New Article: Let’s Visit “Ashkefardic” Los Angeles Where the Self-Hating Sephardim Are At It Again!
David Shasha
Let’s Visit “Ashkefardic” Los Angeles Where the Self-Hating Sephardim Are At It Again!
David Suissa, prominent Self-Hating Sephardi, has published two very “interesting” articles on Sephardim in his Jewish Journal of Los Angeles:
http://jewishjournal.com/cover_story/231569/many-facets-sephardic-spirit/
http://jewishjournal.com/opinion/david_suissa/231566/living-ashkefardic-times/
The first article, by Ashkenazi writer Kelly Hartog, is basically an ad for a program featuring that other prominent Self-Hater, Rabbi Marc Angel, taking place at a Sephardic Synagogue in LA under the umbrella of Rabbi Daniel Bouskila’s Modern Orthodox Yeshiva University-affiliated group the Sephardic Educational Center.
We have had the displeasure of encountering these three men before.
On Suissa’s contempt for the classical Sephardic heritage:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/Davidshasha/suissa/davidshasha/lUSH_6y_nkU/_bWGSPSVBwAJ
On Angel’s denial of Andalusian Convivencia in the toxic Ashkenazi Zionist spirit:
On Bouskila’s blindness to Ashkenazi Anti-Sephardi racism:
And here is a more general overview of the Self-Haters and their skewed relationship to Sephardischkeit:
The Hartog article is more superficial fluff with a distinctly mindless Kum-Ba-Ya flavor, which duplicitously argues that Ashkenazim are very much open to Sephardim and Sephardic culture, in spite of the fact that we continue to be forcibly left off the Adult Jewish Table, and that our culture, as unwittingly explained by one of the article’s Ashkenazi voices, is still being treated with a demeaning Orientalist exoticism:
Much like Angel’s reference to the Sephardic joyful spirit, Feinstein says it’s wonderful to discover the “colorful aesthetic of Sephardic Jewry. They eat bright, colorful, spicy food. Ashkenazim eat gray gefilte fish. Sephardic Jewry is a colorful corrective to the restrained aesthetic of Ashkenazic Jewry.”
Feinstein believes embracing Sephardic traditions is part of American Jewry’s struggle to create a new aesthetic. “When we came to this country at the beginning of the 20th century, we brought all the models and the forms of Jewish life from [our] European communities, but those have now played themselves out. And we’re now comfortable enough in our Jewishness and ready for something brand new.”
Rabbi Ed Feinstein is not only cheapening our culture by calling it “bright, colorful, and spicy,” but does not seem to acknowledge the fact that American Jewish History is rooted in the classical Sephardic heritage and did not begin when the Eastern European Jews landed at Ellis Island at the beginning of the 20th century.
Unbeknownst to the ignorant Feinstein, and most other American Jews, Sephardim included, Gershom Mendes Seixas, “George Washington’s Rabbi,” was, among his many other accomplishments, a member of the first Board of Trustees of Columbia University in New York in 1784:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/gershom-mendes-seixas
Then there was Haym Salomon, “George Washington’s Banker,” a proud member of Philadelphia’s Sephardic Synagogue Mikveh Israel:
And let us not forget Moses Seixas and his famous letter to George Washington which helped to solidify the rights of American Jews and the glorious promulgation of Religious Freedom in this country:
http://www.tourosynagogue.org/history-learning/gw-letter
Such abject ignorance of American Jewish History leads Feinstein to arrogantly insist that Ashkenazi tradition is the original historical default in American Judaism, and that we must “struggle to create a new aesthetic.”
“New” indeed!
With friends like this, who needs enemies?
The reason for this deplorable situation is faux Sephardim like Suissa, Bouskila, and Angel, who are all beholden to Ashkenazi Orthodox interests and institutions, continuing to bow before the toxic White Jewish Supremacy as obsequiously as possible.
Authentic Sephardic institutions simply do not exist today.
For instance, it is truly galling to read the following statement from Angel:
“I do think there’s a growing awareness among Sephardim to reclaim their own roots to get back to the strength of their cultural traditions,” Angel told the Journal in a telephone interview from New York. “And there is also a growing interest among non-Sephardim. It’s not just about the food and music anymore. [Sephardim] also have strong intellectual traditions in Jewish law and philosophy that are all part of the equation.”
Angel’s statement reflects a YU Modern Orthodox Ashkenazi orientation that sees strictly “religious” factors as the basis of the New Convivencia between Ashkenazim and Sephardim.
Note how SEC president Neil Sheff, another YU Sephardi macher, highlights the issue of Conversion, a major point of interest in the Modern Orthodox world in its struggle against Haredi Ultra-Orthodoxy:
“If the traditional, classical Sephardic approach to ‘Who is a Jew’ and conversion would be followed, we would have much more happiness in the Jewish world and we wouldn’t have these constant fights among different denominations,” Sheff says. “Unfortunately, especially the more right you go in Orthodoxy, each tries to outdo the other one so they add on requirements that have no basis in law. The Sephardic approach is moderate. It just requires you to show your allegiance and do a few things, but doesn’t require you to become an ultra-Orthodox Jew in order to be counted as a Jew.”
