Sephardi Stories
Rosemary Collins finds out more about Sephardi Voices UK, a charity recording the memories of the migrations of the Sephardi Jewish diaspora
Sephardi Jews – Jewish communities from modern-day Spain and Portugal – have been refugees for centuries. In 1492, when they were expelled from Spain and Portugal, many fled to the Ottoman Empire, where they formed thriving communities in the modernday territories of the Middle East, North Africa and Iran. Jews from these regions are also referred to as Mizrahi. In the period between the 1948 Arab– Israeli War and the 1978–1979 Iranian Revolution, more than 850,000 Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews were expelled or had to leave their former homes. They settled in Israel, North America and Western Europe, including Britain.
There are an estimated 290,000 Jews in modern Britain, of whom some 15,000 are Sephardi or Mizrahi. Founded in 2011, Sephardi Voices UK ( sephardivoices.org.uk) is a charity that seeks to record the experiences of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in the UK.
“While most people know about the 1930s and the Holocaust, the historical context of this migration is quite complex because it’s to do with the history of colonialism and the end of empires, and the emergence of Arab nationalism and the creation of the state of Israel,” explains Sephardi Voices UK’s executive director Dr Bea Lewkowicz.
Bea is a historian who previously co-founded and now directs the Association of Jewish Refugees’ project Refugee Voices ( ajrrefugeevoices.org.uk), the oral-history archive of testimonies of refugees from the Holocaust. She co-founded Sephardi Voices UK with Dr Henry Green of international digital archive Sephardi Voices ( sephardivoices. com). Sephardi Voices UK has recorded 120 oral-history interviews so far. They are held at the British Library but you can view extracts on the charity’s website, as well as videos bringing together multiple interviews on a common theme. One video, commissioned by the charity HARIF ( harif.org), explores the legacy of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, which was founded in 1860 and ran French-language Jewish schools in the Arab world.
“People have very multilayered identities,” Bea says. “Someone who came from Egypt to England would speak English with a French accent. They’d say ‘I’m French’ to make it easier to understand.” The videos reveal the lives of the interviewees, and their different interests and experiences. Their memories are particularly important because they are the only survivors of a vanished world. According to a 2021 report, there were 150,000 Jews living in Iraq in 1948 in a community dating back 2,600 years, but there are just four left today.
Sephardi Voices UK now aims to transcribe the interviews, digitise its archive of donated photos and documents, and develop resources for schools. There will also be talks about the results of its research.
Bea emphasises the importance of recording these testimonies because of the forgotten history they bring to light: “Our interviewees feel very attached to their birthplaces, and talk about them with a great sense of nostalgia – and a great sense of loss.”
Our interviewees talk about their of loss birthplaces with a great sense