Descriptive Summary |
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| Title: | Records of the World Sephardi Federation | |
| Dates: | 1975-1998 | |
| Abstract: | These records reflect the activities of the World Sephardi Federation (WSF), an organization that sought to address the educational and social needs of the Sephardim both in Israel and the Diaspora. The collection is comprised mainly of memos, reports, correspondence, and newspaper clippings that document both the cultural traditions of the Sephardim in the Diaspora and their political and social standing in contemporary Israel. The collection is primarily in English, although it also contains memos and reports in French. In addition, some of the correspondence is occasionally in Spanish. The newspaper articles and clippings are in Hebrew or English. | |
| Quantity: | 3.6 linear feet | |
The World Sephardi Federation (WSF) was founded in 1925 at the international convention of Sephardi Jews held in Vienna, prior to the 14th Zionist Congress. The initiative behind its establishment came from the heads of the Sephardi and Oriental communities in Palestine, who, together with the heads of the Sephardi communities in the Balkan countries and central Europe, set up the World Union of Sephardi Jews. Moshe Pichotto was chosen as the first president of the union, whose center was set in Jerusalem. In a unanimous resolution, it was declared that the establishment of this union was essential for the Zionist movement, in order to build the land with the cooperation of all the Jewish communities.
In the decades following the founding of the organization the Federation attempted to represent the Sephardi communities within the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish Agency, the Foundation Fund (Keren Hayesod), in Palestine and later in Israel. The first conference of the WSF took place in Paris in November 1951. The delegates stressed the issues of housing, welfare, education, culture and Sephardi heritage. The WSF attempted to speak for Sephardic communities in North America, Central and South America, as well as European countries such as France, England, Italy and Spain.
The election of Nessim D. Gaon as President of the Federation in 1973 and Leon Tamman as Treasurer started a new era. In his journeys around the world, Nessim D. Gaon succeeded in instilling the idea of organizing the Sephardi communities in the world. In 1987, Nessim D. Gaon visited Sephardi communities in North and South America and in Europe with the purpose of bringing them closer to the World Sephardi Federation. This trip, dubbed the Sephardi Caravan, was relatively successful and attracted over 180 new members to the Board of Governors of the WSF. It concluded with a Congress of Sephardic communities in Jerusalem at the end of November 1987. The Federation brought involvement in all areas of Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora. In 1988 Steve Shalom became a Treasurer of the WSF and Lillian Shalom held the position of Vice-President responsible for Public Relations.
The World Sephardi Federation is represented in the Zionist institutions - the Zionist Congress, the Zionist General Council, the Zionist Executive, as well as the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency and the World Jewish Congress. Its main activities include scholarships for schoolchildren and students, loans to owners of small businesses, bar mitzvah celebrations for children from large families, and partnerships with the Hebrew University in setting up and operating the Misgav Institute for Research into the Heritage of Spanish and Oriental Jewry. The body executing policy is the Executive, half of whose members are from Israel and half from the Diaspora.
The Sephardi Federation operated from the offices of the President, Mr. Nessim D. Gaon in Geneva since 1973. In 1994, the Presidium decided to transfer its secretariat to Jerusalem.
Source: Avi Shlush: Letter of Introduction. The World Sephardi Federation. Available on http://www.jafi.org.il/wsf/intro.htm. Accessed on November 11, 2002.
The records of the WSF relate to the top tier of the WSF leadership, particularly during the period 1987-1990 when Lillian Shalom was the Vice-President responsible for public relations and Steven Shalom served as a Treasurer of the WSF. Both these individuals had close ties to the New York and U.S. communities, as well as to the American Sephardi Federation and this accounts for the presence of some of the documents in the collection. The Records of the WSF do not reflect the everyday administration of the main office of the World Sephardi Federation or of the American Friends of the World Sephardi Federation. After Steven Shalom resigned in 1990, the documents are less immediately connected with the actual steering of the WSF. The character of the collection changed at that point, and memos and reports sent to heads of the national branches and their executive directors became a more substantial part of the collection. Most of these materials are addressed to Leon Levy, the President of the American Sephardi Federation, who represented the ASF at the meetings of the WSF leaders. Some of the later memos and various announcements appear to have been dispatched routinely to the ASF office. There are no materials from the period before 1976.
