JGSLA 2010: Conference makes NBC news!!!

JGSLA 2010 made NBC News Los Angeles' around town event page.

Read all about it here - as if Tracing the Tribe's readers didn't already know that more than 1,000 researchers and experts from around the world will be meeting from Sunday, July 11-Friday, July 16, at the JW Marriott at L.A. Live, in downtown Los Angeles.

The NBC conference story covers the event's attraction for local Jewish families to research their backgrounds and emphasizes that Sunday is targeted to those just beginning the quest for family with how-to sessions, workshops, a Market Square, Klezmer concerts and much more.

The Market Square Fair on Sunday will include craft displays and demonstrations, a daylong film festival and more.

For all conference information and to see the program online, click here.

An opening day (Sunday) pass is $105, and $85 daily for the balance of the conference. Tickets are available online.

See you at the conference!

Hong Kong: DNA Project and blast from the past

Tonight I presented the IberianAshkenaz DNA Project at the Jewish Community Center of Hong Kong (JCC logo at left), and also experienced a blast from the past.

I reconnected with someone I haven't seen since 2002.

Joining us (Mira, her husband, me) for the Wednesday night buffet at the JCC coffee shop was Gary Stein of Toronto. Longtime Jewish genealogists will remember Gary, particularly if they attended the IAJGS conference there in 2002, when some 1,200 people attended that week-long event. Gary has been been living in Hong Kong for a year and loves it.

The good turnout included people of many different backgrounds: Ashkenazi, Sephardi, spouses who were one or the other. They represented Israel, Australia, the UK, the US, France, North Africa, Iran and elsewhere - a great mix of people.

I'm also doing a hands-on Intro to Jewish Genealogy tomorrow night, and many people will be attending that as well.

It was great to see Gary, and we will be going to Shabbat services and dinner at the United Jewish Congregation of Hong Kong (the Liberal congregation). I'm also looking forward to their Saturday night Purim Shpiel, billed as "The Little Theater of West South Northampton presents Mordechai Python's Flying Purim."

Nothing really scheduled yet for tomorrow (Thursday) yet, and if it all works out, I'm hoping to take the Kowloon ferry tomorrow and visit the Jewish cemetery on Friday morning.

Los Angeles: Sephardic programs, AJS conference, Dec. 20

The Association for Jewish Studies (AJS) conference is in Los Angeles this year.

On December 20, from 2-4pm, the following panel is part of an AJS panel on "(Re)articulating the Sephardic Americas." The conference is at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza. For more on the conference, click here.

According to the abstract, the experiences of Sephardic Jews in the Americas have been viewed as peripheral to modern European Jewry. Thus, this panel offers fresh perspectives.

Latest scholarship in the growing field of Sephardi/Mizrahi Studies has focused on exploring the multiplicity of Sephardi identities: "sépharadité" or"Sephardicity" articulated in varied ways across geography and time. However, according to experts, shows the lack of attention paid to the Sephardim in the Americas.

The panel tries to correct this - through historical and anthropological perspectives - by focusing on Colombia, New York, Argentina and Mexico City over the past century.

Sessions include:

-- The Sephardic Presence in the 19th/20th Century Colombian Caribbean: Paula Daccarett (Independent). Highlighting the interplay between expressions of Sephardi, Jewish,Colombian and Caribbean identities in fin-de-siècle Barranquilla, she explores the lives of writer Abraham López-Penha and businessman Ernesto Cortissoz.

-- Making Jews 'Sephardic' in Early Twentieth Century New York: Devin Naar (Stanford University). Arguing that Jews who arrived in New York from the eastern Mediterranean in the early 20th century did not automatically identify as Sephardi, he investigates a campaign in the Ladino press that sought to make its constituents understand themselves as such in order to achieve rapprochement with Ashkenazim within the framework of Zionism.

-- Reconfiguring identities: Zionism and SEFARADISMO in Argentina, post 1948: Adriana Brodsky (St. Mary's College of Maryland). She analyzes how Moroccan, Ottoman, and Syrian Jews formulated a shared Sephardi identity to challenge Ashkenazi hegemony within Argentina's Zionist movement, 1920s-1960s.

-- ÁRABES vs. ÁRABES LIGHT: Ethnonyms and Sephardi/Mizrahi distinction in Mexico City: Evelyn Dean (Indiana University). She explores the ways in which Jews in Mexico City deploy such terms as shami (Damascene), halabi (Aleppan), turco (Sephardi) and idish (Ashkenazi) to construct and negotiate notions of Sephardi/Mizrahi Jewishness in the 21st century.

