Posts by Aron Sterk
224 posts
The use of DNA in matters of Halacha should quite rightly be limited.
This is the cemetery on ground leased by Alexander Felix (David Penso), Jacob Do Porto, and David Machado Do Sequeira in 1718.
from Dickens’s ‘Dictionary of London’ 1879 - fried fish and bola:Jews.—The tangible benefits which flow from civil and religious liberty may be seen in the improved social and political status of the Jews of London, since the abolition of the Test Acts and the passing of the Jewish Emancipation Bill. Until within a comparatively recent period the Jews were deprived of the privileges of the univers...
And now for something completely different. Forgotten Sephardi Jew Sir Gerald David Nunes Nabarro MP. Thorough-going reactionary whose private secretary was Christine Hamilton. Still he was responsible for the Clean Air Act ...
https://ci5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/I--_BEySbWfi-7_ZwhABZVIDQxVb59v3fHYvfEyNJ3Kk2ZGGnzIvZdyN80fKpGQ2pJbcpf8yx6zsHoYd4bCEXng8-eh7D-SUxGpx6JrC5yEgwu69R6_4czaaWMxOskNb=s0-d-e1-ft#https://cdn-media.web-view.net/i/xxwjssc8/DIVUR_JULY2.jpg?cache=1561050186836
This is an interesting china dinner service. Instead of the usual heraldic motif it has a picture of the two hands raised for the Aaronic blessing (birkat haCohanim). It was probably commissioned by a Dutch Portuguese family of cohens c. 1785.
I am attending the "Ninth Annual Conference of the Society for Sephardic Studies Sephardi Jews between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean" in June this year - along with others in this group I am sure, but received an e-mail from the organisers that may be of interest to this group as a topic of discussion. It would see that "due to a handful of questions posted in private e-mails by man...
Another opportunist making it up as she goes ...
On the one hand Trancoso builds a Jewish Museum, on the other it ‘celebrates’ this nasty bit of Catholic antisemitism ...
https://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/4380/opening_up_pioneering_jewish_historians_treasured_collection
Last year I discovered a previously unknown portrait of Emanuel Mendes Da Costa FRS FSA (1717-1791). In its original condition it was not possible to unfold and view it and it had probably not been seen since being deposited in the London Metropolitan Archive. Recently it has been restored by the LMA with funding from AHRC UK and will be displayed in an exhibition at the Royal Society in London. N...
David Alves Rebello (1741-1796) was a numismatist (coin collector) and collector of natural history. The first token was struck by him as a promissory token - a substitute coin due to a lack of small value coins - and has his monogram and a picture of Hackney Church where he lived. The second, struck after his death in his memory, has a figure of Time seated on a coin collection.The two rather lo...
Bevis Marks is not only the oldest synagogue in the U.K. it is the only synagogue in Europe that has maintained services continuously for over 3 centuries. It is a important centre for Sephardim and the Cathedral Synagogue for all British Jews, the place for all important national Jewish ceremonies. Please urgently express your concern at this vandalistic desecration of this sacred space.
Pepys' Simchat Torah visit to Creechurch Lane synagogue in 1663 is well known but it wasn't his first visit. As a young man he visited the synagogue ('for observacion') a few months before the Restoration on Shabat Dec 3 1659 which was the sheloshim for Antonio Carvajal, the founding father of the English community, who had died, late in years, after an operation for 'the Stone' (bladder stone lit...
I came across this in Menasseh Ben Israel's 'Thesouro Dos Dinim' which reflects the attitude of Jews in Amsterdam to anoussim from a haham of the community."Os forçados, e são os que forão por força mudados a outra religião e vivem donde não podem observar a sua, posto que certiquem ser o seu vinho cacer, não são dignos de credito: visto que estes bebem vinho dos gentios. E sendo que estes obserue...
am I alone in finding geneticists measuring noses for Jewish profiles disturbing?
http://www.centrodehistoria-flul.com/sephardijews.html#
The Commission for Culture of the Portuguese Parliament has approved the creation of a Memorial Day for the Victims of the Inquisition, to be help probably on the 31 March, the date of the abolition of the Inquisition in 1821. So there will a joint celebration of the bicentenary in 2021. Congratulations to historian Jorge Martins on achieving this.
Japonesas are indeed lovely but the article is being a bit disingenuous in implying that Jews have been present in Gibraltar since the Middle Ages. Also as japonesas are practically the same as the custard filled Dorayaki you can buy in Yo Shushi! the origin of the name and the dessert seem to be fairly obvious and a little further east. What is this need to make up an ersatz Sephardi past? Or per...
Wedding/engagement ring of Joshua and Judith Sarfaty London 1699. British Museum.בס׳׳ט יהושע ויהודית צרפתי יצ׳׳ו תנ׳׳ט Besiman tob Joshua and Judith Sarfati may their Rock and Redeemer protect them וגואלם/grant them long life ויחייהם, year (5)459 - 1699.
Secret synagogues are popping up all over the place in Portugal, but this one takes the biscuit. The 'proof' that this one is a synagogue is that it doesn't have the marks of a mezuza, there is a stoup for holy water and crucifix (yes this is apparently proof), the house looks like ... a house, and the cupboard is *not* on the eastern wall - so these do occur in other houses also. But nevertheless...
http://jewish-heritage-europe.eu/2018/10/07/call-for-papers-synagogue-art-architecture/
A pity yet again about the completely inappropriate music, but a nice acquisition for the Museum. The script of the Sepher is particularly lovely: