Activities
The Federation exists to 'promote and preserve the spiritual, historical, cultural and social traditions of all Sephardic communities as an integral part of Jewish heritage.' in the United States and the goal of its founding conference was to "dedicate itself to revitalize the Sephardi culture and heritage in the U.S. and to aid the underprivileged population of the State of Israel." The Federation's annual conferences, which also publish a number of reports about the work of the organization and issues related to Sephardic Jewry in the United States, is held in various locations throughout the United States and serves as a cultural reminder of the Middle East and African roots of the movement.
Its role in the Center for Jewish History is to serve as the only partner totally focused on the Jews of the Iberian Peninisula, North Africa, the Balkans, Middle East and Asia. In 2000, when the Center for Jewish History opened to the public, the Federation opened what was then the only dedicated Sephardic exhibition space in North America in the Center's new location.
One of the most important functions of the Federation was its role in the lives of Sephardic youth. The first National ASF Youth Convention was held in Atlanta in November 1973 and was attended by more than 450. The federation's youth education programs also help to ensure the continued growth and vibrancy of the Sephardic culture.
When the U.S. Senate began to look into the issue of Jews fleeing Arab areas in the Middle East, the Federation was involved with their research about the more than 800,000 Jews that chose to leave their homes at the time. In connection with a number of other groups worldwide, the Federation has been involved with efforts to obtain information from those affected.
Read more about this topic: American Sephardi Federation
Famous quotes containing the word activities:
“Both gossip and joking are intrinsically valuable activities. Both are essentially social activities that strengthen interpersonal bonds—we do not tell jokes and gossip to ourselves. As popular activities that evade social restrictions, they often refer to topics that are inaccessible to serious public discussion. Gossip and joking often appear together: when we gossip we usually tell jokes and when we are joking we often gossip as well.”
—Aaron Ben-Ze’Ev, Israeli philosopher. “The Vindication of Gossip,” Good Gossip, University Press of Kansas (1994)
“No culture on earth outside of mid-century suburban America has ever deployed one woman per child without simultaneously assigning her such major productive activities as weaving, farming, gathering, temple maintenance, and tent-building. The reason is that full-time, one-on-one child-raising is not good for women or children.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“The most remarkable aspect of the transition we are living through is not so much the passage from want to affluence as the passage from labor to leisure.... Leisure contains the future, it is the new horizon.... The prospect then is one of unremitting labor to bequeath to future generations a chance of founding a society of leisure that will overcome the demands and compulsions of productive labor so that time may be devoted to creative activities or simply to pleasure and happiness.”
—Henri Lefebvre (b. 1901)