Americordo: Italy, Exile, and the New World

April 27-28-29 | AMERICORDO
Italy, Exile, and the New World
04/27 > JCC of Manhattan | 7 pmJournalist Gianna Pontecorboli discusses her research on the Italian Jewish exiles in New York between 1938 and 1945.

04/28 > Italian Cultural Institute | 7 pm Revisiting Italy with Franco Modigliani. Renato Camurri (University of Verona) presents a newly published collection of articles by Franco Modigliani.

04/29 > Italian Academy at Columbia University | 9 am - 5 pm
Centro Primo Levi and The European Institute at Columbia University, under the auspices of the Consulate General of Italy and the Italian Cultural Institute.

Opening remarks Ambassador Richard Gardner and Ira Jolles. Speakers: Victoria De Grazia, John Davis, Renato Camurri, Fraser Ottanelli, Annalisa Capristo. Paola Mieli, Andrew Viterbi, George Sacerdoti, Manuela Yona Paul, Eva Yona Deykin, Guido Calabresi, Vivian Treves, John Tedeschi, Sandro Gerbi, Alexander Stille, Gianna Pontecorboli, Claude Ghez.

In the annals of the Jewish and Italian communities in America there is little mention, if any, of Italian Jews.
Indeed, with hardly any major figures in the 19th century and fewer than two thousand individuals forced to emigrate in 1938 by the Fascist racial laws, the arrival of Italian Jews in the New World is not a phenomenon that allows a general study. Since the late 1990s, however, many memoirs have been written, and a story that does not quite fit any categorization has begun to emerge. |  Full program

 

April 15 | Secular, Modern, and Sacred
Biblical Images and Secular Representations: The Performance of Antiquity in Contemporary Israeli Culture
6:30 pm | Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street. NYC

Yael Zerubavel, Rutgers University
The Bible contributed to the shaping of Israeli national identity and culture during its formative years and the early decades following the foundation of the state. Biblical images, symbols and themes were reinterpreted, secularized, and transformed in Israeli official iconography, literature, art, and popular culture. The discussion of the changing attitudes toward the Bible provides a distinct lens to understanding major trends within contemporary Israeli culture. Read

 

April 26 | Evelina Meghnagi in a Rare Appearance at the Italian Cultural Institute  7:00 pm | Italian Cultural Institute, 686 Park Avenue

In the intimate salon setting of the Italian Cultural Institute Ms. Meghnagi will present a fascinating mix of languages and music, melodies and rhythms from archaic and contemporary worlds.
Read

Le voile intégral bientôt interdit dans les rues de Belgique

En Belgique, les principaux partis se sont entendus rapidement sur la nécessité 

d'interdire tout vêtement recouvrant le visage sur «la voie publique».

La Belgique devrait franchir mercredi une étape décisive vers l'interdiction du port du voile islamique intégral dans l'«espace public», et donc y compris dans la rue et pas uniquement dans certains lieux et services publics comme la France s'apprête à le faire. suite>>

Islamist Gülen Movement Runs U.S. Charter Schools

by Stephen Schwartz
American Thinker

A secretive foreign network of Islamic radicals now operates dozens of charter schools — which receive government money but are not required to adopt a state-approved curriculum — on U.S. soil. The inspirer of this conspiratorial effort is Fethullah Gülen, who directs a major Islamist movement in Turkey and the Turkish diaspora, but lives in the United States. He is number 13 among the world's "50 most influential Muslims" according to one prominent listing.

But in startling news for Americans, the Gülen movement operates more than 85 primary and secondary schools on our soil. A roster of the Gülen schools and of the numerous foundations that support them has been released to the public by the patriotic group Act! for America. The Gülen schools are often designated as "science academies" and are concentrated in Texas, Ohio, and California — with others scattered across the rest of the country.  continued>>

If women ruled the world

Female power is touted as the fix-it for all our ills -- from Wall St. to the Catholic Church. What gives?

 excerpt:

