August 27, 2017

Seventy years after the secret Operation Michaelberg brought 100 Jews to British Mandate Palestine by air, Israelis who were on the flights gathered with their relatives to celebrate the anniversary at the site of the former Atlit Detention Camp in Israel. A restored model of the Operation Michaelberg aircraft was on display. Hillel orchestrated Operation Michaelberg and later Operation Ezra and Nehemia, and helped smuggle Iraqi Jews through Iran, resulting in the exodus of 130,000 Jews—out of a community of 140,000—in Israel’s earliest days. Hillel, 94, told his dramatic life story to Tamar Morad, co-editor of Iraq’s Last Jews, as part of Sephardi Voices’ Iraqi Jewish Voices Project. The project will be launched at the Center for Jewish History in New York on September 11 at 7 pm. CLICK HERE for full article.  

August 13, 2017

Sephardi Voices shoots its new film, Last Class in Baghdad, at the Montreal reunion of the Frank Iny, Menahem Daniel, and Shamash Schools, the last Jewish schools in Baghdad.

August 13, 2017

When alumni of the Frank Iny School, the last Jewish school in Baghdad, held a reunion last week in Montreal, it was a chance to reminisce and catch up with old friends, most of whom had fled Iraq after 1967. For blogger Marcus E. Smith, attending the event was to open his eyes to a close-knit but oppressed community, which he had no clue existed when he was a soldier in Iraq. CLICK HERE for the full article.

June 20, 2017

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentilone and leaders of the Italian Jewish community recently marked the fiftieth anniversary of the mass expulsion of Jews from Libya to Italy in the Great Synagogue of Rome.

Sephardi Voices and the American University of Rome under the direction of Professor Tony Villani, are now working together in a joint program to interview and document the stories of Libyan Jews who fled their country 50 years ago. CLICK HERE for more photos

 

June 13, 2017

An article in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper about the Iraqi Jewish Voices Project, an exciting part of a sweeping effort by Sephardi Voices to bring to life — and document for perpetuity — the faces, stories, and voices of the Jews of Arab and Muslim communities. CLICK HERE for the full article.

 

 

June 7, 2017

Sephardi Voices: Jews from North Africa, the Middle East and Iran opened June 7th at the Jewish Museum of London to a rapt audience. CLICK HERE to read more and for more photos.

 

 

May 23, 2017

The Iraqi Jewish Voices Project photographs Meir Murad of Givataim, Israel, who at age 104 is the project’s oldest participant. CLICK HERE to read more and for more photos

 

 

June 1, 2017 

Executive Director, Henry Green and Media Director, David Langer received special permission from the Jewish Community in Cairo to visit and photograph the magnificent Sha’ar Hashamayam Synagogue in Cairo. Built in 1899, it was the religious centre for the Sephardic Jewish community in Cairo.