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The World Sephardi Federation around the World

USA

The Sephardi Federation in the USA is present throughout the USA and is active within the various communities via synagogues, their rabbis and community centers.

The principal centers of activity are located in Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco in the west, New York, New Jersey, Washington and Miami in the east, and Chicago and Philadelphia in the center.

The Federation holds every 18 to 24 months, on a regular basis, a conference that brings together about 400 representatives of towns and states of the USA.  In the interim period between conferences, an ongoing Jewish cultural activity is conducted and toward the conference the community representatives submit proposals for the preservation of their community and their culture.

We also focus our activity on Jewish Sephardi youth in the USA by means of the Sephardi Fducational Center which, for the last twenty-two years, has been run by Dr. Joe Nissim. This is an outstanding project for young Jews, aimed at preserving their Judaism and bringing them closer to both Judaism and Israel. We commend the activity of this leader who has dedicated his life and his own funds to the preservation of Judaism among these youth.

The activity of the Sephardi Educational Center is conducted in Jerusalem and from there shlichim and representatives of the Center are sent to the South American continent and also distant places such as
India etc.

Latin America
 Argentina
The center of the World Sephardi Federation's Latin American activity was until March 2000 in Santiago, Chile, where the Presidency of the Sephardi Federation of Latin America was located. 12 Latin American states constitute the Latin American Sephardi Federation, in addition to the state of Florida in which Jews who were born in Cuba and moved to the USA reside. This community is organizationally linked to two Sephardi federations, namely, the American and the Latin American.

Prominent figures of the Jewish communities have always stood at the head of the Sephardi Federation in Latin America. They are to be found today at the head of Jewish communities and institutions. All of the general Jewish leadership in Latin America down to the last one began thcir activity in the Sephardi Federation.

Until the end of March 2000, the President of the Federation was Mi-. Yitzhak Ergaz, and he was preceded by Dr. Jose Menasce, who was awarded the highest ranking token of honor by the king of Spain, in acknowledgment of his activity for development and research into the culture of Spanish Jewry.

In late March 2000, at the Fesela Conference held in Santiago, Mr. Yitzhak Aspani of Mexico was elected of the Sephardi Federation of Latin America.

The Federation in Latin America conducts activities within  its communities in the different states and every year Sephardi Week events aic held in Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela and Florida.

Uruguay
This is a very small, but active and vibrant community. We must therefore commend the activity of the Jewish community of Uruguay that, every year, regularly organizes and sends a group of activists on a study tour to Israel.

Every year, since 1990, the Federation has organized together with the Organization Department study seminars in Israel for a total of approximately 200 activists. We are proud of the fact that from such a distant community, Sephardi Community activists arrive on a regular basis despite the high cost.

In the year 2000, immediately after Sukot, we brought a group of leaders and activists from Montevideo, with the aid of the Organization Department, who provided a financial contribution in order to reduce the cost ofthe seminar.


Brazil
The principal activity is carried out in two centers, in Rio and in Sao Paulo. This Jewish community was led for many years, and until recently,by Mr Alberto Nasser who is a leader of the world sephardi federation. His activity and devotion is appreciated in all institutions of Keren
Hayesod, the World Zionist Organization and the World Jewish Congress, in which he also serves as vice President.
The community in Sao Paulo is characterized by its warmth and involvement in all matters of Jewish and Zionist life, and we stress this in appreciation of the great devotion of those who stand at the head of the Sephardi community and Federation, people such as Claudio Leon, former president of the Sephardi Federation in Latin America, who endeavors to inspire awareness in the youth of his community, our of fear of assimilation on one hand, and of anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox tendencies on the other.

Chile
With the transfer of the Presidency of the Sephardi Federation of Latin America to Santiago from 1997, Jewish Zionist activity directed at the entire community was felt.
We must remember the cultural activity of the community in Santiago that holds, once a year, a cultural week on the heritage of Spanish Jewry, an event that receives a very enthusiastic reception from the entire Jewish community. In Chile the two communities coexist with splendid relations. Would that this influence the situation between the different communities in Israel.

India

The Federation is one of the few bodies of the World Zionist Organization that are active within the Jewish Community in India, by means of local volunteers and with the assistance of the Israeli consulate in Bombay.

In the last six years and since 1994, in conjunction with the Sephardi Lducational Center, we hosted 5 groups of 30 young people and adults. Lach group arrived in Israel for a study tour, family visits and the strengthening of their Judaism and Zionism. The Federation assisted in sending emissaries to this community every year, in cooperation with the Sephardi Educational Center in Jerusalem, for a period of one month.

We wish to take this opportunity to thank the Sephardi Educational Center for its contribution to strengthening the ties with the youth in this clistaut country.

Summary of Summer Programs  1994-2000


1.         France
Sephardi Federation Youth     110 participants
Sephardi Federation Adults     318 participants
Sephardi Federation Welfare Committee Adults     985 participants

2.       Canada
Montreal Community Center     182 participants
Students - Sephardi Federation     192 participants
Communities UIA - Keren Hayesod     164 participants
Maimonides School     145 participants

3.      Turkey
In conjunction with the Sephardi Educational                          150 participants
Center
Academics in conjunction with the Educational                      172 participants
Center

     4.      BraziI
The Sephardi Educational Center     52 participants

5.      Uruguay
The Federation and the Jewish Community of                          119 participants
Montevideo

6.      Mexico
The Federation and the Sephardi Educational                           212 participants
Center

7.     Columbia
The Federation and the Sephardi Educational                           117 participants
Center

     8.      USA
The Sephardi Educational Center - Los Angeles                       620 participants  
Los Angeles Jewish Community Leadership                               75 participants

In the last live years, ever since we started conducting follow-up and are directly involved in the organization of these groups, the World Sephardi Federation has brought 3,611 young people to various programs, in-service training, seminars and tours.

Academic Program for Public Activists

The Jewish Agency and the World Sepliardi Federation established in 1974, 26 years ago, a program for the academic training of public activities in the various universities and colleges and their extensions. The program was originally conceived as a training program for public leaders, mayors, union secretaries, and local council secretaries who functioned without any professional training or education.

The program started with 74 students and over the years developed and grew to encompass 2,300 students in the years 1979 - 1981.

The number of students stabilized around 1,200 until 1992. In 1992, a
cutback of Jewish Agency funding began, so that in the 1999/2000
school year 250 students studied in all of the higher institutions with a
Jewish Agency subsidy.

The program, which was directed by the Sephardi Communities Department from its inception and until 1995, had three goals:

a.     To broaden the academic basis in development towns and former Project Renewal neighborhoods.
h.     To encourage public, social, political and leadership involvement of the program's participants in these localities.
c.     To encourage students who completed their studies to return to these localities to work as leaders and activists for the benefit of their community.

The public activists program's budget for the 1999-2000 school year was NIS  1,800,000. This budget tuition fees, administrative expenses, tutorials and academic expenses for 250 continuing and new students.


Program development Since the 32 nd Congress (1992):

Academic        No. of        Bachelors     Masters     Annual
Year                 Students    Degree        Degree      Budget in US$
     1992-93        1005           936                69           1,500,000
     1993-94          890           790              100           1,350,000
     I 994-95          736            643                93           1,000,000
     1995-96          488            376             112               830,000
     1996-97          400            321               79               890,000
     1997-98          320            240               80               600,000
     1998-99          250            160               90               450,000
     1999-00          250            190               60               450,000
No new students were admitted to this program in the 2000-2001 academic year. On conclusion of the studies of those already in the framework, this chapter of the educational activity of JAFI in conjunction with the World Sephardi Federation will come to an end.
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