"Of course, women should be leaders -- not because they're magical elves who can fix everything overnight, but because, if you only hire men, you deprive yourself of talent. But there are plenty of incompetent women, too. Women who take risks, sometimes stupid ones. Women who alienate people. Women who value career over principle. Women are people. Some reform healthcare; some bomb trains. Putting women in charge of everything is not a magical cure-all. Some would be excellent at their jobs, some would screw up. The truth is, if we put women in charge of everything, it would be a mixed bag. It would probably be a lot like today.  "  Read the whole article

There Is No Women's Movement

Whatever money you have given Planned Parenthood, NOW, and NARAL has gone for naught. All you have to do is ask where were these women's groups during the health care fight, when they got beat by a minority in Congress led by one man? As for the Democratic Party, the majority of members, who has always told us it supports women's rights were played like fiddles. The so called progressives and "pro-choice caucus" in Congress rendered silent by the few. Speaker Pelosi... well, she served up Rep. Bart Stupak as the hero of health care. However, the Hyde Amendment didn't have to be codified in health care legislation, but that's what happened, because women had no champions in Congress. more>>

Door to Afterlife from Ancient Egyptian Tomb Found by Archaeologists

A nearly six-foot-tall (1.75 meters) slab of pink granite

 used as a false door in the tomb of User. AP Photo/Supreme Council of Antiquities.

CAIRO (AP).- Archaeologists have unearthed a 3,500-year-old door to the afterlife from the tomb of a high-ranking Egyptian official near Karnak temple in Luxor, the Egyptian antiquities authority said Monday.

These recessed niches found in nearly all ancient Egyptian tombs were meant to take the spirits of the dead to and from the afterworld. The nearly six-foot- tall (1.75 meters) slab of pink granite was covered with religious texts.

The door came from the tomb of User, the chief minister of Queen Hatshepsut, a powerful, long ruling 15th century B.C. queen from the New Kingdom with a famous mortuary temple near Luxor in southern Egypt.  User held the position of vizier for 20 years, also acquiring the titles of prince and mayor of the city, according to the inscriptions. He may have inherited his position from his father. continued>>

Les femmes kamikazes: l'arme de choix des rebelles en Russie

Les femmes kamikazes, à l'origine selon les autorités russes, des attentats de lundi à Moscou, ont régulièrement ensanglanté la Russie ces dix dernières années. Mues par la vengeance ou engagées contre leur gré, elles sont l'arme privilégiée de la rébellion islamiste du Caucase du Nord.

 Les Moscovites sont en état de choc après les attentats qui ont

secoué la ville en pleine heure de pointe, attribués à deux femmes kamikazes.

La tête et des parties du corps d'une des terroristes kamikazes présumées ont été découvertes lundi dans la station de métro moscovite Park Koultoury.

«C'était une jeune femme de 18-20 ans, au visage typique du Caucase et aux yeux marrons», a indiqué une source au sein des forces de l'ordre citée par l'agence Interfax. suite>>

Moadim LeSimha

from Asher Mattathias

Obama célèbre la Pâque juive à la Maison Blanche

Son père était musulman, lui-même est protestant, et il célèbre la Pâque juive... Pour la deuxième année consécutive, Barack Obama a invité ses proches, famille et collaborateurs, à un dîner de Séder à la Maison Blanche, le repas rituel du premier soir de la Pâque juive, lors duquel on remémore l’exode d’Egypte et la libération des Hébreux. Il n’est pas rare aux Etats-Unis que des non-juifs prennent place à la table du Séder, mais Barack Obama est le premier président américain à introduire ce rituel à la Maison Blanche et y participer avec toute sa famille : Michelle Obama, Sasha et Malia, leurs deux filles, seront ce soir de la fête, comme l’an dernier, en compagnie d’une quinzaine d’amis et conseillers. Selon le New York Times, qui a enquêté sur le sujet, les fillettes Obama jouent le rôle traditionnellement dévolu aux enfants juifs : elles posent les quatre questions sur le sens de cette célébration et cherchent la matza… cachée dans la salle à manger de la Maison Blanche. En septembre dernier, Obama avait aussi organisé un repas de Ramadan à la Maison Blanche, mais c'était là un exercice beaucoup plus classique, qui n'avait rien d'intime: il y avait invité ministres, ambassadeurs et leaders de la communauté musulmane américaine. suite>>