Organizers say that "Sephardicity" has never been a given, essential quality, but has been redefined by each generation.

For the complete listing of Sephardi/Mizrahi sessions at this year's AJS, click here

Jewish foods: Fry, fry again!

Tracing the Tribe wishes all readers a very happy Chanukah surrounded by family and friends.

Although this photo shows Israeli sufganiyot (filled doughnuts), this post isn't really about them, except to make you hungry. And if you scroll down, there's more on potato latkes. Yum.

Chanukah starts tonight (Friday) at sundown and we celebrate it for eight nights. Our hanukkiah is cleaned and ready.

Israeli sufganiyot are creative, offering many fillings and topped with chocolate, powdered sugar, dulce de leche and whatever they think of each year. Ordinary jelly doughnuts are not that fashionable and can be found in supermarkets. Many bakeries set up outdoor tents where they fry, fill and top the fresh doughnuts for the lines of customers.

My local bakery today had the following varieties: fillings of mocha, creme patisserie, pistachio, chocolate, halva, vanilla cream, banana and more, topped with chocolate, whipped cream, sprinkles and even more. We bought one of each. Pistachio was new this year.

Hungry yet? Here's more food for thought.

Why do some people eat latkes with sour cream or with applesauce? The simple answer is tradition - or not.

Many Ashkenazi Jews only eat applesauce with their latkes. Back in the shtetl, the only fats were chicken or goose shmaltz (rendered fat) - olive oil was rare. You couldn't fry something in poultry fat and then put sour cream on it - it wouldn't be kosher.

And, although these same families arrived in places where the preferred oil was olive, canola, peanut or sunflower - shmaltz wasn't even seen anymore - the old traditions still held firm.

There are as many ways to make these yummies as there are things to make them out of (potatoes, sweet potatoes, zucchini and various other permutations. I've even seen beet latkes), as well as things to mix into the batter (we've heard of some with raisins or nuts, but we think that's blasphemous) or to put on top (applesauce, sour cream, sugar, cinnamon or just grab them naked - the latkes, not the cook - out of the frying pan!).

Tracing the Tribe likes thin crisp ones, while others prefer thicker pancakes. With our latkes tonight, we'll have a roast turkey breast that's been marinating in a mix of dijon mustard and orange juice.

Of course, the very best way to eat latkes is to get invited to someone else's home who makes a fantastic recipe.

That way, you won't have to scrub the oil spatters off your cabinets, stove and counters and - yes - the floor. It can make a real mess, although for a delicious cause. Some extraordinarily organized individuals start making these a few weeks in advance and freeze them. All they need to do is heat them up - foil-covered - until they are hot and crispy.

It's a good thing there's only one week of Chanukah, as all that frying, oil and sweet stuff often produce a sensory overload.

We wait all year for a fantastic dulce de leche or pina colada or mocha-filled doughnut, covered in chocolate, and think we can eat 10 of them. After about the third one, we can't look at them anymore.

Well, I need to get back to the kitchen, so have a great holiday with your loved ones!

As you gather with family over the holidays, remember to talk to your relatives. Record conversations, make videos, ask questions, write down the details. The holidays are the best time of year to add to your research. Good luck!

Enjoy your holidays!

With best wishes,
Schelly

Jewish foods: Teaching teens about the world

Aliza Green spoke at the Philly 2009 Jewish genealogy conference and participated in a first-ever for the annual conference - a hand's-on cooking demonstration.

Her article on teaching teens about the wonderful world of Jewish foods is in the Philadelphia Inquirer. In her career, she's cooked everything on the decidedly not-kosher edibles list, distancing herself from her Orthodox upbringing:

But in recent years, I've embraced my Jewish heritage, especially its connections to food and culture, and I am researching a book exploring Jewish culinary history through the spread of ingredients worldwide.

So I jumped at the chance to teach Jewish cuisine and culture to high schoolers and junior high kids at the Jewish Community High School of Gratz College, whose mission is to educate Jewish teens about the heritage, traditions and language of the Jewish people. The course brings together my love and knowledge of food and culinary history with Jewish traditions. My weekly challenge is to come up with recipes from far-flung Jewish communities that the kids can make.

The kids come from area high schools and have varying interests.

Nicole Kaminsky, a freshman at Wissahickon High School, whose family comes from Puerto Rico, was interested in learning whether some of the Hispanic cooking at her home was actually Jewish cooking. "I've learned that in Ashkenazi cooking, people used ingredients that wouldn't spoil easily. It all depended on the area and the trade routes."

