100 Years of Sephardic Los Angeles (review)

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:

• 100 Years of Sephardic Los Angeles
• Ellen Eisenberg (bio)

100 Years of Sephardic Los Angeles, A Project of the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies ( 2020), sephardiclosangeles.org.

Showcasing "the vibrancy of Sephardic culture in the City of Angels, and…its astonishing diversity, past and present," the two dozen essays featured in 100 Years of Sephardic Los Angeles disrupt traditional tropes of American Jewish history. Those who associate Sephardim principally with colonial America will discover recent waves of Sephardic immigrants: early twentieth-century Ottomans; postwar refugees from the Balkans, Greece, and Italy; and late twentieth-century Middle Easterners and North Africans. The project also disrupts New York–centric tropes by demonstrating Los Angeles's significance as a Jewish immigrant center and pushing back on the "Ashkenazi story" to "rewrite the Jewish history of Los Angeles."

Co-curators Sarah Abrevaya Stein and Caroline Luce define "Sephardic" broadly on the "Welcome" page to include not only descendants of Spanish Jews scattered by the 1492 expulsion, but also natives of North Africa and the Middle East. Prioritizing personal and familial over institutional stories, the essays reveal how these communities "worked and relaxed, socialized and served their city, prayed and performed, came to understand themselves as Jews, and as Angelenos." The project asks how "these two cultural forces—one Jewish, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern and the other the global crossroads of Southern California—shaped one another." The co-curators encourage "meandering" through essays organized under seven overlapping themes: "Journeys," "Landscapes," "Leisure," "Style," "Sounds," "Practices," and "Foundations." Thus, one might find Saba Soomekh's "To Be an Iranian Jewish Bride," directly from the home page or through the "Journeys," "Practices," or "Styles" pages.

Written by historians, linguists, anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, curators, and artists, as well as scholars of literature, religion, and, of course, Jewish and Sephardic studies, the essays range widely. Some combine scholarly expertise with personal connection. For example, Simone Salmon's "Emily Sene's Sephardic Mixtape" allows visitors to hear music from informal outdoor gatherings led by Salmon's great grandfather, Isaac Sene, and recorded by his wife, Emily, between the 1940s and the 1970s. Through these recordings, supplemented by more recent videos [End Page 689] of the author's Ladino ensemble, Salmon traces the journeys of people and music from Turkey to Cuba to New York to Los Angeles. Similarly, Regine Basha's "Life of the Party" draws on family traditions—and home movies—to construct "a narrative archive of Iraqi Jewry in the diaspora as seen through the music, the parties and the food." This pair of musical essays embodies the project's goal of providing a "tour" of some of Sephardic Los Angeles's "most unique and intimate aspects."

Essays grouped under "Leisure," "Style," and "Landscapes" explore Sephardic social/cultural life and identity through communal and personal records. Thus, Julia Philips Cohen examines events such as "Turkish Nights" fundraisers and "Oriental balls," where community members donned fezzes and kaftans to "perform their relationship to their lands of origins." Rachel Smith's "Sephardic Jews and the Democratization of Leisure" documents how busy schedules of picnics, backyard parties, and day trips built communal bonds and networks of support in a city with a climate conducive to outdoor activities. Lior Sternfeld's "Iranian Jewish Los Angeles" focuses on commercial culture and cultural production, demonstrating the influence of Jewish entrepreneurs on the broader Iranian immigrant community.

Although the project does not provide a comprehensive or linear history, essays document the arrival and establishment of particular groups that make up this diverse community. The project includes essays focusing on migrants from Turkey, Morocco, Iran, Syria, Greece, Tunisia, Rhodes, and the Balkans—some through a particular immigrant or family and others framed more broadly. Thematic essays explore identity through labor history, transnational commercial networks, residential patterns, ritual practices, ethnic tourism among American-born descendants, and newspapers. Thus, Bryan Kirschen's "Reading Ladino in Los Angeles" examines the role of print culture in negotiating Sephardic identities, not only in terms of newspaper content, but also through choices of language and letters.

Several contributors frame Sephardim as cultural influencers in Los Angeles and beyond. Particularly intriguing is Luce's "'Oriental' Jews on the Frontier of...