Telling the Untold Story
From left: Gladys Daoud, CFTAU Board Member, Event Chair and Montreal Chair of the Moshe Dayan Center / Sephardi Voices Project; Claire Dalfen, Immediate Past President, CFTAU, Ottawa, Quebec and Atlantic Canada; Meir Buber, Senior Resource Executive for English speaking countries at TAU; Professor Uzi Rabi, Ph.D, Director, Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, TAU; Prof. Henry Green, Executive Director, Sephardi Voices; Barbara Seal, C.M., National President, CFTAU; Moishe Shiveck; Sass Peress, Vice President, CFTAU, Ottawa, Quebec and Atlantic Canada; Sharon J. Fraenkel, Executive Director, CFTAU, Ottawa, Quebec and Atlantic Canada
Against the backdrop of fading memories, Canadian Friends - Montreal officially launched the joint project between Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies and Sephardi Voices, an international group devoted to telling the untold stories of nearly one million Sephardic Jews. Upon the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, shifting alliances in Arab countries across North Africa and the Middle East resulted in most Sephardic Jews feeling the need to abandon their homes and flee to either to Israel or other countries across the globe.
Over 200 guests attended the event held at Montreal’s famed Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue. Prof. Uzi Rabi, Director of the Dayan Center, presented a timely and interesting perspective on the Middle East and the Jews from Arab lands.
To continue the commitment and extensive work to restoring the history and cultural heritage of Jews from Arab lands, TAU’s Moshe Dayan Center will focus on a new, integral part of its curriculum, the “Study of Jews from Arab Lands Program.” In close collaboration with Sephardi Voices the goal is to search for hidden and known materials, record live testimonies and memories, digitize pictures, documents, letters and articles, and to create a unique, user friendly interface for access and managing the information. The hope is to provide firsthand accounts and to preserve their historical and cultural legacy.