Green included a large section on olive oil as Chanukah is coming up tomorrow night. She discussed Jewish history, and the miracle of the oil and the holiday's significance, and added how olive oil is central to Jewish food traditions across the Mediterranean.

Olive oil was rare in Ashkenazi lands, where our ancestors used rendered chicken or goose fat (shmaltz) instead.

The class made teiglach - although Tracing the Tribe always associates this dish with Rosh Hashanah but, what the heck, it uses oil - which means little bits of dough in Yiddish and its Italian name cicerchiata means little bits of chickpeas.

Egg dough bits are fried until puffed and crisp, immersed in honey, mixed with nuts and formed into individual shapes or one large centerpiece, as Green does.

The class discussed potato pancakes (latkes), apple fritters and squash latkes for the Ashkenazi communities. Mizrahim and Sephardim add sugar and sesame seeds, or stuff cheese into fritters or doughnuts, or soak fried loukoumades in honey syrup. Indians add yeast, milk and butter and fry them.

Read the complete story at the link above.

Call for Papers: Journal for study of Sephardic/Mizrahi Jewry

Florida International University is now publishing a new Journal for the Study of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry; the call for papers is out for the Winter 2009 edition.

It is an ongoing, interdisciplinary project which draws upon the expertise of leading scholars and covers all aspects of the Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewish experience.

Even better, the new journal is free, fully online, and easily accessible to everyone via the journal website. Four issues are now online.

The publication is part of FIU's President Navon Program for the Study of Sephardic & Mizrahi Jewry. Dr. Zion Zohar is editor, and Abraham Lavender (well-known to Sephardic Jewish genealogists and the Society of Crypto-Judaic Studies) is the book review editor. The editoral board includes Jane S. Gerber, Norman Stillman, and other experts.

Perusing the four online issues, there seem to be many Kabbalah-focused articles (many aspects), which is not one of Tracing the Tribe's favorite subjects although other readers are fascinated by this topic.

Tracing the Tribe found the following articles interesting.

Abraham D. Lavender: DNA Origins and Current Consequences for Sephardi, Mizrahi, and Ashkenazi Males and Females: Latest Results from Medical, Genealogical-Familial, and National-Ethnic Research

Matthew Warshawsky: Trans-Atlantic Crypto-Judaism and Literary Homage: Tomás Treviño de Sobremonte and the Women in his Life

Abraham D. Lavender: Book review: Jonathan Ray. The Sephardic Frontier: The Reconquista and the Jewish Community in Medieval Iberia. The book's seven chapters are 1-The Migration of Jewish Settlers to the Frontier, 2-Jewish Landownership, 3-Money-lending and Beyond: The Jews in the Economic Life of the Frontier, 4-Royal Authority and the Legal Status of Iberian Jewry, 5-Jewish Communal Organization and Authority, 6-Communal Tensions and the Question of Jewish Autonomy, and 7-Maintenance of Social Boundaries on the Iberian Frontier.

Here's only a small portion of Lavender's four-page review:

The Sephardic Frontier uses a large amount of unpublished material in royal, ecclesiastical, and municipal archives, as well as rabbinic literature, to suggest a new view of this time period. Ray, studying Jewish and non-Jewish life in the frontier of al-Andalus following the expulsion of the Muslims, argues that the significant depletion of population caused by the expulsion of most Muslims from al-Andalus, and the subsequent successful efforts to repopulate this area with Christians as well as with Jews from other sections of Iberia and areas outside Iberia, resulted in Jewish life that was different from that in other parts of Iberia. This challenges the traditional historical view which has taught that already developed Jewish communities, mostly from other areas of Iberia, were reestablished in al-Andalus ...

Samantha Baskind: Picturing Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Amsterdam. This is a very interesting 13-page article focusing on how Jews were depicted in contemporary art of the time. Here's a small portion (I highly recommend reading the entire article for interesting insights into how our ancestors lived):

By showing the Ashkenazim bound to ritual, artists offered a particular vision that fulfilled the imaginings of the Gentile population. In contrast, by picturing the less “serious” (and by extension seemingly less “religious”) Sephardic Jew in fashionable attire and with trimmed facial hair, artists presented the Sephardim as understandable within a Dutch context, thereby defying the “physiological and psychological unknown” to borrow Barbara Stafford’s apt phrase. The manner by which the Sephardim were pictured in prints during this period gave assurance to viewers fearful of the Other, of the foreign Jew who, in fact, was not so foreign. Moreover, as an observed subject, the Ashkenazi Jew became an understood subject, and even more significantly, the Sephardic-Ashkenazi disparity demonstrated that “the Jew” was clearly able to reform (i.e., become Dutch, to a degree), as the Portuguese Jews had already done.

