Sephardic Jews are loud, spirited and filled with Jewish joy. Ironically, we also tend to keep to ourselves.
In America, at least, Sephardic communities often live in tight-knit enclaves: Syrian Jews in Brooklyn and Deal, New Jersey; Persian Jews in Great Neck and Beverly Hills; Bukharian Jews in Queens. I proudly belong to the last group.
Like many in my community, my Jewish upbringing was purely Bukharian. We ate bakhsh on Shabbat, danced in the traditional joma during celebrations and held annual yushuvos — memorial dinners — for my late grandfathers. While I was exposed to Ashkenazi traditions in high school, I never quite had meaningful interactions with Sephardim outside of my community — that is, until I became a Sephardi House Fellow at the American Sephardi Federation (ASF).
I applied for the fellowship between high school and college, after a Jewish content creator suggested it to me over Instagram. At the time, I longed to find a Jewish community that I could connect with, unable to relate to some of my community’s deep-set traditionalism or the alternatives offered by more progressive Ashkenazi circles. Luckily, all of my hopes were realized, and then some.
Throughout the year-long fellowship, I met virtually with about thirty Sephardi college students from across the country, discussing Sephardic cultural and liturgical history and hearing from the most prominent leaders in the Sephardic world. With each meeting, it became increasingly clear to me that, contrary to the Ashkenormative lens through which Jewish history is often presented, Sephardic Jews weren’t side characters in the Jewish narrative — we were integral to it.
But if I had to distill the fellowship down to a single, defining experience, it wouldn’t be any of our countless, enlightening Zoom discussions. It would be the Shabbaton — an in-person weekend spending Shabbat together — that we shared in New York City.
Our first “icebreaker” game at the Shabbaton: If the room were a map, with the left side being the Westernmost point of the U.S. and the right side being the Easternmost point of Asia, stand where you were born. Lots of us crowded around “New York” and “New Jersey,” with most others speckled across the “United States.”
Move to where your parents were born. We were more spread out now. Some people moved to Israel or Iran; I and a few others moved far eastward towards Uzbekistan.
Now, move to where your grandparents were born. We dispersed all over the map: Syria, Yemen, Turkey, Mexico, Greece, Morocco, Iraq and more. I felt honored to be in the presence of such astonishing Jewish diversity.
It soon became time for Shabbat. As we sang “Shalom Aleichem” before Friday-night kiddush, each of our arms slowly wrapped across an adjacent shoulder, until we were all linked together, swaying to the verses in a giant group hug. In that moment, we were no longer strangers; we melded into a unit, bound by reverence for our traditions and a deep sense of shared identity.
The singing didn’t stop there. Guided by our fellowship directors, throughout the Shabbaton, we learned songs in Hebrew and Ladino (Avraham Avinu, padre kerido, padre bendicho, lus de Israel!) and made them our own, clapping and thrumming on the tables to their rhythm as if we had known them all our lives.
But most beautifully, we broke out into song and dance on our own, without any prompting from our leaders. Our energy was electric; our connection was palpable. Given the tumultuous state of the Jewish world at that time, it was the therapy and healing we all needed.
Throughout the Shabbaton, I learned so much about the Greater Sephardic world, whether visiting a Greek Romaniote synagogue for morning services, stopping by a Syrian synagogue for havdalah or exchanging family histories with my new friends at the fellowship.
Despite all of the novelty, every aspect of the weekend carried a distinct warmth and familiarity, echoing the specific form of connection to Judaism that I had inherited and molded on my own over the years. I realized that despite feeling alienated in high school for my traditional, immigrant Jewish background, I was far from alone — there was a whole community of youth who understood me. Until then, I just hadn’t known where to look.
When we parted ways, I knew it wouldn’t be the last time I’d see my new friends. Our connection was instantaneous, too precious to lose. Over a year later, and over six months since the fellowship ended, I remain friends with so many. As the youngest person in my cohort, which ranged in age from 18 to 24, I still have so much to learn from them.
After that weekend, I felt deeply compelled to bring that indescribable sense of community to my own campus. As a fellow last year and now as an advisor to this year’s ASF fellow from my campus, I’ve worked to organize accessible events celebrating Sephardic heritage. Slowly, we are helping weave the vibrant magic of Sephardic culture into the fabric of our broader Jewish community — ensuring it reaches far beyond our fellowship.
As a Jewish college student, I feel fortunate to have access to countless resources designed to support my involvement in a Jewish community. But this fellowship, and everything that came from it, was more than finding a community. It was coming home.