In the following passage Angel makes his allegiance to the Ashkenazi Modern Orthodox system clear:
However, Angel says he believes Sephardim in Israel are moving toward more Ashkenazic/Charedi models. “Regrettably, in Israel and the Diaspora, this [Classical Sephardic Worldview] tradition is breaking down, so Sephardim, even if they’re not formally identifying with Orthodoxy, Conservatism or Reform, they are being drawn to into these types of orbits — a more extremist model,” Angel says.
Angel remains tied to the Modern Orthodox polemic against Haredi extremism without ever seeming to realize that his positions on Israel, Zionism, and the Arabs reflect the extremism of the YU faction and its messianic values.
Angel ignores the fact that he is just as much of an Ashkenazi as the Haredi Sephardim he relentlessly attacks.
Close readers of the Hartog article will note that all the statements by these YU Modern Orthodox Sephardim closely adhere to current Ashkenazi positions in that very ideologically-charged community. Their most salient idea is that Sephardim and Sephardic Jewish religiosity can be used as useful tools in the fight against the Ultra-Orthodox.
Sephardim, choose your (Ashkenazi) side and get out your weapon!
Tellingly, the Self-Haters’ statements never once turn a critical eye on the YU Modern Orthodox world itself; something that I actually did in an article entitled “A Broken Frame: Sephardi Occlusion and the Repairing of Jewish Dysfunction,” submitted to Angel’s grossly misnamed journal Conversations, an article that he summarily rejected for publication:
My article was in fact eventually published by Tikkun magazine:
http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/jan10_shasha
Based on what we hear from Angel in the Jewish Journal, one would think that he would have been thrilled to publish the article. But, in point of fact, his stated words are the very opposite of his actual actions in the real world. They pretend to support Sephardi authenticity, when in fact they very cleverly mask a truly subservient attitude towards the Ashkenazim who he serves so dutifully. You only need to read between the lines in a critical fashion.
Hartog thus utterly ignores the fact that Sephardim have lost their culture because Self-Haters like Angel long ago decided to abandon that culture in order to become an acceptable part of the YU Modern Orthodox world and cater to their every whim.
More than this, the Self-Haters have acted as strict enforcers of YU dogma and shut out any contrarian voices that deign to criticize Anti-Sephardi racism coming from the Modern Orthodox and Zionist groups.
I have written about this in relation to Angel’s ally, the late Rabbi Ezra Labaton, another YU Sephardi who also lovingly donned the Sacred Veil of Soloveitchik:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/Davidshasha/labaton/davidshasha/ASZ9YE5oJSE/fCqSmRp4PN8J
As noted above, Angel has adopted the anti-Arab posture of the Ashkenazi Zionists in their rejection of Andalusian Convivencia.
In a review of a tendentious book by Dario Fernandez-Morera he shows us his true Modern Orthodox bona fides by showering praise on someone who is effectively an academic apologist for Catholic Spain and its violent racism:
https://www.jewishideas.org/article/golden-age-spain-how-golden-was-it
Such praise is perfectly consistent with the ongoing Orthodox Jewish alliance with Christian Anti-Semites that I have discussed in my article “Zionism Finds Christianity: Eschatological Messianism and Apocalyptic Theology in the New Judeo-Christian Love Affair”:
In a 1976 debate with historian Malcolm Stern, Angel actually took the side of the Ashkenazim against the early American Sephardic Jewish community!
Here is the full article on that fascinating exchange:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1NQdm28qvvXd29FZzlYVFk5dXc/edit
Thus, the following statement by Hartog is utterly incorrect:
Part of that equation is a Sephardic tradition that doesn’t follow the Ashkenazi mold of Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and other streams of Judaism.
In point of fact, both Angel and Bouskila are very closely tied to sectarian Ashkenazi Modern Orthodox Judaism and do not permit discussions that might violate or even criticize its tenets. They are as much a part of the problem as those they are criticizing.
It therefore goes without saying that speaking of the Anti-Sephardi racism coming from the Modern Orthodox YU world is completely off limits!
Amazingly, Suissa’s article on “Ashkefardic” Judaism is even more offensive:
For many of us, this modern mingling is bound to disrupt our habits and ignite our curiosity gene. There are Ashkenazi melodies that bring tears to my eyes; Chassidic melodies that stir my soul. I get to taste them anytime I want. Many years ago, I had a group of Ashkenazi friends at our synagogue in Venice Beach who insisted that we pray Sephardic style on Yom Kippur. They couldn’t get enough of it. They were blown away that these melodies were part of their people’s story. They felt as if the melodies belonged to them as much as they belonged to me.
