Sephardic Educational Center SEC

08/12/2026

🌙📖✨ Selihot are not just about waking before dawn.

They are about awakening the soul.

In Pele Yoetz, Rabbi Eliezer Papo writes that the Jewish people rise early for Selihot from Rosh Hodesh Elul — giving up sleep, comfort, and routine to stand before God with humility.

But he gives a powerful warning:

The power of Selihot is not in speed.

It is not about rushing through the words just to finish.

It is about saying them slowly — letter by letter, word by word — until the heart begins to feel what the mouth is saying.

Rabbi Papo describes the words of Selihot as “burning coals.”

Not poetry.
Not performance.
Fire.

Elul asks us to search our ways, examine our lives, and return.

Not only to be written in the Book of Life — but to become spiritually alive again.

May this season open our eyes, soften our hearts, and draw light into the year ahead.

08/10/2026

What happens when young Israeli students encounter the depth of Sephardi-Mizrahi Judaism — not as nostalgia, but as a living intellectual and spiritual tradition?

For a full academic year, 18 students from the first cohort of the Sephardic Educational Center’s He’iru Pnei Ha’Mizrach Sephardic-Mizrahi Beit Midrash Fellowship gathered weekly at our historic campus in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Together, they explored the history, culture, Halakha, philosophy, literature, and creative spirit of Sephardi-Mizrahi Judaism through serious Beit Midrash learning and conversations with leading scholars, rabbis, writers, artists, and educators.

The result is this artistic journal — a printed and digital collection of essays, stories, poems, artwork, photography, and personal reflections.

It is more than a publication.

It is a statement:
Sephardi-Mizrahi tradition is not a footnote.
It is a source of Torah, creativity, identity, memory, and future.

We are proud to share the creative work of this remarkable first cohort — students who spent a year learning not only about their heritage, but from it.

From the heart of Jerusalem, a new generation is illuminating the face of the East.

07/31/2026

Most people don’t know this story.

In 1948, nearly 60,000 Jews were still living in Yemen — a community with roots going back centuries.

Poor, persecuted, but deeply faithful, Yemenite Jews held onto their traditions through generations of hardship. But after the establishment of the State of Israel, persecution surged across the Arab world, and Jewish communities that had existed for thousands of years were forced to flee.

Then came one of the most extraordinary rescue missions in modern Jewish history.

Alaska Airlines helped airlift nearly 49,000 Yemenite Jews to safety in what became known as Operation Magic Carpet — or Operation On Wings of Eagles.

Many had never seen an airplane before. Some believed they were witnessing the ancient prophecy of being carried home “on eagles’ wings.”

Hundreds of flights. Thousands of lives saved. An entire community brought from danger to refuge.

This is not just airline history.
This is Jewish history.
This is the story of survival, exile, and return.

🎥 Video credit: MATT HOFFMAN

07/26/2026

07/26/2026

Did you know the Old City of Jerusalem once spoke Ladino?

In the heart of the Jewish Quarter, just steps from the Kotel, stands the Sephardic House — the home of the Sephardic Educational Center.

Founded in 1874 by the Ladino-speaking Sephardic community of Jerusalem, this historic building was once the center of Sephardic Jewish life in the Old City.

Here, children studied in the Talmud Torah Sephardi.
Great scholars learned in Yeshiva Tiferet Yerushalayim.
Widows and orphans were cared for.
A community built institutions of Torah, compassion, leadership, and culture.

This was not a side story of Jerusalem.
This was the heart and soul of a living Sephardic world.

Today, the SEC continues that mission — reviving classic Sephardic Judaism for a new generation: rooted in tradition, open to all Jews, intellectually alive, spiritually warm, and deeply connected to Jerusalem.

The stones are ancient.
The language still echoes.
The mission continues.

Welcome to the Sephardic House.
Welcome home.

Video recorded by Destinados a ser judíos | Español

07/19/2026

Over 100 years ago, Rabbi Benzion Uziel asked a question that still feels painfully relevant today:

If men and women cannot stand together in line to vote, then what comes next?

Separate sidewalks?
Separate stores?
Separate public life?

In the early 20th century, while serving as Hakham Bashi of Jaffa–Tel Aviv, Rabbi Uziel supported women’s voting rights in the Jewish community of Eretz Israel. When other rabbis argued that men and women standing together at the ballot box would violate modesty, Rabbi Uziel rejected the claim.

His response was clear: if we begin to fear every normal interaction between men and women, we make ordinary life impossible.

That was not a rejection of tradition.
It was Torah guided by wisdom, realism, dignity, and human responsibility.

Today, when public spaces are once again being divided in the name of religion, Rabbi Uziel’s voice demands to be heard.

Where is his courage?
Where is his balance?
Where is his confidence that Torah can shape society without shrinking it?

As we concluded Shabbat Chazon, the words of Isaiah feel especially urgent:

“Zion shall be redeemed through justice.”

May we return to a Judaism of wisdom, dignity, moderation, and justice.

Inspired by SEC International Director Daniel Bouskila

07/12/2026

🕯 Save the Date 🗓

07/09/2026

https://jewishjournal.com/culture/food/389907/a-kaak-by-any-other-name/