Each issue also features a list of books received and available for review - I wish I had them all. Here are a few:

Aviva Ben-Ur. Sephardic Jews in America: A Diasporic History, (New York: New York University Press, 2009) 321 pages.

Joseph B. Glass and Ruth Kark. Sephardi Entrepreneurs in Jerusalem: The Valero Family 1800-1948, (Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House, 2007) 440 pages.

Emily Gottreich. The Mellah of Marrakesh: Jewish and Muslim Space in Morocco's Red City, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007) 211 pages.

Antonio Munoz Molina and T.A. Perry. Traces of Sepharad/Huellas de Sefarad, Etchings of Judeo-Spanish Proverbs, (New York: Gravity Free Press, 2008) 143 pages.

Zion Zohar. (Editor), Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry - from the Golden Age of Spain to Modern Times, (New York: New York University Press, 2005) 352 pages.

Academics in Sephardic and Mizrahi studies are invited to submit articles and contribute to the new journal. Among the benefits is the short time span between submission and publishing compared to other journals. If you are interested in contributing to this online publication, see submission guidelines and instruction sheet here. The Call for Papers is here.

Read the complete articles at the links above.

Northern California: Baghdad to Bombay, Oct. 18

Interested in the Jewish community of Bombay? This program with Pearl Sofaer and the Jewish Historical Society of Napa Valley should answer all your questions with music, memories, food and a book signing.

Sofaer is the author of "Baghdad to Bombay: In the Kitchens of My Cousins." She will share her book, childhood memories, Middle Eastern customs, music and traditional foods. She will be joined by Shuli and Ronit Madmone of Whole Spice.

Wine and Middle Eastern snacks will be served. Yum!

The event will run from 2-4pm, Sunday, October 18, at the Napa Valley Yacht Club. Reservations required.

Sofaer is also a member of JIMENA, the acronym for Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa, which seeks recognition for the nearly one million Jews indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa who were displaced from their countries of origin.

It is dedicated to the preservation of Mizrahi and Sephardi culture and history, and seeks to address the existing gap in the historical narrative of the Middle East and North Africa by sharing the Mizrahi and Sephardi story of oppression, plight and displacement.

Jimena's website holds a wealth of information, an excellent FAQ, resources, news, events, personal stories, newsletter archives.

The Speakers Bureau includes former Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa who share their personal story of displacement and spread the message of tolerance and respect for all. Members undergo intensive training and are available to visit academic institutions and organizations throughout North America.

The visual history project aims to collect the recorded personal testimonies of Jews who fled North African and Middle Eastern countries and now live in North America. The testimonies will help preserve and advance the important heritage and history of Jews indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa.

Through cultural programming such as henna ceremonies, mimouna celebrations, Mizrahi Shabbaton, Middle Eastern cooking classes, film screenings and music, JIMENA shares the rich Mizrahi and Sephardi culture with the public.

Also, on Sunday, October 18, at the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation, the group will provide a free speaker's training course, with director Avi Goldwasser ("Forgotten Refugees").

The session will provide tips on public speaking, training on how to share your personal and familial story, as well as information on the visual history project, speakers bureau, cultural outreach programming and more.

There's a session for eyewitness Sephardic and Mizrahi refugees at 11am, followed by a kosher lunch at 1pm, a 2pm session for young generations.

Registration required.

Venezuela: The Yecutieli family saga

A new book details the Yecutieli family saga from Iran to Venezuela to Israel.

I first met author Samy Yecutieli several years ago in Israel and learned about his ancestors' journey. After five years of research, the book, written with Raquel Markus, has been published:

Una historia, dos países: la saga de la familia Yecutieli
(One history, two countries: The story of the Yecutieli family)

The story of Samuel and Simja Yecutieli is an intimate retelling of the memory, development and traditions of the Jewish community.

Readers will acquire historical and geographical knowledge and understand the world of Jewish genealogy across national and historic borders. The authors also hope readers may be encouraged to discover their own family stories.

To see an excellent film clip about the book (so far only available in Spanish), click on Roots Television here.

There will be two book launches in Israel at Jerusalem's Hebrew University (late December) and at Tel Aviv University (early January). I am planning to interview Samy about the book and his family as well. Stay tuned for more information.