New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival Pomegranate Awards

I had the opportunity to attend the 28th Annual Pomegranate Awards hosted by the American Sephardi Federation as part of the New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival. This stunning event was held at the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in downtown Manhattan at Battery Park. The venue overlooking the Statue of Liberty - an icon integral to one of the theme’s of the evening, namely, the celebration of the 250th anniversary of American Liberty, *and* the vital role of Sephardic Jews in the founding of our nation over 250 years ago. The event was preceded by a light cocktail hour overlooking the Statue of Liberty, which preluded the entire evening. The main event, in the spacious Edmund G. Safra Hall, was hosted by the dazzling Sabrina Soffer. Soffer, a recent graduate of George Washington University and herself of Dagestani Jewish heritage on her mother’s side, whose story she told in *My Mother’s Mirror: A Generational Story of Purpose, Resilience, and Self-Discovery*, offered opening remarks about the importance of Jewish unity and transmitting Sephardic history and legacy to the next generation. Soffer’s keynote address also touched on her experience with anti-Semitism at university and her upcoming book *Of Good Courage: Israel and the West’s Fight for Moral Clarity*, co-authored with Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter. Soffer’s remarks were followed by those of Hélène Jawhara Piñer, an award-winning chef and scholar, whose cuisine recreates the dishes of Sephardic staples, such as *almodrote*, braised lamb, and Andalusian challah. These introductory remarks were then followed by the reception of the Pomegranate Lifetime Achievement for Philosophy the French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy. BHL, as he is affectionately known, spoke expressively about the importance of Liberty for American Jewish history. He mentioned that some of the founding citizens of our nation from over 250 years ago, were Sephardic Jews seeking religious liberty, and that Emma Lazarus, whose words are immortalized on Lady Liberty, was herself of Sephardi heritage, descended from those initial 23 pioneers to New Amsterdam. Because of that lineage deep within American history, BHL argued, it is up to Sephardic Jews today to restore American honor. Two Pomegranate Awards were given for excellence in Music. One went to Murray Perahia, the award-winning pianist and conductor, whose interpretations of the classical composers Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin embody lyrical sensitivity, elegance, and profound musical insight. He is considered one of the greatest pianist alive today, marked by his humble demeanor. This was followed by the Pomegranate Award granted to Jeannette Sorrell, a Grammy-winning conductor, whose childhood dream was to follow in the footsteps of Murray Perahia, with whom she had the pleasure of sharing the stage. Sorrell, born of a Holocaust survivor father whose origin she discovered in 2018 before her Carnegie Hall debut, has led the world’s chief orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, and Seattle Symphony. Joined by her musical partner Jeffrey Strauss and their troupe Apollo’s Fire, Sorrell performed several deeply provoking pieces from Sephardic Jewish history as a finale to the event. The moving renditions of *Avraham Kerido*, *Borrecho*, and *Tzur Mishelo*, brought several audience members to standing ovation and to tears. Finally, the last person recognized was Avi Issacharoff, the journalist, report, producer, and screenwriter, whose best talent is known for the Netflix hit series *Fauda*. Issacharoff is of Kurdish and Persian heritage himself, and he learned his sense of storytelling, for which he received the Pomegranate Award for Storytelling, from his mother and grandmother who spent long nights enthralled by tales of dragons and monsters. His journalist integrity and humor was brought to light when he shared a story how he met a head of Hamas, who told him he planned to remove all Jews from Israel and send them back to Europe and America, to which Issacharoff asked, “What about me? My grandparents are from Kurdistan and Uzbekistan,” to which the sheikh responded, “You can stay.” Also humorous was Issacharoff’s quip that it was the strength and resolve of Kurdistani ladies, from whom he descends, who were able to stop ISIS in their tracks. I was pleased to meet several individuals of Bukharian Jewish descent. There was Ruben Shimonov, the skilled calligrapher equally at home in Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Russian, and Spanish, born in Uzbekistan and raised in Seattle, director of Sephardi House. In addition, Joseph Kandov, an award-winning filmmaker, whose several films include *The Set-up* and *Til Death Do Us Part*. In addition, I met the mezzo-soprano singer, writer, and educator Yaffa Borukhoba, who wrote and illustrated a children’s book *You Don’t Look Jewish* and hosts the StreetSmarts MBA podcast. In this night of pan-Jewish unity, Soffer, Egyptian on her father’s side, also shared how she and an Egyptian student shared a love of the songs of Enrico Macias, who performed the second night of the Festival. Soffer also related how she and a Bukharian student sang together childhood songs such as *Kayfuyem*, which her mother Lea Wolf — of Kavkazi Mountain Jewish heritage, from the Tat Jews of the Southern Caucasus — taught her.