Most of the documents deal with financial aspects of various projects of the WSF, such as the scholarships, which were intended for the training of rabbis for Sephardic communities in the Diaspora. Furthermore, the correspondence reflects transfers of financial subsidies from the WSF to its branches as well as a number of other organizational issues. The social, economic, and cultural conditions of the Sephardic population in Israel were of concern to the WSF leaders as well, and information on these topics is also contained in this collection.
Newspaper clippings covering mostly the WSF Congress in 1987, the underprivileged status of Sephardim in Israel, and the activities of Nessim Gaon are to be found in Series II, along with a number of interviews with WSF leaders. The newspaper clippings cover the period 1987-1991.
Organization |
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| The collection is arranged in two series. | ||
| Series I: Administrative, 1975-1998 | ||
| Series II: Newspaper clippings, 1987-1991 | ||
The administrative records of the Series I are arranged alphabetically. Series II consists of newspaper clippings that are also ordered alphabetically and chronologically by year.
Open to researchers.
There may be some restrictions on the use of the collection. For more
information, contact
American Sephardi Federation
Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
The Records of the American Sephardi Federation administered by the Archive of the ASF.
Published citations should take the following form:
Identification
of item, date (if known); Records of the World Sephardi Federation; box number; American Sephardi Federation at the Center for Jewish History
.
The following section contains a detailed listing of the materials in the collection.
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Series I: Administrative, 1975-1998, 3 linear feet |
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Arrangement: Alphabetically. |
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Scope and Content: Series I contains records from the period 1987-1998. Many of the materials relate to the activities of Steve Shalom, the Treasurer of the WSF, and Liliane Shalom who was the Vice-President responsible for public relations during the years 1987-1990. The material from the later period consists of memos and reports that were sent to heads of the national branches and their executive directors. Therefore most of the materials from the 1990s are addressed to Leon Levy, the President of the American Sephardi Federation. The documents that were not originally filed in thematic folders are arranged chronologically under the heading Administrative Correspondence. The records that were filed together are usually labelled under their original title. There are several significant topics in the collection. One of them involved the effort on the part of the WSF to obtain Sephardic rabbis for the communities in the Diaspora. These rabbis, it was hoped, would receive their education from an institution firmly rooted in a Sephardic cultural environment and Sephardic intellectual tradition. The plan was to secure funds that would provide the necessary means for educating the new Sephardic rabbis for congregations outside of Israel, and to select institutions that would guarantee their education in an uncompromised Sephardic tradition. The files labelled Rabbinical Training cover this topic. The issue is also mentioned in the files that cover correspondence with the directors of those Sephardic educational institutions with whom the WSF negotiated, namely Sam Kassin, Joe Nessim and Shlomo Riskin. The meeting of the newly recruited members of the Board of Governors which took place during the visit of Nessim Gaon to the Americas is well documented. It presents a glimpse of the prominent representatives of the Sephardic communities all over the world, but particularly in South America. The biographical files of the individual