SPEAKERS BUREAU

Carole Basri

TOPICS INCLUDE:

• “We Started No War: The Story of Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries”
  “900,000 Forgotten Refugees: A Daughter’s Quest for Justice”
  

A descendant of the esteemed Iny and Dangoor families of Baghdad, Carole Basri is the Alternative Representation to the United Nations of the World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries (WOJAC), a group dedicated to raising awareness for the nearly one million Jewish refugees from Arab lands. Basri is an adjunct law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and Executive Director of the Greater New York Chapter of the American Corporate Counsel Association. She has written and directed the documentary short entitled, The Story of Frank Iny, a film that studies the history of a prominent Iraqi Jewish family, told from the perspective of their American-born granddaughter. Her second film, Searching for Baghdad: A Daughter’s Journey, is a personal travelogue of her effort to locate her Iraqi roots. The third in the trilogy of films on Iraqi Jewish life that she has created is The Last Jews of Baghdad, a historical and personal look at the persecution, torture, escape, and exodus of over 160,000 Iraqi Jews between 1940 and 2003. Over the past year and a half, Ms. Basri has traveled to Baghdad six times and was a member of the Coalition Provisional Authority under Ambassador Paul Bremer.

Basri has lectured before the New York State Bar Association and many other venues.
She inspires her audiences with her insight on the Middle-Eastern roots of the Jewish people and the 2,700 year-old existence of the Jewish community of Iraq that predates Arab conquest by over a millennium. She also teaches participants that peace will only come between Israel and its neighbors when Arab governments recognize the role they played in driving out and dispossessing one million Jewish refugees from Arab lands. “If you want to discuss justice for Palestinian refugees,” observes Basri, “then you must discuss justice for Jewish refugees from Arab lands – they started no war and yet were expelled from homes where they had lived for nearly three millennia.”

Ms. Basri can be reached at cbasri@yahoo.com.

Aviva Ben-Ur

TOPICS INCLUDE:

• Sephardic Jews in the U.S., 1880-2000 (particularly relations with Ashkenazim
  and gentile Hispanics and Arabs)
• Jews in the Caribbean
• Caribbean Jewish cemeteries
• Afro-Jewish relations in Suriname
• Ladino literature, 16th-20th centuries

Aviva Ben-Ur is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Judaic and Near
Eastern Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she teaches
Jewish History and specializes in Sephardic Studies. Her current book project
focuses on Sephardic communities of the United States, 1880 to the present.

Professor Ben Ur can be reached at aben-ur@judnea.umass.edu.

Andrée Aelion Brooks

TOPICS INCLUDE:

• The Incredible Story of Dona Gracia Nasi, An International Banker and Leader During the 16th Century
• Italy, The Cradle of Jewish Life in Europe
• Jungle Journey: Finding 17th Century Jewish Life in the Amazon Jungle
• The Jews in the Renaissance
• The Strange Story of the Conversos: The First Jews in the Americas
• The Real History of the Jewish Doctor
  

Andrée Aelion Brooks is a journalist, author, lecturer and Associate Fellow, Yale University. For 18 years she was a contributing columnist and news writer for the New York Times. Her historical biography of Dona Gracia Nasi, The Woman who Defied Kings, about a 16th century Jewish woman banker and leader, was a finalist in the National Jewish Book Awards for 2004 and a winner of the Mark Twain Award. Her latest book, Russian Dance, was a first place winner in the 2005 at-large contest for non-fiction books from the National Federation of Press Women. In addition, she recently produced a teaching video and multi-media educational program for 5th to 7th graders in Jewish congregational and day schools in Sephardic history and culture called Out of Spain. In 1990 Brooks received the American Jewish Woman of Achievement award from the American Jewish Committee and in 2001, she received a special award from the Consulate General of Israel in conjunction with the American Sephardi Federation for her work in Sephardic Jewish History.

For a list of all her books and speaking topics, go to www.andreeaelionbrooks.com
For background on the Out of Spain children’s educational material go to www.outofspain.com
Ms. Brooks can be reached at andreebrooks@outofspain.com.

Mark Cohen

TOPICS INCLUDE:

• Long Live the King: Women in Power in Sephardic Folktales. From Homer's Ulysses to James Bond, we love a hero with a trick up his sleeve. Nearly always, it is a role reserved for men. But in these three Sephardic tales, it is the women who get to do the lying, the spying, and the double-crossing. (A very popular and entertaining talk.)

• How the West Won: Teaching French to Spanish Jews. Fights about Jewish education are fights about the Jewish future, and those fights can be ruthless. In 1863, Western reformers met Sephardic traditionalists for a showdown in the Ottoman Balkans.

