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Author Archives: shalommorris

Tu B’Ab – Sephardic Love and Independence

July 27, 2018by shalommorris Leave a comment

The 15th day of the Jewish month of Av is a minor festival called Tu B’Ab. It is considered a joyous day, when in Biblical times young people went out […]

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Torah

Debarim – Traveling the S&P

July 20, 2018by shalommorris 2 Comments

Over the past ten years I’ve visited about fifty sites relating to the history of the S&P. These include historic and living synagogues, cemeteries, schools, and locations in Spain and […]

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Torah, Travels

Mas’ei – Port Cities of Refuge

July 13, 2018by shalommorris 6 Comments

Port cities are central to the history of the Spanish & Portuguese Jews. To escape the Inquisition the Western Sephardim found safety in international centres of trade, such as Amsterdam, […]

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Torah

Passover and the Splitting of the S&P

April 8, 2018by shalommorris 6 Comments

On the 7th day of Pesah 1827, at London’s Bevis Marks Synagogue, the reading of the spitting of the sea also split the congregation. Typically, Haham Raphael Meldola read the […]

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Academics, Torah

Sephardic Women: The Heroes of the S&P

March 8, 2018by shalommorris 2 Comments

In the 19th century five remarkable Sephardic women laboured to preserve Jewish life. They defended it from threats of conversion, assimilation and change, and they did so with the pen. […]

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Musings

Shofetim – Cutting Down Trees, People, and Monuments

September 6, 2017by shalommorris Leave a comment

Monuments mean something. They remind us of people and history. Sometimes they recall movements that are meaningful to some whilst not to others. Other times, they celebrate dictators or regimes. More […]

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Musings, Torah

Tisha B’Ab 2017 – 200 Years Since Disraeli’s Apostasy

July 31, 2017by shalommorris 1 Comment

This year’s Tisha B’Ab marks 200 years since Benjamin Disraeli converted to Christianity. On 31 July 1817, Isaac Disraeli brought his son Benjamin to the baptismal font. Following a feud […]

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Torah

Sha’are Ratzon – Jerusalem, Israel

July 27, 2017by shalommorris Leave a comment

I recently visited one of the world’s newest S&P congregations, and it couldn’t be located in a better place! The congregation’s home is the Istanbuli Synagogue in the historic ‘Four Sephardi Synagogues’ […]

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Travels

Yerushalayim – When Jerusalem Was Sephardic

July 20, 2017by shalommorris 5 Comments

 Yerushalayim used to be a Sephardic town. Following the ravages of the Crusades, Sephardim led the way in restoring the Holy Land’s Jewish character. In the wake of the Spanish […]

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Travels

Sephardic Jews and the American Revolution

June 29, 2017by shalommorris Leave a comment

The American Revolution pitted British subjects against one another. Patriots vs. Loyalists, Englishmen vs. Americans, brother vs. brother, and Jew vs. Jew. At that time there were only Sephardic congregations […]

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Musings, Torah

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Welcome to the world of Shalom Morris, PhD candidate, Headteacher, and Rabbi of Bevis Marks Synagogue in London

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