governors were supposed to be used for a publication that was intended to appear at the Congress of the World Sephardi Federation in Jerusalem, Israel in 1987. However, it seems that the booklet was not published in the proposed form, but rather in a more modest one. The booklet containing short biographies of the top leaders of the WSF, though not including all members of the Board of Governors as was originally planned, is part of the collection. In addition, the social, educational, and cultural situation of the Sephardic population of Israel concerned the leaders of the WSF, as can be seen from the documents of the Social and Education Commissions. This issue often appears in the Administrative Correspondence files. Many of the documents in the collection are of a financial nature, since it was one of the major tasks of the WSF to fund projects that could ameliorate the position of Sephardim. Hence, the documents filed under the Presidium or the Executive (the main policy making and decision making bodies) often contain financial reports and deal with finances. This, in addition to the fact that Steven Shalom was Treasurer of the WSF for two years, explains the prominence of the documents produced by the Finance Commission. The documents are mostly in English, some in French; Spanish and Hebrew are used occasionally. |
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| Box | Title | Date | |
| 1 | Administrative Correspondence | 1982 | |
| 1 | Administrative Correspondence | 1984 | |
| 1 | Administrative Correspondence | 1986 | |
| 1 | Administrative Correspondence | 1987 | |
| 1 | Administrative Correspondence | 1988 | |
| 1 | Administrative Correspondence | 1989 | |
| 1 | Administrative Correspondence | 1990 | |
| 1 | Administrative Correspondence | 1991 | |
| 1 | Administrative Correspondence | 1992 | |
| 1 | Administrative Correspondence | 1993 | |
| 1 | Administrative Correspondence | 1994 | |
| 1 | Administrative Correspondence | 1995 | |
| 1 | Administrative Correspondence | 1996 | |
| 1 | Administrative Correspondence | 1997 | |
| 1 | Administrative Correspondence | 1998 | |
| 1 | Amutah | 1989 | |
| 1 | Board of Governors - Biographies | 1986-1987 | |
| 1 | Board of Governors - Biographies | 1987 | |
| 1 | Board of Governors - Contributions | 1987-1988 | |
| 1 | Board of Governors - Inaugural Meeting | 1987 | |
| 1 | Board of Governors - Meeting | 1988 | |
| 1 | Board of Governors - Member List | 1989-1990 | |
| 1 | Board of Governors - Meetings | 1988 | |
| 1 | Board of Governors - Member List | 1989-1990 | |
| 1 | Board of Governors - Recruitment - Sephardi Caravan | 1987 | |
| 1 | Booklet | 1988? | |
| 1 | Budget | 1983-1984 | |
| 1 | By-Laws | 1991 | |
| 1 | Canadian Sephardi Federation - Report on Activities | 1989-1990 | |
| 1 | Canadian Sephardi Federation - Financial Statement | 1987 | |
| 1 | Cohen, Richard - Public Relations Expenses | 1987-1988 | |
| 1 | Commission of Ten | 1988 | |
| 1 | Congress of World Sephardi Federation | 1978 | |
| 1 | Congress of World Sephardi Federation, Jerusalem | 1987-1988 | |
| 1 | Congress of World Sephardi Federation, Jerusalem - Financial Report | 1988 | |
| 1 | Congress of World Sephardi Federation, Jerusalem - Photos - Identified | 1987 | |
| 1 | Congress of World Sephardi Federation, Jerusalem - Photos - Portraits | 1987 | |
| 1 | Congress of World Sephardi Federation, Jerusalem - Photos - Unidentified | 1987 | |
| 1 | Congress of World Sephardi Federation, Jerusalem - Photos - Unidentified | 1987 | |
| 1 | Congress of World Sephardi Federation, Jerusalem - Photos - Unidentified | 1987 | |
| 1 | Congress of World Sephardi Federation, Jerusalem - Program | 1987 | |
| Box | Title | Date | |
| 2 | Constitution | n.d., 1988 | |
| 2 | Correspondence - Financial | 1990 | |
| 2 | Correspondence - Gaon, Nessim | 1988 | |
| 2 | Correspondence - Silvera, David | 1987-1990 | |
| 2 | Education Commission - Gaon, Solomon | 1989-1990 | |
| 2 | English Course for Knesset Members | 1990 | |
