Sephardic Heritage International (SHIN) DC – Sephardic Heritage International (SHIN) DC builds intercultural bridges while raising awareness of Sephardic and other underrepresented Jewish heritages.

SHIN-DC’s Arts and Humanities Programs are Supported in Part by the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities

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Calendar (ET - US & CAN)

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November 8 (In Person)
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November 16 (Online)
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December 18 (In Person)
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Click Here for More Info About the "Coming Out of Hiding Art Exhibit," on Specified Thursdays, 12-3 PM, Between Holocaust Remembrance Day and Yom HaShoah:

Diplomatic & Congressional Holocaust Remembrance

#1 New CHC 2022
Greek Jewish survivor David Baruch gave testimony, and members of Congress and foreign dignitaries – including the ambassadors of Greece, Israel, and Portugal, and the spokesperson for the Japanese embassy – also spoke. Press: The Jerusalem Post , The National Herald, Nieuws uit Joods Nederland en Israel .

Diplomatic & Congressional Concerts

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In 2023, Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, US Special Envoy to Combat and Monitor Antisemitism, joined us for SHIN-DC’s Annual Mimouna Festival of Good Neighbors at the Smithsonian, featuring Moroccan Israeli liturgical artist Shir Ifrah, with partners the Embassy of Israel and the Embassy of Morocco, other members of the diplomatic community, the Offices of DC’s Mayor and the Governor of Maryland, and over 1,000 diverse participants. Press: JTA, Arutz Sheva, Times of Israel.

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Cosmopolitan Journeys Through Greek Music – Part I: Greek, Iraqi and Sephardic musicians discuss melodies that are shared in their respective traditions and demonstrate the connections between these traditions through musical performances, with opening remarks by H.E. Alexandra Papadopoulou, Ambassador of Greece to the U.S. Download the lyrics here. Press: The National Herald and Tornos News.

Diplomatic & S&P Festivals

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October 2020, the Embassy of Portugal to the U.S. partnered with SHIN-DC to bring together Portuguese-Jewish communities from Philadelphia to Lisbon. Domingos Fezas Vital, the Portuguese ambassador to the United States, said that the Inquisition was a mistake. The region “subjected itself to what we would call today, a form of brain drain,” he said. Press: The Jerusalem Post.

Community Engagement

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March 2021, The NAACP, SHIN-DC, and a coalition of partners and allies for justice and equality honored FOUR WISE DAUGHTERS for Women’s History Month, as we launched an initiative aimed at working together on issues that relate to our diverse communities. Our inspiration came from Maud Nathan – a Sephardic voice – who said, “Prejudice produces humiliation which is not easy to bear. And the sad part is that the nature becomes warped and the spirit of kindliness and friendliness is changed into bitterness and resentment. To live in peace, there must be mutual confidence, trust, cooperation, no antagonism.”

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June 2021, Dr. Laura Leibman shares from her new book Once We Were Slaves, the story of prominent American and Sephardic Jew Sarah Brandon Rodrigues who was born a slave in Barbados in 1798; with participation from U.S. immigration attorney Lauren Levy (a multiethnic and Caribbean/Jamaican Jewish woman of color who identifies as a citizen of the world), Neal Rechtman on behalf of the Jewish Community of Barbados, and H.E. Noel Anderson Lynch, Ambassador of Barbados to the United States. Caribbean music from Lionel Belasco who came from a Sephardic family of Barbados.

Media

SHIN DC holds first Congressional Farhud Remembrance. "The Iraqi Jewish community, diplomatic community and congressional representatives gathered on June 5 to commemorate the victims of the Farhud massacre that targeted Baghdad Jewry on June 1, 1941." "The commemoration was held in memory of Shlomo Mantzur, a survivor of the Farhud who was born in Baghdad in 1938. At that time, the Iraqi capital was one-third Jewish, at a population of 90,000. He emigrated to Israel and raised a family in Kibbutz Kissufim: five children and 12 grandchildren."

"The remembrance event, spearheaded by Sephardic Heritage International DC, featured remarks from Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) and was attended by nearly 400 attendees from around the United States and world. Reps. Deborah Wasserman-Schultz, Brad Schneider and Jamie Raskin were congressional sponsors."
6.10.2025. Washington Jewish Week

SHIN DC festival strengthens Jewish-Muslim solidarity. In a proclamation signed on May 2, Washington, D.C.’s Mayor Muriel Bowser officially recognized SHIN DC’s end-of-Passover festival as “the District’s official Mimouna.

The festival featured a concert by Moroccan Israeli singer Neta Elkayam and an ensemble including Israeli artist Moshe Elmakias and Muslim artists singing mainly Arabic songs.

We have to make the effort to maintain that bond between Jews and Muslims, that bond that existed in Morocco,” Katzir said. “That’s one of the reasons why it’s important to bring together musicians from different backgrounds because it sort of alludes to that bond that Jews and Muslims shared with Mimouna historically. Islam and Judaism share two common values: hospitality and neighborliness. The Mimouna is a way to connect the two cultures over those commonalities. The hope is that people would share that and see each other less as ‘other’ and to have a shared humanist experience,” Katzir said.
5.6.2025. Washington Jewish Week

NoVa's Trio Sefardi performs at the Embassy of Spain for 15th anniversary. Northern Virginia-based ensemble Trio Sefardi celebrated its 15th anniversary on March 11 with a Ladino concert at the Embassy of Spain’s Spanish cultural center. The performance was hosted by the embassy and Sephardic Heritage International (SHIN DC) to honor the life and legacy of Trio Sefardi’s mentor, a “legendary Sephardic singer.”

