MEMORY IN ACTION: EMBRACING THE PAST FOR THE FUTURE

747-348-4430

  • Our Mission
  • The Epic of LA Jewry
    • A Pre-History of LA Jews
    • Link :Mapping Jewish LA
    • Hollywood's Start
    • Hollywood's 1st Synagogue
    • HTBE's Movie Studio
    • Escaping the Third Reich
    • The Survivors Rebuild
    • Escape from the Gulag
    • From Tehran to LA
    • Sephardic and Mizrahi Jew
    • Beyond Yiddish and Ladino
    • Present and Future
    • CHRONOLOGY AND FACTICITY
  • A Tool for Rearchers
  • ARTICLES OF NOTE
  • Our Donors
  • News and Analysis
    • Russo-Ukrainian War
    • Israel-Hamas War
    • American Politics
    • The Jewish Question
  • Events
  • More
    • Our Mission
    • The Epic of LA Jewry
      • A Pre-History of LA Jews
      • Link :Mapping Jewish LA
      • Hollywood's Start
      • Hollywood's 1st Synagogue
      • HTBE's Movie Studio
      • Escaping the Third Reich
      • The Survivors Rebuild
      • Escape from the Gulag
      • From Tehran to LA
      • Sephardic and Mizrahi Jew
      • Beyond Yiddish and Ladino
      • Present and Future
      • CHRONOLOGY AND FACTICITY
    • A Tool for Rearchers
    • ARTICLES OF NOTE
    • Our Donors
    • News and Analysis
      • Russo-Ukrainian War
      • Israel-Hamas War
      • American Politics
      • The Jewish Question
    • Events

747-348-4430

MEMORY IN ACTION: EMBRACING THE PAST FOR THE FUTURE
  • Our Mission
  • The Epic of LA Jewry
    • A Pre-History of LA Jews
    • Link :Mapping Jewish LA
    • Hollywood's Start
    • Hollywood's 1st Synagogue
    • HTBE's Movie Studio
    • Escaping the Third Reich
    • The Survivors Rebuild
    • Escape from the Gulag
    • From Tehran to LA
    • Sephardic and Mizrahi Jew
    • Beyond Yiddish and Ladino
    • Present and Future
    • CHRONOLOGY AND FACTICITY
  • A Tool for Rearchers
  • ARTICLES OF NOTE
  • Our Donors
  • News and Analysis
    • Russo-Ukrainian War
    • Israel-Hamas War
    • American Politics
    • The Jewish Question
  • Events

Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews

Personal family photo Weinberg

Spanish Exiles, North Africans before the Arabs, Iraqis, Syrians, and Yemenites before the rise of Islam

Until a few centuries ago, the bulk of Jews lived in Spain, North Africa and the Near East. Generally labelled " Sephardic"( out of Spain) or Mizrahi ( Eastern), members of these communities came  to Los Angeles  and established synagogues such as the Sephardic Temple ( which was led for some time by Rabbi Jacob Ott, who had been the Rabbi at Hollywood Temple Beth El just before that).  NW

The sephardic Jews of Los angeles

Arthur Benveniste Shares This Presentation on the LA Jewish Ladino Scene

  

Arthur Benveniste  grew up in a community of Sephardic Jews from the Island of Rhodes. Ladino was the mail language of the community. Here, the reference is primarily to the descendants of Spanish exiles that settled in the Balkans.

He has been documenting accounts of the Sephardic community here and in Spain and Portugal over the years. 

Since 1993, He has been active in the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies. and a past president and former editor of their Journal. He has visited Crypto-Jewish communities in New Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Spain and Portugal. and three visits to the small village of Belmonte, Portugal to see a community of crypto-Jews who finally came out openly as Jews in 1987. 


Here is the link to his video presentation on the Sephardic community of Los Angeles. 

  

https://youtu.be/Gz0MRRDUQEQ?si=5HRe4x0JbopJnz7n&t=6468


and this one on the Crypto Jews, Jews who literally came out of the closet( or other hiding places) where they buried their Jewish heritage to escape the claws of the inquisition.

  

https://www.youtube.com/live/5Bxh9AGSAYU?si=6nn1GzBTo2hkHmDw&t=5967 

These lectures were delivered by zoom to the members of Hollywood Temple Beth El



A Stamp Honoring Don Isaac Abarbanel, advisor to the kings of Spain and Portugal 500 years ago.

Slides for presentation on Sephardic jews of LA

by Arthur Benveniste

Download PDF

The SLIDES for the Presentation on Crypto Jews

by Arthur Benveniste

Download PDF

An Introduction to Sephardic music

by Dr. Judith Cohen

This presentation was done by Dr. Judith Cohen on zoom with Hollywood Temple Beth El Members in 2020.

  

Dr Judith R. Cohen is a Canadian ethnomusicologist and singer. She was born and grew up in Montreal, is based in Toronto -  and may frequently be found in Spain, Portugal, and wherever else her fieldwork, concerts, conferences, research and general curiosity and love of travel take her.

Follow the link:

 https://youtu.be/u2O9XaEt3TA?t=5288 


The Jews of Morocco

Roots that date back to Ancient Israel

Los Angeles is home to a significant  population of Jews from the Maghreb, Northwest Africa, primarily Morocco, There, the community was originally of Amazigh ( Berber) origin, descended from Jews who had come  there 2000 years earlier, and then supplemented by Spanish Jewish exiles. This is a description of the story of that ancient community that Rabbi Weinberg explored.

Download PDF

A timeline of Moriccan Jewry

Joachim Benloulou, a member of Hollywood Temple Beth El, discusses the history of Moroccan Jewry and shares some personal examples of  Jewish customs.

The Jews of Yemen

The Jews of Yemen

Los Angeles is home to two congregations of Yemenite Jews on Pico Blvd. There are several families here from the Zadok line of Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, including the Torah reader at Hollywood Temple Beth El for some years ,Rabbi Shmuel Zadok, as well as Rabbi Weinberg's wife and family. Here is the story of the Jews who predated Islam in Arabia by at least a millenia!

Download PDF

The lineage of one Yemenite Family

The Story of the Saliḥ/Zadok Families of Sana’a

The family traces its roots to the tribe of Judah through Obed ben Peretz, the ancestor of King David. The name Ṣaliḥ ( צאלח ) was Hebraicized to Zadok ( צדוק )when the family members made Aliyah in the 20th century. This is a direct translation of the Arabic, which means Zadik, righteous, but was modified so as not to

sound arrogant. 

Download PDF

Copyright © 2025 MEMORY IN ACTION: EMBRACING THE PAST FOR THE FUTURE - All Rights Reserved.

Powered by

  • Our Mission

This website uses cookies.

We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.

Accept