• What Can We Learn From this Story? A Personal History Lesson. Cohen's research into his Sephardic past led him to the source of some unfortunate personal traits, and taught him that the burdens of history are sometimes offset by its consolations.

Mark Cohen, is the author of Last Century of a Sephardic Community: The Jews of Monastir, 1839-1943, a widely praised original history of a model Sephardic community. He was born in New York, was raised there in an extended Sephardic family, and graduated from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Cohen's writing has appeared in newspapers and scholarly publications, including the Los Angeles Times, New York Newsday, Daily News, Midstream, Saul Bellow Journal, American Jewish History, Turkish Studies Association Bulletin, Journal of Jewish Studies and History of Photography.

Mark Cohen has spoken at the American Sephardi Federation with Sephardic House, Jewish Community Library of Los Angeles, California State University at Northridge, Jewish Community Library of San Francisco, Indiana University and many JCCs and synagogues. His articles on Sephardic history have appeared in History of Photography, The Sephardi Report (published by the American Sephardi Federation with Sephardic House), The Turkish Studies Association Bulletin, and Oxford University's Journal of Jewish Studies. He also wrote the "Foreword" to the Bitola (Monastir) Holocaust Memorial Book, recently re-issued by the Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library.

For a complete list of Cohen's speaking appearances, topics, and book reviews go to www.markcohen.biz. Mark Cohen can be reached at cohenullen@mcihispeed.net.

• "1654: A Pivotal Year in American Jewish History." During the little-known period of Dutch rule (1630-1654), Brazil became a popular destination for European Jews. As much as they had benefited from tolerance in the Dutch Republic, Jews were arguably better off in Brazil. The government granted Jews residential rights, the right to retail trade, freedom of conscience, and allowed them to open the first synagogue in the history of the New World. The colony's demise in 1654 marked the beginning of a new stage of Jewish American history, as the diaspora of Dutch Brazil opened up new parts of the Americas. At the same time, the end of Dutch Brazil in 1654 was connected to the readmission of Jews to England. England, the Netherlands, and their respective colonies in the Americas henceforth formed a world that connected many Jews.
  
• "Jews in the Caribbean: A General Introduction." This talk addresses the significant role of Jews in the history of the Caribbean in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They made a living as merchants, brokers, and planters and related professions, and founded Jewish congregations on numerous islands. The chief community was located in Curaçao, where Jews made up one-third of the white population and where they built the oldest still functioning synagogue in the Americas.
  
• "The Converso Experience and the Construction of Transatlantic Colonies." In the seventeenth century, many Iberian New Christians underwent a profound transformation, as they migrated from Spain and Portugal and made their way to Brazil and various Caribbean islands. By then, they had shed their Christian guise and returned to their ancestral beliefs. In places as varied as Suriname, Curaçao, and Brazil, they helped shape the European colonies, while at the same time organizing dynamic Jewish communities.
  
• "The Diaspora As A Blessing In Disguise? Sephardic Trade Networks in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries." This lecture argues that the continuous process of uprooting, which Jewish and New Christian trade houses faced in early modern Europe, helped to bring down transaction costs by spreading industrial know-how and financial expertise to new corners of the continent. The inevitable fragmentation was more than counterbalanced by the maintenance of long-distance trade relations. From a purely economic perspective, therefore, the Sephardic diaspora set off by the scattering of families was a blessing in disguise.
  
  Wim Klooster, Assistant Professor of History at Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, has published numerous articles and four books, including *The Dutch in the Americas, 1600-1800* (1997) and (with Alfred Padula) *The Atlantic World: Essays in Slavery, Migration, and Imagination* (2004). Klooster earned his doctorate at the University of Leiden and has been a Fulbright fellow, a fellow at the John Carter Brown Library, and a Charles Warren Fellow at Harvard University. He is currently president of the Forum on European Expansion and Global Interaction. Professor Klooster can be reached at WKlooster@clarku.edu.

Sandra Gail Cumings Malamed

ILLUSTRATED LECTURE TOPICS INCLUDE:

• Coming to America – “The Colonial Jewish Experience” Survey 1654-1815
• The Other Two Abigails – “The Jewish Colonial Women”
• The Jews of Richmond – “A Late Blooming Community”
• Commodore Uriah Phillips Levy – “The Man Who Saved Monticello”
  

Sandra Gail Cumings Malamed was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in English and Speech in 1963. She studied at the Peabody Museum, in Salem Massachusetts, for her work in the field of Colonial Decorative Arts.

Mrs. Malamed has become one of the foremost leaders in Colonial Jewish History and has lectured throughout the country at various historical societies and museums as well as serving as a Scholar-in-Residence to many private organizations. She has served as curator at the Skirball Museum,
and at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles. She has been a Curator of the American Jewish Historical Society in New York City. Her book, "The Jews in Early America, A Chronicle of Good Taste and Good Deeds" was published by Fifthian Press in 2003. She is married and has two children and one grandchild. She can be reached at 310-229-2940.