Egypt: no religious services in Jewish synagogue

CAIRO: There will be no religious services for the newly renovated Maimonides Synagogue, Egypt’s Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawass said over the weekend. It comes after much fanfare over the completion and a controversial celebration by Egypt’s small Jewish community at the synagogue.
Hawass said that Egypt “will not open it for the visit and establishment of Jewish prayers.”
He argued that during the 6th Scientific Forum of the Islamic Monuments that his decision to close the temple comes as a reaction to Israeli practices and attacks on Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem. continued>>

The Doha Debates: Fatah vs Hamas

47 minutes well spent

Doha Debates features Fatah and Hamas debating reconciliation and the future of the resistance

Happy Passover

sent by Shimon Ouziel

Saudi poet Hissa Hilal

sent by Joe Rossano

I listened to her in a TV interview.   She's very smart, open minded, and quite tolerant, and no discrimination toward any religion or country.  She denounced the religious injustices toward women in Muslim countries, among other things, she question why a man can have more than one wife, and go marry younger women, after his first wife devoted her entire life taking care of him and the family .  The reason she's wearing the veil is to protect her husband and her relatives from the bigots who certainly would harm them.  She likes to read Dickens, Tolstoy and other classics,   She has a good chance to win the one million dollars prize, 28 of the 30 judges voted for her.  There's one more final appearance .   I wish her good luck

Jojo

Saudi woman poet lashes out at clerics in 'Arabic Idol'

Abu Dhabi judges praise courage of writer who dared to criticize hardliners

By Archie Bland

Wednesday, 24 March 2010

 

AP

Hissa Hilal, from Saudi Arabia, recites one of her poems on The Million's Poet, broadcast live every week across the Arab world

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-woman-poet-lashes-out-at-clerics-in-arabic-idol-1926176.html

Veiled Saudi woman poet blasts clerics on live TV Reported by NDTV.com on Tuesday, 23 March 2010 (5 days ago)

Covered head-to-toe in black, a Saudi woman lashed out at hard-line Muslim clerics' harsh religious edicts in verse on live TV at a popular Arabic version of "American Idol." http://www.onenewspage.com/news/World/20100323/9395292/Veiled-Saudi-woman-poet-blasts-clerics-on-live.htm http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/On-TV-veiled-woman-spews-verse-at-clerics/articleshow/5717430.c

Eric Zemmour, "les noirs", "les arabes", et la polémique nationale

Cest désormais "LAffaire Zemmour" : après les propos du chroniqueur sur la délinquance, les "noirs et les arabes", le débat devient national : Jusquou peut aller un polémiste ? A Paris, lavocat général soutient Eric Zemmour. A voir aussi : Fillon privé de JT, Bataille pour Versailles, Des orties dans l'assiette

Peace X Peace Weekly Blog Digest: March 22nd - 26th, 2010

Week X Week CSW: Week in Review

Commentary by Alicia Simoni, Community Manager and Staff Writer

After a week amidst the hustle and bustle of New York City, I am back in quaint Washington, DC . . . with time to process my experiences at the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) meetings at the United Nations last week. . . .

The power of CSW rests as much in the 8,000+ participants and associated civil society meetings as in the official reports and declarations. The opportunity to meet women from around the world and to learn about their work was awe-inspiring. Below are some of the highlights.

* * *

Imagine you are an adolescent girl who was brutally gang raped by soldiers of the military junta that rules your country. You survive only to be caned by your teachers for degrading the reputation of the school and are then sentenced to a year in prison for prostitution. You are raped again and again in prison. This and much worse is the reality today for women and girls in Burma. The Women's League of Burma, with the support of the Nobel Women's Initiative, organized an international tribunal with testimony from 12 Burmese women . . .

What can you do to help women in Burma?

Read and Respond »

Voices From The Frontlines

Debbie Hines, Esq., USA Women's Her Story Month

Iraqi women went to the polls and were on the ballot on March 7, 2010. American women were granted the right to vote in 1920. March is Women's History Month. I call it Her Story Month. We celebrate our history, our successes, and look forward to our future. While much has been gained, there's still so much more to do. President Obama, in noting March as Women's History Month, stated we "must correct persisting inequities" facing women in every sphere.

