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The Erasure of Sephardic Jewry

JL;DR SUMMARY Sruli Fruchter discusses the marginalization of Sephardic Jewry within mixed Ashkenazi-Sephardic communities in the United States. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Jewish HistoryJewish EducationJewish LawAshkenazi JewsSephardic JewsCultural IntegrationMizrahi JewsIdentity PreservationSephardic TraditionsCommunity Recognition

Places mentioned

Newport, Rhode Island, United States
"Consider, for example, that the oldest American synagogue was once a Sephardic synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island but today practices Ashkenazi customs."
Los Angeles, California, United States
"Growing up in Los Angeles, I attended a Modern Orthodox elementary school that was officially Sephardic, but that only manifested in our nusach tefilla."
New York, United States
"For example, many Uzbeki and Iranian Jews immigrated to New York and Los Angeles, respectively, over the last 50 years."
Aleppo, Syria
"Aleppo was home to the Aleppo Codexthe oldest copy of the Torah that we have todayand should have been mentioned in the classroom as an important city in Jewish history."
Alexandria, Egypt
"Alexandria was a significant center of Jewish learning and culture, notable for the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek (the Septuagint)."
Israel
"Sephardic Jews were also the subject of much racism when they immigrated to Israel in the 20th century, a painful component of Israeli history that is hardly spoken about in Ashkenazi schools."
Iran
"I often encountered friends or fellow students (even in college) who did not know basic facts about Sephardim, such as Syria housing a significant Jewish community until the 1990s or Iran and Morocco still being home to Jews today."
Morocco
"I often encountered friends or fellow students (even in college) who did not know basic facts about Sephardim, such as Syria housing a significant Jewish community until the 1990s or Iran and Morocco still being home to Jews today."

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Cairo Item ID 55969
Cairo Source ID 13
Retrieved 2025-07-02 05:30:37 UTC
Curated 2025-07-02 08:32:30 UTC