FESTIVAL SEFARAD NY

Opening Night World Premiere
2026-05-31 19:30 (Asia/Karachi) | Museum of Jewish Heritage
Join ASF Pomegranate Award Winning Director Alexandre Arcady in the Edmond J. Safra Hall at the Museum of Jewish Heritage for the WORLD PREMIERE of his new film The Last Concert (Fausse Note) on Opening night of the American Sephardi Federation’s 28th NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival – Festival Sefarad. Memory, guilt, and justice clash in muted tones in this riveting Holocaust thriller. After the film, we will have an exclusive Q&A with Arcady. The NYSJFF is presented in partnership with MJH, dedicated to Ike, Molly, and Steven Elias, and made possible by the support of the UJA-Federation of New York.

28th NYSJFF Pomegranate Awards Ceremony
2026-06-01 19:00 - 22:00 | Museum of Jewish Heritage
Join us for 28th New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival’s Pomegranate Awards Ceremony on 1 June at the Museum of Jewish Heritage for an unforgettable evening celebrating Sephardic creativity in the spirit of America’s 250th.
We will present the 2026 ASF Pomegranate Awards to honor vibrant Sephardi voices for extraordinary achievements in philosophy, music, film, and journalism:
Avi Issacharoff (journalist and co-creator of Fauda), Bernard-Henri Levy (author and philosopher), Murray Perahia (Avery Fisher Prize and Grammy Award-winning pianist), and Jeannette Sorrell (Grammy Award-winning harpsichordist and leader of Apollo’s Fire).
The Pomegranates are sculpted with love by world-renowned, Baghdad-born artist Oded Halhamy.
Following the award ceremony, enjoy a musical showcase by Jeanette Sorrelle and members of Apollo’s Fire.
“Sephardic Jews and the Making of American Independence” will be viewable for VIP guests.
Space is limited; early reservations are highly recommended. “When Lives Make History: Sephardic Jews and the American Story” will be viewable for VIP Guests.
The 28th NYSJFF is presented in partnership with MJH, Dedicated to Ike, Molly, and Steven Elias, and made possible with additional support from the UJA-Federation of New York.

Special Festival Sefarad Screening of “Our War”
2026-06-02 - 2026-06-03
Join us for a special screening of OUR WAR
A FILM BY BERNARD-HENRI LÉVY
DIRECTED BY BERNARD-HENRI LÉVY AND MARC ROUSSEL
PRODUCED BY EMILY HAMILTON
Q&A to follow with Bernard-Henri Lévy
& Tablet’s Editor-at- large Liel Leibovitz
Between February and April 2025, Bernard-Henri Lévy and Marc Roussel traveled across the frontlines of Pokrovsk and Sumy in eastern Ukraine. They documented the daily lives of civilians under bombardment on the eve of potential negotiations, as well as Ukrainian soldiers resisting Russian aggression.
Structured as a filmmaker’s logbook, Our War draws on footage captured since spring 2022, and earlier still, as the war began with the invasion of Crimea in 2014. Combining personal archives with unprecedented access to the front, the film retraces the major milestones of the largest war on European soil since 1945.
Premiered at the opening of the Cannes Film Festival 2025, on French public television, in cinemas around the United States and at the Congress, Our War brings rare and exclusive images showing that Ukraine must, and can, win this war.
Space is limited.

Enrico Macias Live – A Night of Memory & Music
2026-06-02 20:00 - 23:00 | Museum of Jewish Heritage
By popular demand, Enrico Macias returns to the New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival for a remarkable third consecutive year! A beloved performer whose voice has become synonymous with Sephardic heritage, Macias will treat the audience to a special concert celebrating not only his timeless repertoire—blending Andalusian, North African, and French influences—but also the enduring bond between the artist the ASF audience.
With limited seating available this year, early booking is strongly encouraged.

The Adeni of Stamford Hill
2026-06-03 17:00 - 17:10 | Museum of Jewish Heritage
A rare snapshot of the little-known community of Jews from Aden, Yemen, who live in the midst of the ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazi community of Stamford Hill.
Year: 2024
Runtime: 5 minutes
Premiere: North American
Country: United Kingdom
Language: English
Subtitle Language: English
Director: Hannah Rosen, Aviel Lewis

My Ioannina Odyssey
2026-06-03 17:00 - 17:50 | Museum of Jewish Heritage
When a mysterious box arrives on my doorstep, its century-old ship manifests, family photos and crumbling documents launch an odyssey to Ioannina – a medieval walled city in the mountains of northern Greece. Home to the Romaniotes, an ancient Greek Jewish people, Ioannina is where history and myth merge in my family lore. There, with my wife and daughter, we uncover a story of miracles and murder, love and loss, and prophecies that come true.
Year: 2025
Runtime: 33 minutes
Genre: Documentary, Short
Country: Greece, United state
Language: English, Modern Greek (1453-)
Director: Gary Glassman, Manya Branham Glassman

