Speakers
Adam Eilath
Jewish Educator, Writer, and JIMENA Educator in Residence
Adam Eilath is a Jewish educator and writer of Tunisian heritage who led the Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School and serves as JIMENA's Educator in Residence. He helps teachers bring Sephardic and Mizrahi history, texts, and traditions into the classroom with depth and care.
Albert Bivas
Eyewitness Speaker and Retired Physicist
Albert Bivas was born in Cairo in 1941 and grew up in a French speaking Jewish family in the Zamalek neighborhood. In 1956 his family left Egypt for France as stateless refugees, losing their home and business, and he now shares that history with students across the Bay Area.
Carmella Pardo
Eyewitness Speaker, Scholar of Arabic, and Community Leader
Carmella Pardo was born in Bombay to an Iraqi Jewish family and grew up in Basra, where her father was imprisoned in 1948. She escaped Iraq with her mother and brother as a child, later taught Hebrew and Arabic at NYU, and became a longtime Los Angeles community leader.
Carole Basri
Lawyer, Law Professor, and Documentary Filmmaker
Carole Basri is a lawyer, law professor, and filmmaker whose documentaries trace the history of Iraq's Jewish community. The daughter of Iraqi Jewish refugees, she brings a rare blend of family memory, legal expertise, and firsthand experience in Baghdad to every talk.
Dr. Elana Riback Rand
Educational Researcher, Consultant, and Scholar
Dr. Elana Riback Rand is an educational researcher and consultant who studies identity, inclusion, and belonging in Jewish schools and communities. She served as editor in chief of JIMENA's Sephardi and Mizrahi Education Toolkit and helps educators bring Sephardic and Mizrahi perspectives into their classrooms and institutions.
Dr. Guila Benchimol
Criminologist, Educator, and Victim Advocate
Dr. Guila Benchimol is a Toronto-based criminologist, consultant, educator, and victim advocate whose work focuses on gender, abuse, and power in faith communities. Raised in Toronto's Spanish Moroccan Jewish community, she helps institutions prevent and respond to abuse with care for survivors.
Dr. Jaleh Pirnazar
Scholar of Persian Language, Literature, and Iranian Cinema, UC Berkeley
Dr. Jaleh Pirnazar taught Persian language, literature, and Iranian cinema at UC Berkeley for more than three decades. A scholar of Iranian history and religious minorities in Iran, she speaks about Iranian Jewish life, the image of Jews in Persian literature, and Iranian film.
Dr. Mijal Bitton
Sociologist, Spiritual Leader, and Dean of the Maimonides Jewish Leadership Institute
Dr. Mijal Bitton is a sociologist of American Jewish life and a leading voice in Sephardic studies. She directed the JIMENA's commissioned national study of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews in the United States, conducted at NYU Wagner, and now serves as Dean of the Maimonides Jewish Leadership Institute.
Dr. Sharon Nazarian
Political Scientist, and Expert on Global Antisemitism
Born in Tehran and a refugee at age ten, Dr. Sharon S. Nazarian is a former ADL Senior Vice President for International Affairs. A political scientist, she speaks on global antisemitism and on the Iranian Jewish and Mizrahi experience.
Dr. Stanley A. Urman
Executive Vice President, Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC)
Dr. Stanley A. Urman leads Justice for Jews from Arab Countries, an international coalition seeking recognition and redress for Jews displaced from Arab countries. He has testified before parliaments and briefed officials in North America, Europe, and Israel, and wrote his doctoral research on how the United Nations treated Middle East refugees.
Elliot Benjamin
Attorney and Iranian Jewish Community Leader
Born in Iran and raised in London, Elliott Benjamin is a Los Angeles real estate attorney and a longtime leader in refugee resettlement and Iranian Jewish community life. He speaks about Jewish life in Iran, the experience of leaving, and the resettlement of Iranian religious minorities.
Gina Bublil-Waldman
JIMENA Cofounder and Human Rights Advocate
Gina Waldman was born in Tripoli, Libya, and expelled with her family in 1967 because they were Jewish. A lifelong human rights advocate and cofounder of JIMENA, she shares her story with a message that love is stronger than hate.
Jacqueline Saper
Author, Translator, and Speaker on Iran
Jacqueline Saper grew up in a Jewish family in Tehran and came of age during the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Her award winning memoir, From Miniskirt to Hijab, and her talks offer students a firsthand, fact based account of life in Iran before and after the revolution.
Joe Pessah
Eyewitness Speaker, Engineer, and Karaite Community Leader
Joe Pessah grew up in Cairo's Karaite Jewish community and was imprisoned for three years after the 1967 war simply for being Jewish. Released and expelled in 1970, he rebuilt his life in the Bay Area and shares his story so this history is remembered.
Joe Samuels
Farhud Survivor, Author, and Speaker
Joe Samuels was born in 1930 in Baghdad’s Jewish quarter to a family that traced its roots to ancient Babylon. A survivor of the 1941 Farhud, he is the author of Beyond the Rivers of Babylon and continues to share his story with students and communities.
Joe Shamash
Eyewitness Speaker and Entrepreneur
Joe Shamash was born in Baghdad in 1948 into a large, well established Jewish family. He left Iraq for New York at age ten, spent two years apart from his parents, and went on to found five companies in the Bay Area. He speaks about Iraqi Jewish heritage and identity.
