Jewish woman to be knighted for helping Sephardic Jews gain Spanish citizenship
Doreen Alhadeff was the first American Jew granted Spanish citizenship under Spain’s 2015 law to repatriate Sephardic Jews from around the world. Now she will be knighted by Spain’s monarchy for helping others obtain that same citizenship, reported JTA.org.
Alhadeff, a 72-year-old real estate agent from Seattle, will be knighted under the order of Queen Isabella the Catholic in October.
Since earning Spanish citizenship in 2016, Alhadeff has helped guide people from Greece to Hong Kong through the application process.
Alongside synagogue leadership and the Spanish Jewish community federation, FCJE, she also helped members of Seattle’s Congregation Ezra Bessaroth, an Orthodox Sephardic shul that “holds fast to the traditions of the Island of Rhodes,” certify their heritage research.
The order under which Alhadeff will be knighted is named for Queen Isabella I of Castile—the same queen who, with her husband King Ferdinand II of Aragon, carried out the Spanish Inquisition and issued the Alhambra Decree expelling Spain’s Jews.
Brazilian Jews and Arabs hold hummus championship
Jews, Christians and Muslims celebrated their coexistence in Latin America’s largest nation with a contest centered on one of the Middle East’s signature foods, reported JTA.org.
The Hebraica Jewish club in São Paulo organized and hosted the inaugural Abrahamic Hummus Championship on Sept. 21 timed to the United Nations International Day of Peace. Around 150 people attended the event.
Event organizer Ariel Krok compared the competition to a “soccer-friendly match.” Brazil is home to nearly 10 million people of Arab descent—the largest such population in the Americas—while more than 100,000 Jews call Brazil home, including 60,000 in São Paulo.
Team Sahtein, composed of three Christian Arab women, was declared winners by the technical jury. A popular jury of participants gave the title to a group of Christian Arab men. Both teams represented the Mount Lebanon club of São Paulo.
Kandinsky painting returned to Jewish family as Netherlands shifts approach to looted art
A Dutch committee charged with assessing and acting on claims about artwork stolen from Jews before and during the Holocaust has determined that a painting by Wassily Kandinsky should be returned to the family of a Jewish woman who likely owned it prior to the Holocaust, reported JTA.
The family of Johanna Margarethe Stern-Lippmann, who was murdered in 1944 at Auschwitz, should regain possession of “Blick auf Murnau mit Kirche” (“View of Murnau With Church”), an abstract the city of Eindhoven has owned since 1951 and has displayed in its art museum, said the Dutch Restitutions Committee.
— Compiled by Andy Gotlieb
