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, […]
Torah Thoughts Informed by my AshkeSephard Worldview
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Once upon a time one of the most noticeable features of Western Sephardic worship was their distinctive talet, the prayer shawl worn by men during prayer. The S&P talet stood […]
Narratives are important. The same series of events can take on a completely different meaning depending on how they are told. A prime example of this is the story of Yosef and […]
Jewish convention has it that when setting up a new Jewish community the first priority is to acquire a Jewish burial ground, then to establish a place of worship, and then […]
The joke goes that the shortest book in history is on the subject of Jews in sports. Historians claim, however, that the first modern day sports hero was actually a […]
King Solomon describes the ideal woman in his acrostic poem ‘Eshet Hayil (Proverbs 31:10).’ His female model, though, may come as a bit of a surprise. He describes her as a working woman, labouring […]