Read and Respond »

Alaha Ahrar, Afghanistan Tastes of Home in a Faraway Land

I am a sophomore at Mary Washington University in Virginia, so, this was the second year that I participated in a very special Intersession [winter break] Program. Mrs. Paula Nirschel, founder of the Initiative to Educate Afghan Women (IEAW), rented three houses near the beach in Emerald Isle, North Carolina, for Afghan female students and one house for IEAW staff, who are also women. The other Afghan students and I cooked different types of traditional Afghan food and played all those games which are appropriate for Afghan women in our culture. Ginger, one of the staff, taught us how to do yoga again this year. She loves Rumi, the greatest poet of Afghanistan, and always ends our classes with reciting a poem from Rumi . . .

Read and Respond »

Building Peace, Person by Person International Women's Day: why it's necessary

Biweekly peace post by Patricia Smith Melton, Peace X Peace Founder and Board President

Holidays are time-linked Post-its to remind us of people and events we might otherwise forget. In that sense, International Women's Day is the same as other days named for this or that person, movement, or social concept.

Valentine's Day = love and appreciation. Martin Luther King Day = nonviolence and equality. Secretary's Day = recognition that others hold you together. Fourth of July = freedom is valuable. Religious holidays = connection to something larger than the visible.

And International Woman's Day equals what? It's more in the Labor Day category. Workers deserve to be recognized for building the world we live in. Women are the people who most build families, cultures, and communities, at home and outside the home. We are the connective tissue of social bodies, essential and taken for granted. . . .

Read and Respond »

Bookshelf - Reading Orientalism: Said and the Unsaid

by Daniel Martin Varisco
Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007. 501 pp. $90 ($30, paper).

Edward Said's reputation as a serious scholar has taken heavy blows in recent years, and those with a vested interest in Saidism have been busy attempting to repair the damage. Varisco's Reading Orientalism: Said and the Unsaid is one such attempt. If the Said apologists are finding it increasingly difficult to overlook the rhetoric of Said's Orientalism[1] in the wake of an ever-growing number of works that have exposed its faults—culminating with Ibn Warraq's A Defense of the West,[2] they show no signs of going gentle into the inevitable good night, and the book by Varisco, a professor of anthropology at Hofstra University, attempts mightily to buoy up Said's sinking reputation as the sage of post-colonialism.

The main problem Said's apologists face is Orientalism's being little more than a straw man argument; the biased, ethnically supremacist, cultural imperative that Said sketches is exaggerated at best and fabricated at worst. Unlike most Saidists, however, who ignore the misstatements, exaggerations, and fabrications, Varisco duly acknowledges them, making his approach unique. He claims to regret Said's methodology while supporting his task and his politics. The result is a very peculiar read, both for its remarkably self-conscious narrative and the certainty that it is addressing a sympathetic audience. Varisco seems convinced that he has written a very important book. continued>>

Happy Pesach from the SEC

Jaffa, l'orange de la discorde

Eyal Sivan, réalisateur de La mécanique de l'orange. : France 5

Documentaire. L'histoire de l'orange de Jaffa, consommée dans le monde entier, témoigne du temps où Juifs et Arabes vivaient en bonne entente.

Appelée « pomme d'or » en hébreu, l'orange a été le symbole de la Palestine avant de devenir celui d'Israël. Au XIXe siècle et dans la première partie du XXe siècle, Juifs et Arabes, chrétiens ou musulmans, cultivaient ensemble les orangeraies, exportées de l'antique port de Jaffa vers l'Europe.

