Tu B’Ab – Sephardic Love and Independence
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 […]
Author Archives: shalommorris
Debarim – Traveling the S&P
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 […]
Mas’ei – Port Cities of Refuge
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, […]
Passover and the Splitting of the S&P
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 […]
Sephardic Women: The Heroes of the S&P
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. […]
Shofetim – Cutting Down Trees, People, and Monuments
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 […]
Tisha B’Ab 2017 – 200 Years Since Disraeli’s Apostasy
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 […]
Sha’are Ratzon – Jerusalem, Israel
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’ […]
Yerushalayim – When Jerusalem Was Sephardic
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 […]
Sephardic Jews and the American Revolution
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 […]