• Sephardic Genealogy - An overview
       This presentation covers similarities and differences between Sephardic and Ashkenazi genealogy research, populations reversals over time, review of how Sephardic surnames evolved over the centuries, and description of resources available for Sephardic genealogy research in pre-expulsion Iberian archives.
• Sephardic Genealogy Resources
       Overview and description of available archival and other resources for Sephardic genealogy in various countries where Sephardim lived.
• Evolution of Sephardic Surnames
       Because Sephardic surnames are often so ancient – centuries to a millennium – they have a very important place in Sephardic genealogy. This presentation describes how these surnames arose from the biblical era to the present and their use in researching Sephardic genealogy. It demonstrates how name variants developed, and the documentary proof of the validity of these variants.
• SephardicGen - Exploring the website's extensive offerings and databases
       SephardicGen.com is the premier and most comprehensive website for Sephardic genealogy. This presentation is a description of the contents of SephardicGen, and the tools to navigate and make use of its vast resources and searchable databases. SephardicGen.com includes sections on history, genealogy methodology, Sephardic genealogy Internet resources classified by country, a consolidated and searchable 70,000+ Sephardic surname index, 50 extensive searchable databases plus links to Sephardic databases elsewhere, a searchable gazetteer of Sephardic communities, links to Sephardic archives, conversion tools for Muslim and other calendars, links to Sephardic family trees, and an extensive bibliography classified by country or topic.

Rahel Musleah

TOPICS INCLUDE:

• Apples and Pomegranates: A Rosh Hashanah Seder
  Seders are not just for Pesah or Tu B'Shevat! Bless the new year with symbolic foods.
  
• Jewish Calcutta Through Music and Memory
  A fascinating personal journey mirrors the story of Calcutta’s Jews with humor, poignancy and song.
  
• From Shipwrecks to Maharajas: The Jews of Bombay and Cochin
  The saga of lost tribes, shipwrecks and remote villages traces India’s oldest Jewish communities.
  
• Eshet Hayyil: Jewish India Through Women’s Lives
  A touching tribute to legacy and continuity follows five generations of women.
  
• Opium and Opportunity, Tradition and Superstition--From Iraq to India
  The heritage of Baghdad transplanted in Calcutta’ social, economic and spiritual soil.
  
• The Jewish Rhythms of India: Shabbat Spirit, Song & Story
  Undulating melodies, ancient texts, and distinctive customs embody the rhythms of Indian Jewish life.
  
• The Jews of Iraq: Antiquity, Inheritance and Escape
  A dramatic historical, musical and visual journey behind and beyond the headlines.
  
• Rice on Pesah and Lots More: Rituals, Customs and Songs
  The seder as you’ve never experienced it! A myriad of colorful and unusual customs.
  
• For the Kids: Jews in Calcutta? Is that Near Kalamazoo?
  An engaging presentation that shows Jewish life has flourished in all four corners of the earth.
  
• Torahs and Teapots: A Family Education Program
  Identity, inheritance and responsibility come alive through stories and a family activity.
  
• Bazaar of Memories: A Journey Home to Calcutta
  Share the powerful impact of a journey home after 33 years.
  
• Scholar/Artist-in-Residence Weekends
  Create a weekend that will appeal to all ages: An unforgettable tapestry of heritage and culture.

Through the vivid prism of her family’s story, Rahel Musleah introduces the distinctive heritage of the Jews of India. The seventh generation of a Calcutta family, she traces her roots to 17th-century Baghdad. Her multi-faceted slide, song and story presentations open a window on a rich culture little-known to most.

Rahel Musleah was born in Calcutta, India, the seventh generation of a Calcutta Jewish family that traces its roots to 17th century Baghdad. Through her multi-media song, story and slide programs, she shares her rare and intimate knowledge of this ancient community’s history, customs and melodies with audiences at synagogues, schools, libraries, women’s groups, and cultural events.

Ms. Musleah is the author of several books. Her newest, Apples and Pomegranates: A Family Seder for Rosh Hashanah (Lerner/Kar-Ben, July 2004), introduces the Sephardic custom of blessing the Jewish new year with symbolic foods. It was named a Notable Book of 2004 by the Association of Jewish Libraries. Her haggadah, Why On This Night? A Passover Haggadah for Family Celebration ( Simon & Schuster), has been received with critical acclaim. She is the co-author, with Rabbi Michael Klayman, of Sharing Blessings: Children's Stories for Exploring the Spirit of the Jewish Holidays (Jewish Lights), and the author of Journey of a Lifetime: The Jewish Life Cycle Book (Behrman House).

