Their ancestors came from North Africa, Central Asia, the Middle East and Iberia.
And they’re all Jewish.
Sephardic Jews, at just 10% of the American Jewish population, are a minority within a minority. Many trace their ancestry to the Jewish expulsion from Spain in 1492. Their rich religious and culture heritage typically gets little attention in the American Jewish mainstream, where most forebears came from Eastern and Central Europe.
A new report seeks to bring attention to the Sephardic minority and offers recommendations for leaders who want to get these enthusiastic populations more involved in Jewish life. The report was commissioned by JIMENA (Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa), a nonprofit organization based in California, and offers portraits of four Sephardic communities in the United States, including Latin Sephardic Jews in South Florida.
“The takeaway for me is that South Florida is home to an incredibly diverse Sephardic community,” said Sarah Levin, JIMENA’s executive director. “Many came from Latin America to North America, but there were many stops along the way. It’s truly a global community.”
Rose Pappo Allen, president of the Sephardi Federation of Palm Beach County, plates Dulce de Naranja (candied orange peel), a traditional Sephardic dish, at her Wellington home. Allen traces her family history to Sarajevo, in the former Yugoslavia, now Bosnia and Herzegovina. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
The study found that Sephardic Jews have a strong connection to Israel and are more likely to say that being Jewish is an important part of their daily life compared with Ashkenazi Jews. At the same time, Sephardic Jews are not isolated from the wider Jewish world of South Florida, an impressive feat, Levin said.
“Sephardic Jews in South Florida have their own institutions, but they are also part of the larger community,” she said.
Levin said the experience of Sephardic Jews in the United States is often shaped by their countries of origin, when they arrived and where they settled. In South Florida, these countries include Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Guatemala, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Cuba, with previous ancestral stops including Turkey, Syria, Morocco and Iraq.
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And there are many other countries of ancestry. Boca Raton Rabbi David Shabtai’s father is a Sephardic Jew from Afghanistan; his mother, who died in 1997, was an Ashkenazi Jew of Czechoslovakian ancestry. Shabtai grew up in an Ashkenazi synagogue in Brooklyn but observed Sephardic customs at home, such as wearing a tallit, or prayer shawl, even as a child (boys of Eastern European Jewish heritage typically begin wearing a tallit at their bar mitzvahs).
Another beloved Sephardic custom: giving children the afikoman, or special piece of Passover matzo, to wear during the Seder.
“Each child gets a kerchief that they wrap the matzo in, and then they wear it around their body, tied in the back,” Shabtai said. “The goal is to keep it throughout the night and then get some type of gift at the end if you managed to do so.”
Shabtai, the former leader of the Sephardic Kehillah at Boca Raton Synagogue, said he is constantly noticing the overlap between Sephardic and Ashkenazi practices and traditions,
“Over thousands of years, these communities dispersed, yet they’re so similar,” said the rabbi, 44, a father of six who now works at the Jewish Leadership Academy in Miami.
Slivovitz plum brandy, a traditional Sephardic liquor, and Bosnian handicrafts are displayed at Rose Pappo Allen’s Wellington home. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
Rose Pappo Allen’s Sephardic family took a different route from Shabtai’s. The Wellington resident traces her family history to Sarajevo, in the former Yugoslavia, now Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“My family were among the original Sephardic clans in the region protected by the Ottoman empire after expulsion from Spain,” said Allen, president of the Sephardi Federation of Palm Beach County, which has about 100 members. “My father’s ancestors were famous apothecaries, called ‘attars,’ who dosed herbal medications for over 350 years from their shop in the old town bazaar.”
She said her great-grandfather, Santo Rafael Papo, was the last attar before their shops were destroyed by the Nazis during World War II. Allen’s four grandparents died in the Holocaust, as did most of Sarajevo’s Jewish community.
“The takeaway for me is that South Florida is home to an incredibly diverse Sephardic community. Many came from Latin America to North America, but there were many stops along the way. It’s truly a global community.” — Sarah Levin, JIMENA’s executive director
Her family dispersed around the world, mirroring the countries where Sephardic Jews can be found today, including Israel, Argentina, Brazil, France and Canada.
Today, Allen has a special affection for Sephardic culture, including the endangered Judeo-Spanish language of Ladino, Eastern melodies played on the oud (similar to a lute), and comfort foods that revive memories, including Turkish coffee and biscochos (hard dunking cookies).
“When I sip a Turkish coffee, it always brings me back to those close-knit times of my childhood,” said Allen, 74. “I loved it all and cherished my mother’s stories, which brought to life an entire mysterious world that had been left behind.”
Levin, of JIMENA, said the flourishing Sephardic community in South Florida can serve as a national model.
“An international Jewish community exists and is thriving in South Florida,” she said. “It’s something the entire community should be very proud of.”
To see the full report, go to SephardicStudy.org.
