JIMENA Blog

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
Read More

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
Read More

A diverse group of Middle Eastern Jews, Assyrian Christians, Coptic Christians, Kurds, and Iranians of various faiths have requested the California Department of Education adapt its curriculum to reflect student demographics in California
Read More

JIMENA Young Professional's Statement As a unified young adult community composed of Jews of Mizrahi and Sephardic descent, we issue this statement as a call to action in solidarity and support of Black Lives. Our parents and grandparents fled religious persecution in countries throughout North Africa and the Middle East, and we’ve been appalled to witness the violence Black men, women, and children continue to endure in the same country where our families sought refuge and peace. As we have learned through the experiences of our elders who had no legal protections in the countries they fled, Black and Brown
Read More

In 2019, JIMENA directly engaged 10,000 individuals at over 90 events throughout the United States, ensuring the heritage and history of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews is shared widely. We put the power of storytelling in the hands of the people with the launch of the Seeing the Voices Mobile Application and we launched our Journey to the Mizrah curriculum for formal and informal Jewish educators. We remained dedicated to our role as a leading advocacy organization for Mizrahi and Sephardic interests.
Read More

October 15, 2019 Jeremy Sabloff, Chair The Cultural Advisory Committee of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520 To Mr. Jeremy Sabloff and the Cultural Property Advisory Committee at the U.S. Department of State: We submit these comments to you on behalf of JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa. JIMENA is one of the few organizations in North America representing the interests of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish refugees from North Africa and the Middle East. For context, Mizrahi Jews are an indigenous Middle Eastern population, whose ancestors lived
Read More

October 8, 2019 The Cultural Property Advisory Committee at the U.S. Department of State has been signing Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) agreements with foreign governments that blockade the entry of cultural property to the USA and deny Jews and Christians from Arab countries the rights to their historic heritage. Through the MOU process, our government is transferring ownership of confiscated Jewish property to various Arab governments that expelled or forced their Jewish populations to flee antisemitic persecution under duress. Despite the protestations of Jewish communal organizations, including; ADL: The Anti-Defamation League, Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, B’nai Brith
Read More