Palestiniens et Israéliens témoignent de cette « époque où l'on ne s'entretuait pas «, dans un documentaire intitulé Jaffa, la mécanique de l'orange. «On ne pensait pas qu'il était impossible de vivre ensemble. Nous dépendions les uns des autres. Voilà ce que je peux dire sur nous, les orangeraies et nos cousins », confie Shlomo Risman, membre de la Fédération des agriculteurs d'Israël. suite>>

For a Sweeter Passover, Old and New Sephardic Delights

excerpt:

''We have found examples of these cookies from 1491,'' said David M. Gitlitz, professor of Hispanic culture at the University of Rhode Island. After the expulsion, he said, a Jew who was passing as a Christian ''was accused by the Inquisition of buying almond cookies from the Jewish quarter in Barbastri in Aragón.''

Mrs. Bensadón began gathering recipes at 17, when her mother died. ''I realized then that I wanted my mother's recipes,'' she said. ''But they weren't written down.''
So she visited her grandmother and aunts and carefully transcribed the art of making sweets like letuarios, candied eggplants, squash and tomatoes that she describes in her book.

She gathered more recipes from the tight-knit Jewish community in Tangiers. She wrote to an in-law in Bulgaria, who sent back recipes written in Ladino, a language of Sephardic Jews. Then her search spread around the world to Jewish cooks in Colombia, Montreal, Venezuela and Israel who traced their roots to Spain.

 Read the whole article in the NY Times

An Iranian Seder in Beverly Hills

Amy Dickerson for The New York Times

Lauren Maddahi looks over the table before dinner is served.

Related 

Recipe: Almond Cake With Cardamom and Pistachio

Recipe: Sweet and Sour Stuffed Grape Leaves (March 24, 2010)

Recipe: Hallaq (Persian Charoset) (March 24, 2010)

Times Topics: Passover Recipes

Amy Dickerson for The New York Times

Angela Maddahi displays an almond Passover cake that is studded with pistachios and scented with cardamom.

Amy Dickerson for The New York Times

Moussa Kohan and his father, Aziz Kohan, some of the guests at a recent Shabbat dinner at the home of Nazy Maddahi.

Amy Dickerson for The New York Times

Sweet and sour stuffed grape leaves. 

YOU might say that Maryam Maddahi and her relatives hold a dry run for the Passover Seder every Friday night, when they have a rotating Sabbath dinner for four dozen to five dozen family members.

It’s a common practice for the family, as it is for their fellow Iranian Jews in Southern California, who began settling there after the fall of the Shah in 1979. The population has grown to about 40,000.

Iran has one of the oldest known Jewish communities, going back over 2,500 years to when Jews fled the land of Israel after the destruction of the First Temple. “We take pride in the country of Persia,” said Mrs. Maddahi, who will host the first Seder on Monday night. “It was an old monarchy, with thousands of years of history.”

On a recent night here at Ms. Maddahi’s home, some 60 family members were listening and dancing to Persian music performed by a violinist to celebrate the birthdays of Mrs. Maddahi and another relative, Younes Nazarian. The guests, talking mostly in Farsi, nibbled on pistachios, plump dates, nuts and raisins, signs of welcome in Iran.

“Food and feasts were a part of life for us,” said Angella Nazarian, one of Mrs. Maddahi’s daughters, who has just published a memoir of the Iranian Jews’ arrival in the United States, titled “Life as a Visitor” (Assouline Publishing). “Jewish people never do anything without food. There needs to be plenty and varied dishes fit for a party of 100 people in order to really call it a dinner party — even if only 20 people are invited.”

The dining table held platters of appetizers including a display of raw scallions, fresh mint, tarragon and dill and Mrs. Maddahi’s extraordinary grape leaves stuffed with rice and barberries and topped with Iranian golden prunes and apricots, a recipe she learned long ago from her mother in Tehran. continued>>

Number of 'Seder Sack' deliveries rise during Passover with economic hard times

When Mike Pearl sits down with his family tonight at his Passover Seder in San Jose, he'll be feasting on chicken, matzo ball soup and macaroons, just like most other Jews celebrating their freedom.

