Tonight we will have a special guest call in ~ Shelomo Alfassá. A snippet from his bio page:

Shelomo Alfassá oversees Special Projects for a national Jewish organization based at the Center for Jewish History in New York City. He specializes in the history of Jews from both Iberia (Spain and Portugal) and the Ottoman Empire (the former Turkish empire including Ottoman Palestine, etc.). From 2006-2009 he was U.S. Director of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC) where he successfully helped develop H.Res.185, an historic resolution recognizing rights of Jews displaced from Arab countries which was unanimously approved by the U.S. Congress on April 1, 2008.

Mr. Alfassá is the founder and former Executive Director of the International Sephardic Leadership Council and the editor of the award winning International Sephardic Journal. Well known as an international advocate for Sephardic Jewry, Mr. Alfassá served as former Director of Research and Development for Sephardic House in New York City and for four years he served as a vice-president of the Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture. He was a staff consultant to both the Sephardic Educational Center and the Shehebar Sephardic Center (Midrash Sefaradi) in Jerusalem.

In 2005, he successfully worked with the U.S. Congress to bring about greater representation for Sephardic victims of the Holocaust (specifically Jews from Arab countries) at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). In 2003, Mr. Alfassá traveled to Poland representing Sephardic Jews in the United States as part of Judéo-Espagnol A Auschwitz, a successful multi-national campaign that sought recognition for Sephardic Holocaust victims that perished at Auschwitz.

Mr. Alfassá’s articles and papers on Jewish history and politics have appeared in numerous media outlets; his books include Ethnic Sephardic Jews in the Medical Literature; Reference Guide to the Nazis and Arabs During the Holocaust; A Window Into Old Jerusalem; History, Politics & Loss; The Palm Tree of Deborah and The Sephardic Anousim. Mr. Alfassá’s family is from the Ottoman island of Rhodes and Ottoman Edirne, Turkey. He has lived in New York, Florida, California, Colorado and Jerusalem.

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