An Interview with Esra Akkaya on #Sephardic Literature…

"Our guest this week is someone more people should get to know: Esra Akkaya. She is a young scholar who works with texts in #Ladino, English, French, and Turkish, using them to explore Sephardic culture, history, and literary heritage." https://www.salom.com.tr/salomTurkey/haber/140936/an-interview-with-esra-akkaya-on-sephardic-literature

Biblical Hebrew. Modern Hebrew. Ashkenazi pronunciation. Sephardic pronunciation. Yiddish. Israeli Hebrew. Wait, are these all the same language?! 😅

One of the most fascinating things about Hebrew is that its story stretches across thousands of years, continents, exiles, revivals, and generations of Jewish history.

In this video I dive into the evolution of the Hebrew language, how it changed, how it survived, and why the Hebrew spoken in Israel today is both ancient and completely alive.

If you’ve ever been confused by the different pronunciations, traditions, or forms of Hebrew, this lesson is for you ❤️

https://youtu.be/i5YEScJFXWY?si=wuJIIsuGBQqhiQ5S

#ModernHebrew #BiblicalHebrew #Ashkenazi #Sephardic #LanguageLearning

"Western #Jews have lately been sensing the end of what has been dubbed our “Golden Age” or “A #Jewish Century.” Looking back longingly at the past hundred years, we question whether the next century will be as kind to us and our children as the last one was.

It’s a reasonable question, but as I’ve noticed, it tends to be asked more often by #American #Ashkenazi Jews than by those whose families came from #Muslim lands across the #MiddleEast and #NorthAfrica, widely referred to as #Sephardic Jews.

There is a profound difference between how Western #AshkenaziJews from the lands of the cross and Western #SephardicJews from the lands of the crescent are experiencing this moment, and in that difference lie competing visions of the Western dream, rooted in each community’s pre-modern-day-West history."

https://www.futureofjewish.com/p/the-future-of-jews-in-the-west

"#Graphicnovelist #JulianVoloj was walking through #Manhattan’s #Chinatown when he stumbled across the cemetery of the #UnitedStates’ oldest #Jewish community, #ShearithIsrael. This inspired him to write #Remnants, an interpretation of the story of 23 #Jews from #Brazil who established #NorthAmerica’s first congregation.

When people think about Jewish #immigration to #NewYork, it usually brings to mind the waves of Eastern and Central #European Jewish #migrants in the early 20th century. But Remnants sheds light on the #Sephardic immigration that introduced #Judaism to the Americas far earlier."

https://jewishchronicle.timesofisrael.com/this-graphic-novel-illustrates-the-story-of-americas-first-jewish-congregation-pirates-and-all/

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"#Ladino is a historical #language of the #Sephardic #Jews, an amalgam of 15th-century #Spanish and other Romance languages. Traditionally written in #Hebrew characters, it is also influenced by Hebrew in vocabulary and structure. It was spoken by the Jews of #Spain, who took it with them when they were expelled from the country.

Once spoken across a thriving #diaspora that stretched across Southern #Europe, the #Balkans, #NorthAfrica, #Turkey and the #MiddleEast, Ladino is now considered endangered. Most native speakers are older than 60 and live primarily in #Israel. Estimates suggest only a few tens of thousands remain. One estimate pegged the number of speakers at 60,000 in 1994, and the number has trended downward since then. Many Ladino speakers were killed in the #Holocaust, and survivors were uprooted and adopted other languages.

#NesiAltaras, a #Turkish #Jewish #researcher at #Stanford, is one of a coterie of #historians..."

https://jweekly.com/2026/04/24/stanford-ladino-scholar-keeps-grip-on-fading-ottoman-jewish-world/

https://shj.org/new-siddur-for-humanistic-judaism/

Very excited that I recently got my copy of this siddur. My friend Martin Di Maggio has done an incredible job with it.

I hope to share more reflections on it in the coming days as I have the chance to dive deep into it, but I will say for now three things:

1. The book itself is not only easy to read, but it is beautiful. I really like how the pages are laid out.
2. Many of the non-theistic liturgical selections are crafted in such a way that they work with the traditional melodies we know.
3. There is a good bit of #Sephardic influence in this siddur, which is a welcome change.

#HumanisticJudaism #Tefilah #Mazeldon #Liturgy

https://shj.org/new-siddur-for-humanistic-judaism/

Very excited that I recently got my copy of this siddur. My friend Martin Di Maggio has done an incredible job with it.

I hope to share more reflections on it in the coming days as I have the chance to dive deep into it, but I will say for now three things:

1. The book itself is not only easy to read, but it is beautiful. I really like how the pages are laid out.
2. Many of the non-theistic liturgical selections are crafted in such a way that they work with the traditional melodies we know.
3. There is a good bit of #Sephardic influence in this siddur, which is a welcome change.

#HumanisticJudaism #Tefilah #Mazeldon #Liturgy