| 2 | Europe - WSF Branch | 1988, 1989 | |
| 2 | Executive | 1986 | |
| 2 | Executive | 1990 | |
| 2 | Executive Committee | 1995 | |
| 2 | Executive Directors | 1991 | |
| 2 | Executive Directors | 1992 | |
| 2 | Federatión Sefaradi Latinoamerica (FESELA) | 1988-1990 | |
| 2 | Federatión Sefaradi Latinoamerica (FESELA) - Activities | 1990 | |
| 2 | Federatione Sefardita Italiana - Report on Activities | 1986 | |
| 2 | Finance Commission | 1986 | |
| 2 | Finance Commission | 1987 | |
| 2 | Finance Commission | 1988 | |
| 2 | Finance Commission | 1990 | |
| 2 | Finance Commission | 1991 | |
| 2 | Finance Commission | 1995 | |
| 2 | Finance Committee | 1994 | |
| 2 | Financial Statement | 1987-1988 | |
| 2 | Financial Statement | 1990 | |
| 2 | Financial Statement - Sephardi Communities Department World Zionist Federation | 1987-1988 | |
| 2 | France - WSF Branch | 1990 | |
| 2 | Gaon, Nessim - Biographical Interview | 1987? | |
| 2 | Gaon, Nessim - Portraits - Negatives | 1979, 1987 | |
| 2 | Gaon, Nessim - Speeches | 1986-1990 | |
| 2 | Gaon, Solomon - Report on Sephard'92 | n.d., 1988 | |
| 2 | Georgia (Republic) - WSF Branch | 1990-1991 | |
| 2 | Housing for Syrian Immigrants in Gilo | 1989 | |
| 2 | Israel Executive of the WSF - Report on Activities | 1991 | |
| 2 | Kassin, Sam (Sephardic Study Center for Jewish History) | 1990 | |
| 2 | Levy, David - Visit to New York and Los Angeles - Press Releases | 1989 | |
| 2 | List of Sephardi Synagogues, Organizations, Leaders in | 1990 | |
| 2 | Meeting with Shimon Peres | 1988 | |
| 2 | Meeting with Yitzak Shamir | 1988 | |
| 2 | Message of Peace of the World Sephardi Federation | 1987 | |
| 2 | Nasser, Alberto | n.d., 1988 | |
| 2 | Nessim, Joe (Sephardic Educational Center) | 1989-1990 | |
| 2 | Pagani, Herbert - Expenses | 1988 | |
| 2 | Plans for New WSF Leadership Structure | 1987-1988 | |
| 2 | Plans for Sephardi Caucus in Washington | 1990 | |
| 2 | Platform for Social Justice | 1988 | |
| 2 | Platform for Social Justice - Drafts | 1988 | |
| 2 | Potential Board of Governors Members | 1987-1988 | |
| Box | Title | Date | |
| 3 | Presidium | n.d., 1977-1980 | |
| 3 | Presidium | 1988 | |
| 3 | Presidium | 1989 | |
| 3 | Presidium | 1990 | |
| 3 | Presidium | 1991 | |
| 3 | Presidium | 1992 | |
| 3 | Presidium | 1993 | |
| 3 | Presidium | 1998 | |
| 3 | Riskin, Shlomo (Ohr Torah) | 1989-1990 | |
| 3 | Rabbinical Training | 1987-1988 | |
| 3 | Rabbinical Training - Gaon, Solomon | 1988 | |
| 3 | Rabbinical Training - Kassin, Sam | 1988 | |
| 3 | Rabbinical Training - Riskin, Shlomo | 1987-1988 | |
| 3 | Rabbinical Training - Riskin, Shlomo - Photos | 1988 | |
| 3 | Rabbinical Training - Sephardic Educational Center | 1987-1989 | |
| 3 | Report on Activities | 1996 | |
| 3 | Report on Activities of the Sephardi Federation of Australia | 1987 | |
| 3 | Requests for Project Funding | 1989-1990 | |
| 3 | Restrictive Committee and Heads of Branches | 1985-1987 | |
| 3 | Scholarships Awarded and Educational Programs | 1989-1990 | |
| 3 | Sephardi Communities Department World Zionist Federation - Correspondence | 1985-1990 | |
| 3 | Sephardi Communities Department World Zionist Federation - Correspondence | 1991-1996 | |
| 3 | Sephardi Communities Department World Zionist Federation - Report on Activities | 1989-1990 | |
| 3 | Sephardi Communities Department World Zionist Federation - Structure of Funds | 1986 | |
| 3 | Sephardi House, Israel | 1988-1990 | |
| 3 | Sephardi House, Israel - Recruitment | 1990 | |
| 3 | Sephardic Education | 1975-1981 | |
| 3 | Shalom, Steven - Resignation as Treasurer | 1990 | |
| 3 | Social Commission | 1986 | |
| 3 | Social Commission - Planned activities | 1989-1990 | |
| 3 | Social Commission - Planned activities | 1990-1991 | |
| 3 | World Jewish Congress - International Economic and Social Commission | 1979-1980 | |
| 3 | World Jewish Congress - International Economic and Social Commission | 1979-1980 | |
| 3 | World Youth Convention, Israel | 1991 | |