The standing-room-only concert featured music in Ladino, the language of the Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492. Also known as Judeo-Spanish, the language thrived for five centuries as the “mother tongue of many Sephardic Jews,” according to a press release by SHIN DC.
3.17.2025. Washington Jewish Week

Survivors speak out on 80th anniversary of liberation of Auschwitz. Ninetta Matsa Feldman lost an estimated 126 family members to Auschwitz. The Grecian-born Holocaust survivor shared her story in the Congressional Gold Room on Jan. 23 in honor of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Feldman is a member of SHIN-DC and has attended the annual Congressional Holocaust Commemoration every year since its inception seven years ago. Afraim Katzir, the founding director of SHIN-DC, said the two have known each other for years.

“I knew she was a Holocaust survivor, but I didn’t know the details of her story until later because she hadn’t spoken before,” Katzir said of Feldman.

At the standing-room-only venue filled with Congress members, ambassadors and community members, Feldman told her story of taking shelter in the ancient city walls during air raids and surviving in the mountains of Greece as the Nazis approached.
1.27.2025. Washington Jewish Week

SHIN-DC brings together Jews and Muslims with Moroccan post-Passover tradition. “At a time when antisemitism is on the rise and conflict is looming, the District and our Jewish and Muslim partners are sending the world an important message of goodwill, friendship and coexistence by coming together for Mimouna,” remarked SHIN-DC Director Afraim Katzir.

“The interfaith aspect of Mimouna, often lost today, is what we need right now,” Katzir said. “A Hebrew poem by one of Morocco’s greatest poets David Bouzaglo (1903-1975) describes the traditional Mimouna, “This is the way of the native Arab, now in Morocco to give the Jews a plentiful gift…flour, honey and grain, milk…fish, mint and butter with wild flowers and herbs…There Hebrews and Arabs recline together…Their hearts rejoice with music and song…And you cannot tell the difference between a Hebrew and his Arab brother…all have one spirit.”
4.22.2024. The Jerusalem Post

Sixth Annual Congressional Holocaust Commemoration. Sephardic International, a DC-based cultural diplomacy nonprofit that focuses on celebrating Sephardic art and culture and raises awareness of the histories of the world’s under-represented communities, hosted the sixth annual Congressional Holocaust Commemoration.

The event, which took place at the Rayburn Congressional Building, featured keynote speaker Louise Lawrence Israels, a Dutch Holocaust survivor and Maryland resident who spent the first three years of her life in hiding.

The commemoration included an art display that constituted a soft launch of SHIN-DC’s soon-to-be established Multicultural Jewish Arts Museum in Washington, DC.
1.23 Washington Jewish Week

DC to declare an official Mimouna day to celebrate end of Passover Because of the Work of SHIN-DC. "In a proclamation set to be signed this weekend, Mayor Muriel Bowser will be urging her constituents to celebrate Mimouna, a feast that marks the end of the holiday and that has spread from North Africa to become popular in Israel and beyond.

“Now, therefore, I, the mayor of Washington, D.C., do hereby proclaim Sunday, April 16, 2023 in Washington, D.C. as ‘Mimouna – A Festival of Good Neighbors Day,’ and do commend this observance to all Washingtonians,” the proclamation says.
2.5.2022. JTA

SHIN-DC's Congressional Holocaust Commemoration 2022 Goes Virtual. Israeli Ambassador Herzog stated, "The fact that this is a congressional commemoration sends a very strong message from the heart of American democracy about the value of rejecting all hate and racist discrimination in general and antisemitism in particular." Herzog thanked the members of Congress who participated for "lending their voice in support of this important initiative."
2.5.2022. The Jerusalem Post

Sephardic Heritage International highlights Israel, Gulf states cooperation. "SHIN-DC (a cultural diplomacy non-profit that focuses on celebrating Sephardic and underrepresented Jewish cultural heritages worldwide) will host a special program for Hanukkah highlighting cooperation between Israel, Bahrain, Morocco and the UAE on each night of the holiday. The program's theme is "collaboration for the good brings more light into the world,"
11.30.2021. The Jerusalem Post

Israeli, Moroccan embassies in Washington to hold Mimouna celebration. "The Israeli and Moroccan embassies in Washington are hosting the first-ever joint Mimouna celebration in partnership with Sephardic Heritage International in Washington (SHIN-DC) and the Smithsonian Institution."
3.31.2021. The Jerusalem Post

Pfizer CEO shares his family's tragic story during the Holocaust. "Pfizer CEO Dr. Albert Bourla joined the Sephardic Heritage International on January 28th for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, where he shared his Greek Sephardic family's story of tragedy and survival during the Holocaust. "It’s a story that had a great impact on my life and my view of the world, and it is a story that, for the first time today, I share publicly," said Bourla during the January 28 virtual event."
2.13.2021. The Jerusalem Post

Portugal has naturalized 23,000 applicants under Jewish law of return. "That figure means that the government has thus far approved about 30% of the roughly 76,000 applications submitted since 2015. Officials did not say how many applications were declined. About 25,000 of applications were submitted in 2019 alone, many of which have not yet been processed. The figures were released in a statement on Oct. 22 from the Washington, DC-based Sephardic Heritage International organization."
11.7.2020. The Jerusalem Post

Embassy of Greece & SHIN-DC Launch ‘Cosmopolitan Journeys through Greek Music’. The National Herald. "SHIN-DC's Director stated: “The launch of Cosmopolitan Journeys through Greek Music is consistent with Greece’s actions to build friendship, peace and prosperity. Our engagement with Iraq aims to create a space where artists, nations and communities can build goodwill through culture and musical traditions that are shared from the Mediterranean to the Gulf.”
5.6.2021. The National Herald

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