Much of his meal, however, will be donated.
The laid-off Microsoft senior strategy consultant faces the same problems as anyone struggling to make ends meet in tough economic times. But during Passover there is an additional issue, the special — and pricey — kosher foods Jews eat for eight days to commemorate the exodus from slavery in Egypt.
The larger Jewish community has always helped out needy members during the holiday, but the need is growing astronomically.
"Many of our donors and volunteers are now out of jobs and in need of assistance themselves,'' said Mindy Berkowitz, executive director of Jewish Family Services of Silicon Valley. more>>

Abbas veut l'arrêt de la colonisation d'Israël

«Nous ne pouvons pas tenir des négociations indirectes tant qu'Israël n'arrête pas totalement ses activités de colonisation à Jérusalem et ne met pas fin à sa politique du fait accompli», a dit Mahmoud Abbas devant les dirigeants arabes.

 

Quatorze chefs d'Etat sur les 22 membres de la Ligue arabe participent au sommet ordinaire annuel, le premier à se tenir chez le sulfureux numéro un libyen Mouammar Kadhafi, et duquel sont absents deux poids lourds de la région, le Saoudien Abdallah et l'Egyptien Hosni Moubarak.

Réunis dans la ville méditerranéenne de Syrte, à 500 km à l'est de Tripoli, les dirigeants arabes ont eu en soirée une rencontre à huis clos axée sur une proposition du chef de la Ligue arabe Amr Moussa d'engager un dialogue avec l'Iran, en crise avec l'Occident sur le dossier nucléaire.

Selon le programme, le sommet doit reprendre dimanche vers 10h00 locales et s'achever par une conférence de presse vers 14h30. suite>>

20 Things To Do With Matzah

The Rise of Islamo-Erotica

by Betwa Sharma
Ignoring the prohibition of nudity, Muslim artists—many of them women—are now defying religious tenets by painting naked models in pinup poses. 


One of Hanan Tabbara’s most provocative sketches is a charcoal and pastel drawing of blood pouring out of a woman’s vagina. She made it after a close friend was raped, and later uploaded it as her Facebook profile picture. For two years now, the 20-year-old, political science student from Brooklyn has been drawing nudes. “I’m aware that it is prohibited but it doesn't bother me,” Tabbara says.

Below are a few of the twenty paintings; to see the entire gallery, click here.

Ms. April

Image: Makan Emadi

Women of my homeland victims of: Holy Discrimination

Image: PERSEPOLITAN NETWORKS image by: Amir Normandi "30Y" collection

Women of my homeland in: Compulsory Tango

Image: PERSEPOLITAN NETWORKS image by: Amir Normandi "30Y" collection

Women of my homeland victims of: Traditional Oppression

Image: PERSEPOLITAN NETWORKS image by: Amir Normandi "30Y" collection

Egyptian music: 'Zar' tradition gives women a rare moment at center stage

At a small arts studio in downtown Cairo, women carry on tradition of centuries-old Egyptian music. Egypt has only about 25 remaining performers of zar, which became threatened after religious hard-liners deemed it un-Islamic.

Performers of zar, a centuries-old tradition of Egyptian music put on a show in Cairo.

KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/Getty Images/Newscom/File

Madiha bobs her veiled head and sways her body to the drumbeats played by the barefoot Sabah behind her, whose big, dangly, gold-colored earrings and nose ring glimmer in the pale light. The music rises to a crescendo and the spectators crowded into this small arts studio in downtown Cairo become entranced by the energy and rhythms of a centuries-old musical tradition from the borderland between southern Egypt and Sudan that is on the cusp of fading into the annals of history.

Zar, a song and dance ritual that historically has been used as a healing rite, is the only musical tradition from Egypt in which women hold the most important roles. In fact, the act itself is intended to be a mode through which women can experience freedom and release anxieties and tensions without being restricted by the social norms of their conservative Upper Egyptian culture. more>>

"Among the Righteous: Lost Stories From the Holocaust in Arab Lands"

sent by Robert Satloff

"AMONG THE RIGHTEOUS:
LOST STORIES FROM THE HOLOCAUST IN ARAB LANDS"

 

A new documentary film based on the book by Robert Satloff

Directed by Emmy-award winner William Cran
Narrated by Robert MacNeil, former anchor and executive editor,
MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Special New York Premier: Thursday, April 8, 2010

PBS World Television Premier: Monday, April 12, 2010

Did any Arabs save Jews during the Holocaust?