Elena’s War
2026-06-03 18:00 - 20:00 | Museum of Jewish Heritage
Set in Rome between 1938 and 1943, the movie traces the extraordinary story of Elena Di Porto, a strong, independent, and courageous Roman Jewish woman who challenged the fascist regime to save many lives and marked the history of the Jewish ghetto of Rome during fascism and the Nazi occupation.
Year: 2026
Premiere: NY Premiere
Runtime: 98 minutes
Genre: Drama
Country: Italy
Language: Italian
Director: Stefano Casertano

Frontier
2026-06-03 20:00 - 22:00 | Museum of Jewish Heritage
In 1943, a Spanish customs officer quietly helps refugees flee Nazi-occupied France. As his defiance grows into a resistance movement, he and his wife are forced to confront the scars left by the Spanish Civil War.
Year: 2025
Premiere: NY Premiere
Runtime: 101 minutes
Genre: Drama
Country: Spain
Language: Spanish
Subtitle Language: English
Director: Judith Colell

Half a Date
2026-06-04 17:00 - 17:30 | Museum of Jewish Heritage
Tzvi is an ultra-Orthodox yeshiva student who arrives at the recruitment office to receive a deferral from military service. Tangled in a bureaucratic mess that threatens his status as a yeshiva student, he encounters Carmel, a soldier his age, who is supposed to handle his paperwork. Alone together in the office, their unofficial connection is a daily crossword puzzle in the newspaper, which they solve together. For a brief moment, they unknowingly realize that in a parallel reality, they could have been the best of friends. Maybe even a couple.
Year: 2025
Runtime: 23 minutes
Genre: Drama Short
Country: Israel
Language: Hebrew
Subtitle Language: English
Director: Eden Abitbol

Mashhad
2026-06-04 17:30 - 18:00 | Museum of Jewish Heritage
Set in the holy Islamic city of Mashhad in 1930’s Iran, Mashhad follows Miriam, a young Jewish ghetto girl struggling to understand why her family conceal who they are. An innocent day playing with a neighborhood friend soon threatens the fragile safety of two households. Inspired by writer-director Sarah Solemani’s family history in the Mashhadi Jewish community, the short film is an intimate portrait of religion as oppression and faith as survival; how ritual travels underground, how adults protect children from truths too heavy to name, and how small joys persist under watchful eyes. Produced by Reboot Studios, Mashhad offers a rare cinematic window onto a long-suppressed chapter of Iranian Jewish life.
Year: 2025
Runtime: 19 minutes
Genre: Short
Country: United state
Language: Persian
Subtitle Language: English
Director: Sarah Solemani

Hola!… Chau
2026-06-04 18:00 - 20:00 | Museum of Jewish Heritage
A funny, dramatic, and emotional story about a family reunion in Israel, of a dysfunctional Argentinian Jewish family whose members hasn’t seen each other for ten years. The movie deals with humor, sensitivity, and humanity with regards to two universal subjects: the price of emigration and “A person with a disability is more than just his disability.”
Year: 2025
Premiere: NY Premiere
Runtime: 85 minutes
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Israel, Argentina
Language: Spanish
Subtitle Language: Hebrew
Director: Yohanan Weller

Book of Ruth
2026-06-04 20:00 - 22:00 | Museum of Jewish Heritage
Ruth and Shmuel, a young couple from the ultra-Orthodox world, thought they knew everything about love. She, a sensitive young mother, constantly tests boundaries—but with grace. He, a brilliant yeshiva student, has a promising future in the yeshiva world. But when tragedy hits them, everything they believed about family, community, parenting—and even God—is put to the test. RUTH is a moving, intimate drama with surreal moments. A story about two people trying not to lose each other, yet speaking different languages that widen the emotional and religious gap between them, in a world where asking questions—especially the hard ones—is forbidden.
Year: 2025
Premiere: NY Premiere
Runtime: 88 minutes
Genre: Drama
Country: Israel
Language: Hebrew, French
Subtitle Language: English
Director: Esti Biton Shushan

Baghdadi-Indian Shabbat
2026-06-05 - 2026-06-06 | TriBeCa Synagogue, 49 White St, New York, NY, 10013, United States
Traveling along maritime trade routes, Jewish merchants from Aleppo and Baghdad made their way east to the shores of India. Beginning in the late 18th century, they settled in Kolkata, where a vibrant Jewish community emerged, shaped by the rhythms, flavors, and cultural textures of the subcontinent. Drawn by economic opportunity, and at times fleeing plague and persecution, they established new roots while preserving the liturgy, customs, and family traditions of their heritage, even as these evolved into something distinctly their own.
Join us for a special Baghdadi–Indian Shabbat as we explore this rich and layered tradition. Friday night services will be led by Rahel Musleah, a seventh-generation member of Kolkata’s Jewish community, whose family traces its lineage to Baghdad. Through prayer, melody, and storytelling, we will experience this unique synthesis of Baghdadi and Indian Jewish traditions as they have been passed down across generations.
Following services, guests will enjoy a Baghdadi–Indian Shabbat dinner alongside a single-evening exhibition, “From Baghdad to Kolkata: Ritual Objects, Vessels of Memory,” featuring family heirlooms from the Kolkata Jewish community and offering a rare glimpse into a diasporic world where Middle Eastern and Indian identities intertwine.