Zohar:

The Zohar is a very complicated text to outsiders. But has some of its reputation been assigned by scholars? Isaiah Tishby was an English-speaking scholar who produced an early version of a Zoharic anthology. Gershom Scholem was a Hebrew-speaking scholar who made pioneering investigations into the study of Jewish mysticism In general, the main thrust of the arguments espoused by Isaiah Tishby and Gershom Scholem are opposed, as far as their views regarding the authorship of the Zohar. Both scholarly articles begin with a lengthy schema, or description of the parts of the Zohar - so that section is remarkably the same in both authors. But their views of the composition of the Zohar itself come from different directions. Tishby seems to believe that that the Zohar is a confused jumble of kabbalistic strands that somehow found their way into a non-coherent system in the Zohar Ḥadash in the 14th century, which was then added to by other sections. Tishby describes the Zohar as having "many drawbacks," the foremost of which is: "Different topics are jumbled together and subjects that have practically nothing to do with one another are set side by side without any internal connection between them. At many points we jump from one subject to another, without any logical transition or rational continuity" (7), which are more prominent in the sections Raya Mehemna and Tikkunei ha-Zohar. He comments: "In these sections are signs of a basic defect in the actual thought structure" (7). Tishby also refers to its "piecemeal"  style, which "seriously obscures its ideas." The reader of Tishby's introduction is left with an entirely mystified, confused introduction to the Zohar. By contrast, Scholem sees the Zohar as a unified, coherent, literary whole by a single author, which has remarkable consistency in its use of linguistic features, despite their particularity. Scholem is arguing against the idea that it is "a multitude of writings of apparently very different character, loosely assembled under the title of 'Zohar'" (159). For example, Scholem praises the section Idra Rabba, or "Great Assembly": "The composition of this part is architecturally perfect; the totality of the speeches constitutes a systematic whole" (160). Scholem especially brings attention to its unified emotional effect: "As the unravelling of the mystery progresses, the participants are increasingly overcome by ecstasy, and in the final dramatic apotheosis, three of the[ rabbi's followers] die in a state of ecstatic trance" (160). In the view of Scholem, the Zohar is a literary composition which is masterfully put together to achieve maximal mystical and emotional impact. Scholem does make the caveat that the sections Raya Mehemna and Tikkunei ha-Zohar which Tishby calls out, were likely authored by another author in imitation of the main part. He refers to its "deliberate imitation of the uniform language of the other parts" (168). Elsewhere, Scholem criticizes imperfections in the Zohar's Aramaic, which he considers thirteenth-century Hebrew in disguise (165), but notes its consistent nature throughout (163) and its "rainbow picture of linguistic eclecticism, the constituent elements of which, however, remain constant throughout. The syntax is extremely simple, almost monotonous" (164). He elsewhere refers to the author as an "omnivorous reader gifted with an excellent memory" (172). Personally, Scholem's view inspires me to study the Zohar at a greater depth, whereas Tishby's introduction leaves me confused over the jumble of texts I am about to investigate. Isaiah Tishby, The wisdom of the Zohar (Oxford, 1989), 1-30 Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Schocken, 1995), 156-204