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The Erasure of Sephardic Jewry

JL;DR SUMMARY Sephardic Jewry and its rich cultural and historical contributions face erasure within broader Jewish communities, especially in places like the United States where Ashkenazi customs predominantly overshadow Sephardic traditions. 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 EducationMaimonidesJewish HeritageShulchan AruchSyrian JewsSephardic JewrySephardic HistoryCultural ErasureAshkenazi InfluenceMizrahi Contributions

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."
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."
New York, United States
"For example, many Uzbeki and Iranian Jews immigrated to New York and Los Angeles, respectively, over the last 50 years."
Iraq
"Take, for example, modern Hebrew literature. Many Iraqi Jews wrote about the Farhud (the 1941 riots in Iraq that resulted in the murder of nearly 180 Jews)"

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Cairo Item ID 56546
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Retrieved 2025-07-10 05:30:37 UTC
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