Her new CD, Hodu: Jewish Rhythms from Baghdad to India, features ancient texts, authentic melodies and contemporary rhythms. ("Hodu," in Hebrew, means both "India" and "Praise God!") It was named one of the top ten CDs of 2004 by the New York Jewish Week and has received excellent reviews in Hadassah magazine and other publications. Her songbook, B'Kol Arev: Songs of the Jews of Calcutta, compiled more than 50 songs for Shabbat, holidays and special occasions (Tara Publications); an accompanying cassette featured 18 selections.

Ms. Musleah is a graduate of Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. She is a member of the Authors’ Guild, the Society of Professional Journalists and the American Jewish Press Association. She sings with Shirah, the Jewish Community Chorus of the JCC on the Palisades, in Tenafly, NJ, and the Zamir Chorale, both under the direction of Matthew Lazar. She has received awards for her writing from the American Jewish Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Sephardi Literary Contest, the Society of National Association Publications, and the General Federation of Women’s Clubs. Ms. Musleah can be reached at Rahelmus@aol.com
Ph: (516) 829-4866 or visit www.rahelsjewishindia.com

Rabbi Dr. M. Mitchell Serels

TOPICS INCLUDE:

• “Semana Sephard”
• ”Studies in the History of the Jews of Portugal”
• ”History of the Jews of Tangier”
• ”La Comunidad Judia de Tanger”
• ”Jews of Cape Verde”
• ”Del Fuego: Sephardim and the Holocaust”
• ”Studies in the Jews of Yemen”

Dr. M. Mitchell Serels is a religious leader and scholar who have served as the Associate Director and then Director of the Jacob E. Safra Institute of Sephardic Community Programs at Yeshiva University since 1973 until 1999. In 1970, Dr. Serels became the spiritual leader of Sephardic Congregation Beth El of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Before coming to Yeshiva University, Dr. Serels served as the spiritual leader of Petah Tikva Sephardic Congregation of Toronto, Canada, a synagogue servicing some 4000 Jews from Spanish Morocco. Dr. Serels earned his MA in Psychology from Hunter College and his Ph.D. from New York University. He was ordained in 1970 from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, affiliated with Yeshiva University.

He is the author or editor of five books on Sephardic Culture including the Jews of Cape Verde: A Brief History. On March 31, 1992, Dr. Serels was invited by the Government of Spain to be in the Madrid Synagogue for the historic visit of King Juan Carlos I on the occasion of the 500 anniversary of the signing of the edict of expulsion. On December 6, 1996, Dr. Serels was knighted by order of King Juan Carlos I, the first Sephardic rabbi to be so honored by the government of Spain in 500 years.

Dr. Serels also serves as the spiritual leader of Magen David Sephardic Congregation of New Rochelle-Scarsdale since 1983. He now trades bonds and is assistant professor of Psychology and World Civilization at Berkeley College.

He is married to the former Ruth Bendayan and they have three sons – Alain, Steven and Shalti – and a daughter, Diana. Rabbi Serels can be reached at MitchSer@aol.com.

Emily Taitz

TOPICS INCLUDE:

• “The Jews of Portugal: The Other Holocaust”
• “The Forced Ones: Crypto-Judaism and the Jews of Belmonte”
• “Queens, Courtesans and Commoners: The Roles of Sephardic Jewish Women”
• “Rebels, Revolutionaries, Radicals and Reformers: 350 Years of Jewish Women in America.

Dr. Emily Taitz has a Ph.D. in Medieval Jewish History from the Jewish Theological Seminary. She has authored and co-authored a number of books and articles, including the recent prize-winning work The JPS Guide to Jewish Women: 600 B.C.E.-1900 C.E. (2003) (co-authored with Sondra Henry and Cheryl Tallen) and The Jews of Medieval France: The Community of Champagne (1992). She taught courses in medieval history and women’s history at Adelphi University for ten years before retiring to concentrate on research and writing. She has also written five books for young adults, and has contributed to several encyclopedias and biographical dictionaries. For the last four years, Taitz has been actively involved in a project to help the crypto-Jews of Portugal come into the mainstream of Jewish life, and has researched and written articles on the history of Portuguese Jewry and the fate of the forced converts. She is a frequent speaker for Jewish groups and women’s groups throughout the Metropolitan area. Dr. Taitz can be reached by phone: (516) 466-5494; E-mail: isaacem@optonline.net

For more information on Emily Taitz, her background and a complete CV, log on to www.guidetojewishwomen.com.

If you would like to be considered for inclusion in the Sephardic Speakers’ Bureau, please send your bio, list of topics and contact information to The American Sephardi Federation with Sephardic House at info@americansephardifederation.org