We’ve had a packed Summer of activities in the NYC Metropolitan Area! For the second time, we proudly marched in the Celebrate Israel Parade in New York City on Sunday June 2nd with our own specially designed float. This annual parade brings hundreds of thousands of Jews from the NYC Metropolitan area together for a spectacular celebration of all things Israel. We marched up Manhattan’s 5th Avenue from 57th to 73rd Street with our affiliate congregations Kehila Kedosha Janina, Congregation Shearith, Etz Ahaim Sephardic Congregation, and our partners at the Sephardic Young Professionals Network and the American Sephardi Federation. Our leadership also had the opportunity to meet with and welcome Yaakov Hagoel, Chairman of the World Zionist Organization (WZO) during his visit to New York, whose family is originally from Salonika and Izmir!
On Sunday June 16th, we held our annual Sephardic Families Picnic in Overpeck County Park in New Jersey, where we had some delicious kosher catered Turkish food, sports and games like water balloon tosses for kids, and a free Sephardic kids book giveaway thanks to our partners at PJ Library. On June 23rd, we organized a special Brotherhood Shabbaton at our affiliate Congregation Etz Ahaim in Highland Park, New Jersey. In June we welcomed Dr. Leon Saltiel of the World Jewish Congress for a special talk on his two new books: Do Not Forget Me: Three Jewish Mothers Write to Their Sons from the Thessaloniki Ghetto and The Holocaust in Thessaloniki: Reactions to the Anti-Jewish Persecution, 1942–1943.
Our Sephardic Young Professionals Network has also been busy this summer with a rooftop BBQ and Pool Party in June in Brooklyn, its Tour of Jewish Greece and the Balkans in July, and a special Greek Jewish Shabbaton weekend in Manhattan in August with a delicious Shabbat Dinner and special scholar Theo Cantor from Athens!
We have a lot of new exciting events coming up for the Fall, including the annual Community Wide Sephardic Selihot Program at the Sephardic Congregation of Fort Lee (led by Rabbi Ilan Acoca) in September, a young families Pre-Rosh Ashana Sephardic Learning Seder, our annual Ziara - communal visits to our local cemeteries in October, and a special NYC Community-wide Shabbaton at the beginning of November! Check out our website for more info at sephardicbrotherhood.com, and make sure to always check our weekly La Boz Sefaradi—the Sephardic Voice, for all our upcoming local and national events.
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