Seeking a hopeful response to the problems of Holocaust ignorance and denial in the Arab world, and in the wake of 9/11, Middle East expert Robert Satloff set out on what would become an eight-year journey to find an Arab hero whose story would change the way Arabs view Jews, themselves, and their own history. Along the way, Rob Satloff found not only the Arab heroes for whom he started his quest but a vast, lost history of what actually happened to the half-million Jews of the Arab lands of North Africa under Nazi, Vichy, and Fascist rule.

Produced by MacNeil/Lehrer Productions and filmed on location in Tunisia, Morocco, France, Israel, and the United States, the surprising discoveries chronicled in this film are already challenging how both Arabs and Jews view a long-forgotten chapter of the darkest moment in modern times.

---

World Television Premiere

Monday, April 12, 2010
10:00 p.m. (ET) on PBS

Check your local PBS station schedules to confirm date and time of broadcast
Part of the PBS Holocaust Remembrance Collection

---

New York Premier

Thursday, April 8, 2010
7:00 p.m.

Florence Gould Hall Theater
French Institute Alliance Francaise
55 East 59th Street
Between Park & Madison Avenues
New York, NY

Limited Seating Available - Reserve Seats Now!
RSVP to AmongtheRighteousNYpremiere@gmail.com
Include your full name an dnumber of tickets (maximum four per reservation)

---

Robert Satloff is executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and host of Dakhil Washington (Inside Washington), a weekly public affairs program on al-Hurra Arabic satellite television network. Since the publication of Among the Righteous, Dr. Satloff and his work have been awarded the Anti-Defamation League's prestigious Daniel Pearl Award for tolerance promotion as well as national prizes from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Touro Synagogue.

Daughters of Sara, Mothers of Israel: Jewish Women of Medieval Gerona

Lecture: ASF is pleased to join with The Catalan Center at NYU for the first of two lectures on the Jews of Catalonia. We welcome Sylvia Planas, Director of the Institut d'Estudis Nahmànides and the Museum of Jewish History of Girona.

Admission: $5 general at door, ASF members, students free, reservations at 212-294-8350 x. 0 or info@americansephardifederation.org.

Strained U.S.-Israel Relations

Link TV's Middle East analyst and award-winning producer, Jamal Dajani, gives his weekly unique perspective and insight on major newsworthy stories.

Logements: "Israël doit renoncer"

AFP
26/03/2010 

Le secrétaire général de la Ligue arabe, Amr Moussa, a affirmé à Syrte en Libye que l'ouverture de négociations indirectes avec Israël "dépendait" de l'annulation par l'Etat hébreu de sa décision de construire 1.600 logements à Jérusalem-Est.

"La position arabe est très claire: les négociations (avec Israël) dépendent du gel de la colonisation et en particulier de l'annulation de la décision israélienne de construire 1.600 logements à Jérusalem-Est", a déclaré M. Moussa à des journalistes.

Il a indiqué que le sommet arabe, qui s'ouvre samedi, adopterait une résolution sur la position arabe en ce qui concerne les négociations indirectes entre Israël et les Palestiniens.

Non, les Juifs ne sont pas des victimes éternelles !

Les quatre mots claquent sur la couverture, La souffrance comme identité. La concision du titre  ne saurait cependant amoindrir ni la richesse ni l’originalité de la thèse principale de l’auteure : trop souvent, l’identité juive est étouffée par le thème de la souffrance. En l’espace de cinq chapitres, la spécialiste de l’histoire du judaïsme assène une démonstration qui devrait en déranger plus d’un, tant le terrain de l’identité juive est devenu miné. Tout y passe, ou presque, et on peut considérer a posteriori son  opuscule sorti à l’automne dernier, Etre juif après Gaza, comme un contrepoint au présent ouvrage. Les souffrances vécues par le peuple juif, et ressassées par certains, ont, selon Esther Benbassa, été utilisées par des argumentaires visant à justifier les exactions commises à l’encontre des Palestiniens. suite>>

La souffrance comme identité

Esther Benbassa

Éditeur : Hachette Littératures

Memories Of Pessah In Egypt

by Joe Rossano

 

My  perennial  message  "Memories Of Pessah In Egypt"  is  for wishing you all , and your loved ones,  a safe and  Happy Passover holiday.  And  to cordially  invite you  to my Seder.  I'll set the table, and expect that each  of you  will bring  no less than  six dishes, more is preferable . My refrigerator is big enough, and I got plenty of room for leftovers.