As the classical Sephardic intellectual-literary heritage has been deemed off-limits in the Ashkenazi-controlled Jewish media, in our Jewish Day Schools, and especially in our universities where Golden Age Spain has been removed from Judaic Studies departments and shunted into Spanish departments, such a statement of Jewish “unity” is naïve at best, and deeply dangerous at worst.
Self-Hating Sephardim like Suissa are indeed useful idiots who are furthering the Ashkenazi agenda.
The basic idea in these two repugnant articles is to substantiate the dangerous myth of the New Convivencia, which removes Sephardim from the Arab world and from the classical Arab culture and from modern trends like the Nahda, and actually assert that we are being fully integrated into the White Jewish Hegemony that has militantly denied us a place at the table unless we accept that racist Hegemony, just as Suissa, Angel, and Bouskila have so happily done.
The Modern Orthodox YU Sephardim rightly point to the problem of the Haredim and how the Ultra-Orthodox have made appreciable gains in Sephardic communities in America, Europe, and Israel. This is certainly undeniable.
I have forcefully addressed the problem in my many articles attacking Rabbi Eli Mansour:
But what these Self-Haters refuse to point out is that the Modern Orthodox, those who have lionized Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik at the expense of seminal modern Sephardic rabbis, are equally guilty of extremist Jewish political views as well as the endemic Anti-Sephardic racism.
We can see the toxic effects of this racism when we look at seminal modern Sephardic religious figures like Sabato Morais, Elijah Benamozegh, Henry Pereira Mendes, David de Sola Pool, and Matloub Abadi; names that are completely unknown to the larger Jewish community; names that are not even known to Sephardic students themselves.
I recently chastised Rabbi Shalom Morris of the Bevis Marks London Sephardic Synagogue, for his trite and superficial article on Livorno which pathetically failed to even mention the names of Morais and Benamozegh, the two greatest Sephardic Jewish religious figures of the 19th century, and natives of that illustrious Italian port city:
We should also note that currently both Congregation Shearith Israel and the American Sephardi Federation are being run and viciously controlled by Anti-Sephardic Ashkenazi reactionaries whose political views are consistent with the values of White Jewish Supremacy that continue to control the Jewish world.
Here is the absurd way that Suissa ends his article:
But walk into any Ashkenazi and Sephardic synagogue and you’ll discover something comforting and also extraordinary: No matter how radically different our melodies may be, the words themselves are pretty much the same. Just ask Rabbi Muskin.
This statement betrays Suissa’s utter ignorance of the Sephardic tradition, and the profound differences between Sephardim and Ashkenazim, differences that I have carefully examined in my study of Samson Raphael Hirsch’s vicious attack on Maimonides and Sephardic Jewish Humanism in his 1836 book The Letters of Ben Uziel:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/Davidshasha/hirsch/davidshasha/H1ValE7Fm1A/kSTx867YAAAJ
It appears that Suissa is completely unaware of the Anti-Maimonidean movement in Franco-German rabbinic circles, just as Angel and Bouskila are oblivious to the many studies of my teacher Jose Faur, who has railed mightily against the obscurantism of the classical Ashkenazi tradition and its vicious attacks on Sephardim and Sephardic intellectual culture:
In his article on the Tosafists he shows the myriad ways in which the Ashkenazim rejected the Sephardic tradition, and invented their own mystical-authoritarian doctrine rooted in Da’as Torah nihilism.
And there is his “Anti-Maimonidean Demons” which viciously attacks the magical-occult Kabbalah:
In his seminal book In the Shadow of History: Jews and Conversos at the Dawn of Modernity, Faur expounds on the cleavage within the Sephardic tradition itself, where post-Golden Age figures like Nahmanides and Solomon ben Adret embraced the new Ashkenazi mystical learning and rejected the rational-scientific values of Andalus:
https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-History-Jews-Conversos-Modernity/dp/0791408027
Indeed, what is most telling about the two Jewish Journal articles is that the term “Jewish Humanism” – a term deeply anathema to the Ashkenazi Orthodox – is never once used.
Faur has brilliantly discussed the tradition of Sephardic Jewish Humanism in the context of the Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1NQdm28qvvXeTMtSjJWWEZfT1E/edit
Rather than kowtowing to racist Ashkenazi interests, it is incumbent on Sephardim to deal with that racism in a forthright manner, as well as to look carefully at our own historical culture and its many literary productions in a way that is not at all beholden to Ashkenazi categories, or to the racist Ashkenazi agenda.
Until that critical engagement takes place, it is certain that all we will get is the “Bourekas and Haminados” Orientalist exotica of the Ashkenazim and their Self-Hating Sephardic allies, with their very aggressive promotion of the New Convivencia; an alliance that leaves the Ashkenazim free to continue to belittle us and ignore our mature opinions on current matters of import to the Jewish community.
David Shasha