Sephardic Heritage Update 1105
David Shasha
Friends,
Before we get underway, I must say that I was taken aback as I walked out of Prospect Park on Wednesday afternoon to buy some items at the Pioneer supermarket: one of the book tables in front of the Parkside Avenue subway station had a handmade sign noting the passing of Tina Turner. I certainly do not have anything to add to the many tributes, but did want to make sure of two Tina performances that might not be so well known today.
There was her collaboration with the members of Heaven 17 in a project called the British Electric Foundation and its star-studded collection “Music of Quality and Distinction.”
The vinyl album was released in 1982, at the time when Tina was in between her heyday with Ike and her meteoric ascendance to “What’s Love Got To Do With It” superstardom:
https://www.tina-turner.nl/tour1980-1983.php
She performed a cover of the classic Temptations/Norman Whitfield track “Ball of Confusion” with great intensity and panache:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI2b4zEfFkc
The album and its companion were reissued in a 2011 box set:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/1981-2011-B-F/dp/B005L12SJ4
And then there is the Phil Spector classic “River Deep, Mountain High”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9Lehkou2Do
Once noted as the “most expensive record ever made”!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Deep_%E2%80%93_Mountain_High
I would think that most people would be familiar with one of the most important singles in music history – but who knows these days?
Finally, the old Ike and Tina revue appears on the 2009 box set reissue of the Rolling Stones’ classic live album “Get Your Ya Yas Out”:
https://www.amazon.com/Ya-Yas-Rolling-Stones-Concert-Anniversary/dp/B002NOAF9W
I suppose if you have never seen the “Proud Mary,” it is a must:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzQnPz6TpGc
In addition, as a follow-up to the SHU post of Tikvah Tablet’s disgusting NBS Infomercial, the Whore of Trump made sure to do a special schnorring e-mail later in the day:
https://mailchi.mp/tabletmag/become-a-member-of-tablet?e=4b6f9b46a8
There is no mention there of MBS and his murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but that is to be taken for granted when it comes to Trumpscum fundraising in the Zalman Bernstein manner!
Though she does reference the Shabu’ot holiday, as her publication continues to insult our Torah heritage.
Well played.
We begin this week’s newsletter with yet another of my articles on the ongoing attack on Andalusian Convivencia. I examine Kimberly Arkin’s book on North African Jews in France and the complete loss of their intellectual-religious heritage in the context of a new book by Jonathan Ray that helps us to better understand how the Sephardic heritage is being erased by the White Jewish Supremacy and its HASBARAH demands. Arkin knows close to nothing about the Sephardic heritage, as she also shows her ignorance of basic Jewish facts. But her book is valuable as a piece of Sociology that proves the loss of our heritage on a global scale. The North African Jewish students present a form of self-hatred and Zionist identification that shows just how much has been lost. It is the confluence of ignorance, maliciousness, and arrogance which is not at all limited to French Jews, but can be seen in Sephardic communities worldwide.
I went back to the review of the Arkin book in the journal Sephardic Horizons, which also shows the pervasive ignorance of the most basic elements of the Sephardic heritage and how even in purportedly academic circles this ignorance is widespread.
Which leads quite naturally to “Bourekas and Haminados” Sephardischkeit. Aryeh Genger shows us how the Boureka has become a national snack in Israel, as our Sephardic literature is unknown to all Israelis.
And to put a fine point on it, I take the liberty of presenting two reviews of a new book of Modern Jewish Thought by Hillel Goldberg, one by Jeffrey Woolf and the other by Rabbi Marc Angel.
Here is the book description:
Drawing on Isaiah Berlin’s inferential essay, “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” Hillel Goldberg opens this volume: “By commitment I am a hedgehog – I believe in a single central principle, the Torah. By temperament I am a fox, drawn to the wide Jewish intellectual horizon, buoyed by its diversity and ever-expanding reach.” The kaleidoscopic breadth of Jewish thought marks this volume on prayer, biblical interpretation, musar, theology, and biography – tributaries highlighting the mainstream, halakhah. Goldberg treats halakhah not as a concept but via its “small letters,” exemplified in the laws of mikveh and expressed in “Philosophy of Halakhah: The Prism of Mikveh” and “The Vilna Gaon’s Codes.” Goldberg draws on his prior work on cross-cultural Jewish thinkers from Eastern Europe to gather multiple voices of Jewish thought under the canopy of the whole.
It goes without saying that Sephardim do not factor into the discussion, allowing us to see how the erasure works in real time.
And what better example of this erasure and the ignorance produced by the White Jewish Supremacy than David Suissa’s contribution to The SAPIR Journal’s special issue on Israel@75. It is interesting to see how the American Suissa, who chose not to live in the homeland, deploys his North African grandfather as his model for how to relate to Israel and Zionism.
For those still not familiar with Suissa’s profound self-hatred and ingratiating attitude towards the White Jewish Supremacy:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c1l0_eK349whup0o6s-Gy_dtWeVCZVQOZC3Q-UFwSQM/edit
I also wanted to note here Suissa’s self-hating SAPIR ally Dr. Mijal Bitton, who was also included in the special issue:
https://groups.google.com/g/Davidshasha/c/jtMhzkqGF0w
It is all about monetization and access to the institutional Jewish mainstream.
Sarah Bluestein reminds us that today’s Jews see no daylight between Zionism and Judaism. Her Algemeiner article is an excellent example of how HASBARAH and Anti-Semitism have connected in that Intersectional manner. Jewish students have been indoctrinated to believe that attacks on Israel are synonymous with attacks on Judaism.
Which leads to two articles on the divisiveness and dysfunction within Judaism in a Zionist framework. Our dear friend Rabbi Jeremy Rosen and David Weinberg present this sectarianism and the issues that arise from a lack of Jewish unity, which is standard in the Ashkenazi tradition. Indeed, the articles present a fascinating riposte to the Bluestein article, as the current chaos in Israel stand in conflict with the idea that there is a holistic Judaism that is linked absolutely to Zionism.
Rebbitzin Bengelsdorf favorite Phoebe Maltz Bovy gives us a very excellent Tikvah-style analysis of “Secular” Judaism.
The post involves one Mark Oppenheimer:
https://markoppenheimer.substack.com/p/grose-agonistes
An attack on Jessica Grose’s New York Times’ Op-Ed:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/01/opinion/jewish-holidays.html
And for those not familiar with the Weiss-Bovy Tikvah DEATH SENTENCE connection:
https://www.thefp.com/p/the-origins-of-woke
https://groups.google.com/g/davidshasha/c/hktm7TUPEHY/m/t_SGSH1ICQAJ
This is what the new Neo-Con Straussian Intersectionality looks like, as fresh alliances are being minted among the Ashkenazi Jewish political radicals.
That radicalism can be seen in David Mikics’ representative Tikvah Tablet attack on, of all people, former 60s radical Angela Davis:
https://groups.google.com/g/davidshasha/c/0E3PWtKzK8g/m/GEo0ntkRBgAJ
My comments there provide the context in which to understand the Right Wing hypocrisy and the way that the Zalman Bernstein crowd is dealing with the New Racial Consciousness.
Which leads us to conclude with Adam Hoschchild’s somewhat troubling bothsidesism New York Review of Books article on The 1619 Project and the Right Wing backlash. I am not sure if he is trying to provide “balance” or whether he is being critical of the DEATH SENTENCE approach. The ambivalence is reflective of a confusion on the Left over how to deal with the attempt to censor and erase American History in the Trumpist spirit. Hoschchild’s lack of resolve is a fascinating example of this trend.
David Shasha
From North African Jewish Racist Ignorance to Academic White Jewish Supremacy: The Continuing Attack on Andalusian Convivencia
By: David Shasha
Book Review: Fashioning North African Jewish Students in France
By: Chelsie May
The Shocking Story of the Boureka: Israel’s Favorite Snack
By: Aryeh Genger
Book Review: Across the Expanse of Jewish Thought
By: Jeffrey R. Woolf
Book Review: Across the Expanse of Jewish Thought
By: Rabbi Marc D. Angel
Israel is My Grandfather Kissing Asphalt
By: David Suissa
I Experienced Anti-Semitism in College; I Won’t Be Silenced Again
By: Sarah Bluestein
Hypocrites
By: Rabbi Jeremy Rosen
Can Israel Be Unified?
By: David M. Weinberg
What, and Why, is Secular Judaism?
By: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
Commie Chic Invades American Grade Schools
By: David Mikics
History Bright and Dark
By: Adam Hochschild