   

Memories Of Pessah In Egypt

That time already! This is another occasion to transport us from the present to the past.

Who can forget the hectic activities taking place simultaneously in every Jewish kitchen in preparation of the much anticipated holiday meals. All the extensions on the formal dining table were set in advance to accommodate a mosaic of dishes assembled for the ritual. 

What is the secret of this amassing of dishes? Just the traditional exchanges of dishes between neighbors and family. Each dish giver sent her special concoction to everyone else in the circle. Then, amazingly and without confusion, the empty containers were refilled and returned to their points of origin with requests for the recipe. 

How were the dishes created? The science of cloning? No, from treasured family recipes. Much pride and reputation were at stake behind these sumptuous epicurean ambassadors wending their way from household to household. Yes, the good old family recipe, which somehow survived an imprecise method of swapping over the years. 

In a recipe, usually the only known quantity was the main ingredient. The add-ons, condiments, and other seasonings? The recipe giver would indicate a soupcon of this, a generous pinch of that and ... "Well, use your own taste and judgment" as the quantities of other ingredients. 

"How long do I cook it?" was the inevitable question.

The reply invariably was: "Cook it until it's done."

"How will I know when it's done?"

"You'll know," said the recipe giver. 

That's how many of the recipes for culinary masterpieces and signature dishes were transmitted, and to the chagrin of the aficionados, almost impossible to duplicate.

"Yours always turns out best," said the mother talking to someone on the telephone.

The daughter, listening to the telephone conversation, whispers, "No, Mom, yours is better!" (With Mom adequately buttered up, it was a perfect time to ask for a couple of hours extension to next week-end curfew!) 

The custom was to return empty containers filled with some special treat. However, call it phenomenon, quirk, subliminal, or whatever, fate had it that in one particular year, the universal coin of the realm, or the non "Hametz " currency, used during the holiday exchange became "coconut jam." Yes, coconut jam was coming from everywhere, even from new-comers to the circle. This situation created havoc and distress in our household because our master plan that year was to refill the empty containers with the heavenly stuff and return them with a thank you and compliment: "Your dish was fantastic and here is something extra good that you will enjoy." But how could we send coconut jam as a thank you for coconut jam received? It was a true dilemma! That year, we knew very clearly one of the answers to the begging question, "Why is this night different from all others?" For that year on, in reminiscences of Holidays past, a point of reference was always: "before or after the year of the coconut jam affair."

Alas! Since I cannot duplicate the coconut jam recipe satisfactorily, instead I send my warmest wishes to all the readers and their families, friends and loved  ones . I expect to receive at least one dish from each  reader . 

Happy and Safe Pessah! 

Joe Rossano

Copyright Joe Rossano (a.k.a "La Gargoulette").  All rights reserved.  This material may not be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the copyright holder.. 

Great article about Passover celebration in Egypt by  Claudia Roden  

  

Food: To the manna born

The Passover Seder meal which celebrates the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt was, for us children in Cairo during the late Forties and early Fifties, an exhilarating occasion with an ambiguous comic touch. 

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-to-the-manna-born-1084926.html   

" Pesach (Passover) was a joyful period of frenetic activity, beginning with weeks of cleaning, whitewashing, the selling of hametz (leaven, fermented dough and grain which is forbidden in Jewish households during Passover) to Muslim neighbours, and the acquisition of matzos which were produced in large round sheets in a Jewish bakery in Mit Ghamr.

I remember quite well how  we used to wet the large round sheets, add cheese or jam, and rolled them to make sandwiches .  They were  also  perfect for making 'mayinas'

Special offer from Jojo's boutique: For each Seder plate you order, you get a free matching yarmulka and a lapel pin

       

      

    

           

     

        

Parting of the sea

JOJO