Karmel Melamed
Journalist, Commentator, and Attorney
Karmel Melamed is an award winning, internationally published Iranian American journalist and attorney based in Los Angeles. Born in Iran and brought to the United States as a child refugee, he has reported on Iranian Jewish life, Iranian American communities, and human rights in Iran since 2000.
Manashe Khaimov
Founder and CEO of SAMi, Educator, and Bukharian Jewish Community Leader
Manashe Khaimov is the founder and CEO of SAMi, the Sephardic American Mizrahi Initiative, which builds Sephardic and Mizrahi life on college campuses. Born in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, he teaches and lectures widely on Bukharian Jewish history and the diversity of the Jewish people.
Mastaneh Moghadam, LCSW
Clinical Social Worker and Co-founder and Executive Director, Cross Cultural Expressions
Mastaneh Moghadam is a licensed clinical social worker and the co-founder and Executive Director of Cross Cultural Expressions, a Los Angeles nonprofit that bridges cultural gaps through therapy, education, and the arts. For more than two decades she has supported Iranian and Middle Eastern immigrant families with culturally responsive care.
Penina Meghnagi Solomon
Poet, Painter, and Libyan Jewish Refugee
Penina Meghnagi Solomon was born in Tripoli, Libya, and left with her family after the anti-Jewish violence of 1967. A poet and painter, she shares the joy of her early life, the loss of her homeland, and how the creative arts carried her through.
Rabbi Daniel Bouskila
Rabbi, Scholar, and International Director, Sephardic Educational Center
Rabbi Daniel Bouskila is international director of the Sephardic Educational Center in Jerusalem's Old City and a leading teacher of Classic Sephardic rabbinic thought. The son of Moroccan and Algerian immigrants, he served as a rabbi in Los Angeles for three decades and has long taught with JIMENA.
Rabbi Dr. Elie Abadie
Rabbi, Physician, and Scholar of Sephardic Judaism
Born in Beirut to a family of Syrian Jewish rabbis, Rabbi Dr. Elie Abadie left Lebanon as a child refugee and became a leading Sephardic rabbi, scholar, and physician. He served as the first full time senior rabbi in the United Arab Emirates and co-leads Justice for Jews from Arab Countries.
Rabbi Tarlan Rabizadeh
Rabbi, Educator, and Vice President for Jewish Engagement, American Jewish University
Rabbi Tarlan Rabizadeh is Vice President for Jewish Engagement at American Jewish University in Los Angeles. Raised in the city's Persian Jewish community, she brings Persian traditions, rituals, and stories into conversation with the wider Jewish world, helping communities build inclusive Jewish life.
Rachel Wahba
Writer, Psychotherapist, and Activist
Rachel Wahba is an Egyptian and Iraqi Jewish writer and psychotherapist who was born in India and grew up stateless in Japan. She speaks about exile, belonging, and the many cultures of the Jewish people, drawing on her family's journey across three continents.
Remy Pessah
Eyewitness Speaker, Engineer, and Textile Artist
Remy Pessah grew up in Cairo and lived through the wars of 1956 and 1967. For three years she fought for her imprisoned fiancé, Joe, married him inside an Egyptian prison, and left Egypt in 1970 to begin again as a refugee, engineer, and artist.
Saba Soomekh
Director of Training and Education, American Jewish Committee (AJC); Scholar and Author
Dr. Saba Soomekh is AJC's Director of Training and Education and a scholar of world religions, women and religion, and the modern Middle East. Born in Tehran and raised in Los Angeles, she is the award winning author of From the Shahs to Los Angeles and a longtime JIMENA fellowship faculty member.
Sarah Sassoon
Children's Book Author, Poet, and Educator
Sarah Sassoon is an Australian born writer, poet, and educator of Iraqi Jewish heritage whose award winning picture books bring Middle Eastern Jewish family stories to young readers. She leads writing workshops and teaches educators how to share Sephardic and Mizrahi literature and oral histories in the classroom.
Semha Alwaya
Attorney, JIMENA Founding Member, and Speaker
Semha Alwaya was born in Iraq to a Jewish family that left in 1951 and rebuilt their lives in Israel's transit camps. An attorney, linguist, and founding member of JIMENA, she shares her family's story of exile, one shared by nearly a million Jews from Arab countries.
Sylvain Abitbol
Engineer, Entrepreneur, and Canadian Jewish Community Leader
Sylvain Abitbol was born in Casablanca, Morocco, and came to Montreal as a young man after the 1967 war. An engineer and telecommunications entrepreneur, he has led Canada's major Jewish organizations and testified before Parliament on behalf of Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
Tabby Refael
Award Winning Columnist, Speaker, and Civic Action Activist
Tabby Refael is an award winning writer and a speaker on the Iranian Jewish experience. Born in Tehran after the 1979 revolution, she left Iran with her family in 1988 and shares her refugee story, Iranian Jewish history, and lessons on leadership.
Tamar Zaken
Educator, Social Worker, and Translator of Sephardic Rabbinic Texts
Tamar Zaken, MSW, is an educator and social worker who directs community outreach at Jewish Family and Children's Services in San Francisco. Of Kurdish Sephardic heritage, she translates Sephardic rabbinic texts into English and teaches their messages of dignity, inclusion, and justice.
Vanessa Hidary
Spoken Word Artist, Educator, and Storyteller
Vanessa Hidary, known as The Hebrew Mamita, is a New York spoken word artist whose signature poem was featured on HBO's Def Poetry Jam. Rooted in her Syrian Jewish heritage, she uses poetry and storytelling workshops to explore Jewish identity, stereotypes, and belonging with students and communities.
