the Amazon? In the course of his quest for traces of these Jews, our intrepid lecturer Dr Shaul Zadka stumbled, among other oddities, on the […]
Tuesday 15 June, 7:30 pm UK time. Leeds-based Nigel Grizzard, Yorkshire's Jewish Heritage and Tour Guide, has been delving into the Sephardi history of England's largest county: the Turkish merchants who established a Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue in Leeds, the Sephardi Rabbonim who still serve in Yorkshire, the deportation of Leeds Sephardi Jews on the […]
A screening of the hilarious and topical comedy Mechila (FORGIVENESS) is being sponsored in Harif's name as part of the Seret Israeli film festival. A hybrid festival making films accessible online (to book virtually visit the Seret website ) or in person. Socially-distanced seating in the JW3 main hall, London NW3 6ET, Thursday 24 June at 8pm. […]
Tuesday 29 June, 7:30 pm UK time. Jungian psychoanalayst David Gerbi was expelled with his family from Libya in 1967. In 2011, he returned, intending to restore the Al-Bishi synagogue in Tripoli, but had to flee for his life. Threats have not deterred him from his mission of reaching out to the Libyan government and […]
Tuesday 20 July 2021, 7:00 pm UK time. Judeo-Arabic may be considered the premier Diaspora language. For most of the last 1400 years, Arabic, in its Jewish form, was spoken by more Jews than any other language. From the seventh until the end of the seventeenth centuries, the majority of the world's Jews lived in […]
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