Over the centuries the S&P Sephardi community has benefited from the leadership of towering rabbinic figures. This series looks at these erudite individuals, the challenges they faced, and the impact they left on Anglo-Jewry’s Sephardim. The first term looks at Hahamim from the 17th and 18th centuries, the second term…

Over the centuries the S&P Sephardi community has benefited from the leadership of towering rabbinic figures. This series looks at these erudite individuals, the challenges they faced, and the impact they left on Anglo-Jewry’s Sephardim. The first term looks at Hahamim from the 17th and 18th centuries, the second term…

Insights from the S&P Sephardi Community Rabbis on the Parsha Ki Tetze – King Henry’s Yibum This week’s Torah reading is central to one of the greatest controversies in the history of England, the Levirate marriage of King Henry VIII, and Sephardim helped to cast the deciding vote! Yibum,…

Insights from the S&P Sephardi Community Rabbis on the Parsha Shofetim – Washing Our Hands of Jewish Guilt   One of the few practices that every Jew performs is the ritual washing of hands upon leaving a cemetery (Shulhan Arukh, YD 276:4). The rinsing is meant to spiritually cleanse…

Insights from the S&P Sephardi Community Rabbis on the Parsha Has the British Labour Party Employed Bilam? Recently, the British Labour Party offended the Jewish Community by adopting a code of conduct on anti-Semitism which Jewish leaders dismissed as “insulting and arrogant.” Labour acted because of widespread and well…

Insights from the S&P Sephardi Community Rabbis on the Parsha Ekeb – Bendigamos, the Soul of the S&P There is only one Biblically mandated blessing and it appears in this week’s parashah. This singular obligation is to recite Birkat Hamazon, Grace after meals. The verse states: And thou shalt…

Insights from the S&P Sephardi Community Rabbis on the Parsha Vaethanan: Tu B’Ab – Sephardic Love and Independence The 15th day of the Jewish month of Av is a minor festival called Tu B’Ab. It is considered a joyous day, when in Biblical times young people went out to…

Beginning in 1818, exactly two centuries ago, many of the West’s first breakaway synagogues were founded. Different motivations guided these moves, including tradition, reform, custom, and location. However, all sparked controversy and division, and each impacted their original local Spanish and Portuguese congregation. This history series looks at these…

Insights from the S&P Sephardi Community Rabbis on the Parsha Debarim: Travelling the S&P Over the past ten years I’ve visited about fifty sites relating to the history of the S&P. These include historic and living synagogues, cemeteries, schools and locations in Spain and Portugal. To most people, many…

Insights from the S&P Sephardi Community Rabbis on the Parsha Matot Masei: Environmentally Friendly We may not like to think of ourselves as conformists, but there is ample scientific evidence that to some extent, whether we like it or not, we are conditioned by the environment and society we find…