#Shanah_Tovah! Friday’s Sephardi World Weekly featured articles on Crossing the the Bosphorus, the President of Portugal’s Visit to American Sephardi Federation, Untangling the Tale of an Orphan from Thessaloniki, Greece, & the 100th Anniversary of the Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America.This Week’s Articles:1.) The Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America began with forty young Jewish men and women from Salonica convening at a café on the Lower East Side in 1915. The organization unified with other organizations of Greek Jews- Ελληνοεβραίος _יהדות יוון and Turkish Jews in 1947, and today it looks to renew itself and increase the public profile of Greek and Turkish Jewry in America, “like other robust non-Ashkenazi Jewwish communities, like Syrians in New York or Persians in Los Angeles.” The organization’s centennial was celebrated on 25 September at the The Sephardic Temple in Cedarhurst, New York. Learn more about the Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America by contacting Executive Director R’ Nissim Elnecavé (rabbi@sephardicbrotherhood.com)2.) Shortly after Dario Massarano was born in Salonica in 1943 the Nazis occupied the city. Massarano’s parents managed to leave him with some locals before they were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they were murdered. The baby, now christened Achilleas Mouratidi, was adopted after the war by an uncle and renamed David Barzilay. Tracked down in Montreal, Quebec Barzilay was told the story of his early life, which he never knew. His response? “Incredible relief.”3.) As a Jew growing up on Rhodes island, Greece, Estrella Galante’s first language was Ladino. However, as a pupil and later teacher for the Alliance Israélite Universelle, she became “an ambassador of French culture.” All told, “Estrella’s life and her languages reflect a unique mixture of East and West,” a mixture that embodied the experience of educated Sephardim in the Eastern Mediterranean at the turn of the 20th century. (#Jewish Community of Rhodes)Feature of the Week: President of Portugal Visits ASF Multi-Partner Exhibit on Aristides de Sousa MendesThe American Sephardi Federation hosted the Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa - Presidente da República, at the Center for Jewish History for a tour of ASF’s multi-partner exhibit, Portugal, The Last Hope: Sousa Mendes’ Visas for Freedom. “Your history is our history,” said the President before a private reception of Holocaust Survivors saved by Aristides de Sousa Mendes and board members of ASF, American Jewish Committee, B'nai B'rith International, Sousa Mendes Foundation, Sephardic Home for The Aged Foundation, and Center for Jewish History, as he announced his intention to confer on Mendes Portugal’s Grand Cross of the Order of Liberty.The exhibit honors Mendes, the creative and courageous Portuguese Consul General at Bordeaux, France during the Holocaust, who saved Salvador Dalí, the authors of Curious George, and thousands of people, many of them Jews, by issuing visas against the orders of the Salazar regime. 50 years ago Mendes was recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem: World Holocaust Center, Jerusalem.In addition to the exhibit, the President viewed rare books from ASF’s collection on Spanish and Portuguese Jews in the Center’s Lillian Goldman Reading Room, and heard performances by Pedro Henriques da Silva (who played an original composition on Portuguese guitar) and David Serero, the Sephardi baritone opera singer and star of ASF’s theatrical season, who performed the Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino) classic Aido Querida. The President interpreted the song to be a metaphor for the Sephardim who, due to the Inquisition, were forced “to say goodbye to the homeland, but never forg[o]t… it.”SWW wishes Hazak u’Barukh to President Bernard Ouziel, Executive Director R’ Nissim Elnecavé, and ASF & Brotherhood Board Member Dr. Joe Halio, as well as the other members of the Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America, on their 100th Anniversary. Kada anio amejurado!