Books & Authors Series

 

From Baghdad to Bombay: In the Kitchens of My Cousins
Wednesday, April 29, 6:30

 

Pearl Sofaer — author, painter, sculptor, singer — takes us on a colorful culinary journey.

Educated in India, England and the U.S., Pearl Sofaer was born, and grew up, in Bombay. Her large family originated in Baghdad and Kirkuk, Iraq, before migrating to Burma and India during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. With family members living on four continents, Pearl has sampled a vast repertoire of recipes, which she has documented in this memoir. Much more than a cookbook, this is a testimony to keeping a culture alive!

Special Tour at 5:45pm: Arrive early for a tour of the Yeshiva University Museum’s new exhibit, From Hodu to Israel: Jews of India, a glimpse into the rich culture of Indian Jews through photographs and artifacts of ritual and daily life.

 

Free for ASF Members; General Admission: $5 at the door. Reservations required. Call 212.294.8350 x.8265 or email info@americansephardifederation.org

 

 

Plumes: Ostrich Feathers, Jews, and a Lost World of Global Commerce Thursday, May 7, 6:30pm

 

Dr. Sarah Abrevaya Stein, author, is Professor of History and holds the Maurice Amado Chair in Sephardic Studies at UCLA
Dr. Valerie Steele, Director and Chief Curator, The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology

Join us for a discussion on Jews and Fashion
through the lens of Dr. Stein’s innovative and intriguing book.

Fashionable women of Europe and America prompted a bustling global trade in ostrich feathers that flourished from the 1880s until WWI, when the feathers fell precipitously out of fashion. Drawing on archival material from three continents, Dr. Stein brings to light the prominent and varied roles of Jews in the feather trade, and tells a remarkably resonant story of a boom and bust market, global commerce, and the rise and fall of a single glamorous luxury item.

 

Free to ASF Members; $5 at the door. Reservations required: 212.294.8350 x 8265, or email info@americansephardifederation.org

 

 

Membership Film Series
A Matter of Time

 

This two-part series relates the little-known story of the Jewish communities of North Africa (Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco) during WW II, revealing how, had fate not intervened, it was only “a matter of time” until they would share the fate of their co-religionists in Europe. Through archival and contemporary footage and stills, and extensive interviews with surviving witnesses and historians, the film depicts Jewish life in North Africa and describes the evidence of plans by German and Italian occupiers to carry out “the final solution” far from the shores of Europe.

 

Part I: From Tripoli to Bergen-Belsen
Director: Marco Carmel – Israel, 2005 – 52 mins. Tunisian & Hebrew with English subtitles
Thursday, May 14, 1:30pm

Libyan and North African Jews never revealed their own war-time experiences: Italian-imposed racial laws, property confiscation, and deportation to Bergen-Belsen. For the first time, this little-known part of Holocaust history is told through personal stories and extensive, rare archival footage.

 

 

 

Part II: Common Fate
Director: Serge Ankri – Israel, 2005 – 52 mins. Hebrew with English subtitles.
Thursday, June 4, 1:30pm

The film describes the institution and impact of racial laws, property confiscation and the establishment of forced labor concentration camps in German occupied Tunis, and under the Vichy regimes in Algeria and Morocco. It relates the general suffering and death of North African Jews as the result of starvation, disease and the violence directed against them.

 

 

Free Admission : ASF Members and a guest (New Members may sign up at the door)
General Admission: $5 at the door for each program

To RSVP: call 212-294-8350 ext. 8265 or email info@americansephardifederation.org

Our thanks to Filmakers Library, Inc. (212.808.4983) for providing the films.