Posts by Ian Pomerantz
109 posts
Dear Friends, It is my distinct honor to invite you to the East-Coast American premier of Lidarti and Caceres's 1774 Hebrew oratorio "Esther" written for the Amsterdam's Sephardic community. It will be presented with a full baroque orchestra, choir, and soloists (of which I am one). Enclosed is a poster with the date and time. I hope to see you there.
This haunting family portrait gazes out to me every now and then. The handsome subject is my great-great uncle, born Nissim Kallos, though he went by his French name, Charles. Unlike the rest of his family he was a staunch secularist. He ran away from home to enlist to fight in the patriot cause during the Balkan Wars, and disappeared under mysterious circumstances. We have no idea what happened t...
The first hazzanim at the Hamburg Temple, Reform Judaism's founding institution, were David Meldola and Joseph Piza. Do we have genealogical and biographical data on them?
This week marks the anniversary of a little- known uprising by Greek Jews, mostly from Thessaloniki, at Auschwitz.
Among the Eastern Sephardim here- a question. Among my family the custom after Sukkot is that the etrog will dry, and then is incorporated into the habdala besamim. Does anyone else do this?
"You would be looking for something that doesn't actually exist."
Amsterdam folks- Does anyone know where I might find the manuscripts of composer Abraham de Caceres? I cannot find traces of it anywhere, even in the Harvard databases .
This is an incredibly important piece about the descendants of the 30,000 Jews in Alliance Israélite Universelle institutions and their identities and relationships to modern France.
My 2nd cousin Adolph Hollander, grand cantor of Felsőremete.
My 2nd cousin Adolph Hollander, grand cantor of Felsőremete.
Hello everyone,As most of you know, I'm a classical musician. I direct an French baroque ensemble. This year in collaboration with Hebrew College, we are planning to resurrect Louis Saladin's Canticum Hebraïcum, a late 17th-century piece from the Jewish community of Provence, in Hebrew. It is the first time the entire canticum will be performed with a Jewish choir since then. Please consider becom...
Hello everyone,As most of you know, I'm a classical musician. I direct an French baroque ensemble. This year in collaboration with Hebrew College, we are planning to resurrect Louis Saladin's Canticum Hebraïcum, a late 17th-century piece from the Jewish community of Provence, in Hebrew. It is the first time the entire canticum will be performed with a Jewish choir since then. Please consider donat...
The first photo-documentary of the Rococo synagogue in Bârlad, Romania (1789), the kehillah of my great-Grandfather.
Requesting resources on:- The Najara family of the Ottoman Empire- The Angel family of Constantinople, Odessa, and Munkacz
Chad Gadya:An Ashkenazi Piyyut and a Sephardic Embrace
Okay so explain this- New FtDNA my origins: My dad shows up as 74% Sephardic and the rest Ashkenazic. My mom shows up as 99% Ashkenazic, but I show up as 88% Ashkenazic, 4% Sephardic, with the rest split between Papua New Guinea and North India. So how is that possible, The Milkman? Is there something Mom isn't telling me?
A question from a student today I couldn't answer entirely so I'm going to open it up to you fine minds. Student asked:We read that Queen Elizabeth and many of her contemporaries in England, as a part of their liberal education, became fluent in Hebrew. Seeing that Jews had not had a continuous presence in England for 300 years, what kind of Hebrew did they speak, and what would it have sounded li...
Kinze of my great aunt Elena Marmour, June 1926.
Wedding portrait of my great-grandparents, Yosef Marmour and Celia Kallos.
Resources on Jewish history in Cape Verde?
Why did this man wear eye-shadow, earrings, and a turban while performing Sephardic music? Find out in my guest lecture at the Harvard Music Building on January 17th at 10:30 for the class "Music Revival, Sonic Archaeology, and How We Hear The Past." We will explore ways in which modern music has appropriated other world musics, focusing on the incorporation of Middle Eastern idioms and Sephardic ...
I just began reading this book, whose thesis is as intriguing as it is provocative. I'm not sure if it has been released outside the US yet, but it might be worth the read. More to come when I finish it.