Sephardic Heritage Update 750
David Shasha
Friends,
We begin this week’s newsletter with two articles on the late Elie Wiesel. My article looks at the differences in approach between the Ashkenazi Wiesel and the Sephardi Primo Levi. These differences are often quite substantial and provide alternative ways of seeing the Holocaust and Judaism. Marc Ellis reviews Wiesel’s complex history with the institutional verities of the Jewish community and his collaboration with the status quo.
Once again I present examples of the ways in which the Brooklyn Sephardic community has relinquished its own culture and history while at the same time embracing the Ashkenazim who have sought to displace us. In this case I take a look at recent appearances by Ze’ev Elkin and Rabbi Yuval Cherlow to the Jersey Shore summer community of the Syrian Jews.
To show just how extensive this White-only Judaism is, I review the Ashkenazi community’s strong African-American advocacy and show that while Sephardim are being displaced, the White Jews are quite enthusiastic about promoting the causes dear to the Black community.
I then take a look at the Shloush family and its move from Sephardic rabbinical dynasty to Ashkenazi Modern Orthodox mainstay. It is a transition that has taken place under the aegis of Zionism which teaches us just how the process of Sephardic erosion and erasure has been taking place.
The Biton Committee finally issued a very lengthy report to the Israeli government and in my article I discuss the linkage between the Mizrahi community and the authoritarian Right Wing political establishment.
The Self-Hating Mizrahi Israeli pundit Ben-Dror Yemini shows his Western bona fides by extolling European values while denigrating those of the Middle East.
Karmel Melamed of The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles alerts us to the close ties between JIMENA and John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel. It is yet another example of how low Arab Jews have descended in order to act as HASBARAH functionaries.
There has been a good deal of discussion over police shootings of African-Americans and the killings of police officers. Charles Blow of The New York Times has written an excellent column that lays out the issues in a very balanced manner that provides an important perspective on how to process what has been going on.
We close with a tribute from The Economist to the late director Michael Cimino. Cimino is perhaps best known for transitioning from the much-praised and awarded “Deer Hunter” to the universally reviled “Heaven’s Gate.” Over the years “Heaven’s Gate” is slowly being recognized for the bona fide American masterpiece that it is and Cimino’s artistic choices, once denigrated, are now being applauded by a growing group of critics and cinema enthusiasts. Sadly, this re-appraisal is too late to save the director whose career was derailed because of the attacks. But we can still go back and watch “Heaven’s Gate” and appreciate the genius that created it.
David Shasha
Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi: A Study in Contrasts
By: David Shasha
Elie Wiesel is Dead
By: Marc H. Ellis
More on the “Idiot Sephardim” and Their Slavish Devotion to the Ashkenazim: Israeli Cabinet Minister Ze’ev Elkin and Rabbi Yuval Cherlow Visit the Jersey Shore Syrian Jews
By: David Shasha
Whites-Only Judaism, African-American Equality, and “Liberal” Jewish Hypocrisy: Rabbi Shai Held, Carly Pildis, the Upper West Side JCC, Leigh Ofer, and Hannah Bronfman
By: David Shasha
How Sephardim Become Ashkenazim in Three Easy Zionist Steps: The Case of the Shloush Family
By: David Shasha
Right Wing Zionist Consensus on Mizrahi Jews: The Aftermath of the Biton Committee Report
By: David Shasha
It’s About the Western Values
By: Ben-Dror Yemini
Christians United for Israel Reaches out to Mideast Jews in Online Programs
By: Karmel Melamed
CUFI’s Pastor Dumisani Washington on New Mizrahi Project Launch
By: Karmel Melamed
Blood on Your Hands, Too
By: Charles M. Blow
Obituary: Michael Cimino: The Price of Perfection
By: The Economist