JIMENA Blog

Join us to celebrate the beginning of Spring and the end of Passover at our Moroccan Mimouna. Enjoy Moroccan sweets, live music, and dancing at this festive event, which embodies heritage, tradition, and community. All are welcome!
Mimouna is a traditional festival celebrated by Moroccan Jews the day after Passover, marking the return to eating chametz (leavened foods). Families open their homes to neighbors and friends and fill their kitchen tables with an abundance of delicious sweets symbolizing fertility, joy, success, health, and prosperity. Mimouna is the beginning of the spring season and a time to celebrate friendship, community, coexistence,

As Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews, we are all too familiar with attempts to erase our existence– from the Inquisition, to dhimmitude (the second-class status Jews held under Islamic rule for hundreds of years), to the mass expulsions of our communities in the mid-20th century– our history has, unfortunately, been colored by antisemitic threats and violence as an ethnic minority of the Middle East and North Africa. Israel symbolizes not only the preservation of our rich and cherished history but also the triumph of reclaiming indigenous land. It stands as a beacon of strength and hope for all indigenous peoples of

We are thrilled to announce the completion of the fifth cohort of the Sephardic Leaders Fellowship, who embarked on their journey with in-person retreats and ongoing gatherings. The fellowship places a strong emphasis on positive leadership development, building a community of practice for young professionals, and strengthening the knowledge and identities of emerging Sephardic Jewish communal leaders. Cohort 5 was comprised of a diverse, LA-based group of emerging leaders actively involved in the Jewish community, both in lay and professional capacities. Participants joined from esteemed institutions such as:
Simon Wiesenthal Center
The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles
Alliance for Jewish Theatre
StandWithUs
Jewish

Join JIMENA for a Tour of the Sephardi & Mizrahi Education Toolkit with editor Dr. Elana Riback Rand and Ty Alhadeff, JIMENA’s Director of Education.

Empower yourself as an educator with comprehensive resources and expert guidance, paving the way towards fostering inclusive school environments through the Sephardi & Mizrahi Education Toolkit.
Tuesday, March 26 and Wednesday, March 27
11:30 AM PST| 2:30 PM EST | 9:30 PM Israel Time

RSVP: bit.ly/sepharditoolkit

Instruction for Public Comment to the State Board of Education Meeting on Thursday, March 18th at 8:30AM PT The California State Board of Education will be voting on the fourth draft of the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, which was recommended by the California Department of Education on March 8th, 2021. The sample lessons, including the lessons on Jewish Americans can be found in Chapter 4 here: https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/cdereceditsesmc.asp State Board of Education Meeting Agenda for March 2021: https://www.cde.ca.gov/be/ag/ag/yr21/agenda202103.asp Live Webcast for SBE Meeting: https://www.cde.ca.gov/be/pn/lv/index.asp PUBLIC COMMENT GUIDELINES For State Board of Education (Day 3 Meeting on Thursday, March 18th. 8:30AM Public

February 26, 2021 Updated March 12, 2021 To California State Board of Education Members: Next week you will be tasked with approving an Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC) with the aim of helping California students become engaged and empathetic global citizens. We, representing our Nation’s prominent Jewish institutions, join 15,000 members of the public in expressing our gratitude for the California Department of Education's (CDE) recommendation that the State Board of Education include the “Antisemitism and Jewish Middle Eastern-Americans" lesson in the ESMC. We ask that you:

1. Approve the CDE’s recommendation to include the “Antisemitism and Jewish Middle Eastern-Americans" lesson
   
   Read More

This six-month program is designed for Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewish communal professionals, lay leaders, and allies, to gain traditional Middle-Eastern Jewish knowledge, build a community of practice and friendship, and learn new leadership skills. Accepting applications