Moroccan Shabbat dinner
2026-06-05 - 2026-06-06

LVL UP ACADEMY ANNUAL RECITAL
2026-06-07 - 2026-06-08 | Kupferberg Center: Queens College, 153-49 Reeves Ave Flushing, NY, 11367, United States
Join us as our LVL Up students take the stage for their Annual Recital, a celebration of their hard work, growth, and passion throughout the year. Dancers and athletes of all ages will showcase a dynamic range of styles including hip hop, ballet, contemporary, jazz, gymnastics, and traditional Bukharian dance. Each performance highlights the dedication, creativity, and confidence our students have developed, both individually and as a team. From high-energy routines to expressive storytelling, this recital is a reflection of their journey and the vibrant community we’ve built together. We are proud to present an unforgettable evening of movement, culture, and talent.

The Splendours and Miseries of the Camondo Family
2026-06-07 16:00 - 18:00 | Museum of Jewish Heritage
An investigation into the footsteps of the Camondos, nicknamed the ”Rothschilds of the East of” whom only the exceptional collections that these great art lovers gave to France survive. The film traces the saga of this family, which began at the beginning of the 19th century on the banks of the Bosphorus and ended brutally at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Year: 2025
Runtime: 87 minutes
Country: France
Language: French
Subtitle: English
Director: Ruth Zylberman

Funeral on Hold
2026-06-07 18:30 - 20:30 | Museum of Jewish Heritage
In the old quarter of Larache, in northern Morocco, Shlomo dies, leaving behind troubling signs that shake the certainty surrounding his religious identity. His family and friends are quickly faced with an almost Kafkaesque dilemma: should he be buried in the Jewish cemetery or the Muslim cemetery? Returning from Canada amidst the turmoil, his son David has only one thought in mind: to give his father a proper burial, whatever the cost. Imad, his childhood friend, carries an invisible burden: through his negligence, he believes himself responsible for Shlomo’s death. Since then, the ghost of the deceased has haunted him, calling him to finally take responsibility, if only once, to right his wrong.
Through these two men, separated by life but bound by loyalty, Burial on Hold explores this secret thread that connects people beyond time. The film is born from a desire for reconciliation: between the living and those they miss, between a country and its memory.
Year: 2026
Premiere: North American
Runtime: 96 minutes
Genre: Comedy-Drama
Country: Morocco, Canada
Language: French
Subtitle: English
Director: Mohammed Marouazi

The Stories Our Mothers Carried: Memory, Women, and Bukharian Jewish History
2026-06-08 - 2026-06-09
Join us for an exploration of the multilayered history of Bukharian Jews and its contemporary relevance. Through archives, cultural treasures, oral history and the female voice, author Dahlia Abraham-Klein and educator Ruben Shimonov will take us on a voyage spanning empires and eras.Q&A moderated by author Yaffa Borukhova will follow.

Carvajal Day
2026-06-09 - 2026-06-10 | TriBeCa Synagogue, 49 White St, New York, NY, 10013, United States
In 2016, collector Leonard Milberg recognized priceless 400-year-old manuscripts by Luis de Carvajal — the earliest known Jewish writings from the Americas — being auctioned as mere “replicas,” and personally ensured their return to Mexico.
Join us to celebrate this remarkable story of faith, history, and recovery.

Since then, Gabriela Riveros wrote an incredible, detailed, and historically backed novel on Carvajal’s life — and will be presenting it that night.

Ciara Shalome talk and young professionals reception
2026-06-11 - 2026-06-12 | Magen David, 177 Sullivan St, New York, NY, 10012, United States
Join us for an exclusive evening with Ciara Shalome, the creator of @themizrahistory—an Instagram page with 123,000 followers that documents the rich oral histories of Middle Eastern, North African, and Central Asian Jews. Hosted by the American Sephardi Federation in partnership with Congregation Magen David of Manhattan, this program is part of ASF’s Festival Sefarad NYC—a monthlong celebration throughout New York City of the Greater Sephardi world. Sephardic appetizers will be served.

Spicy Jews
2026-06-15 - 2026-06-16
Spicy Jews: A Mizrahi/Sephardic Comedy Showcase spotlights Jewish comics from around the world — from Bukharian to Syrian to Israeli — live at City Winery. Featuring performers seen on the New York Comedy Festival, Adult Swim, and HBO, plus viral favorites across Instagram and TikTok, the lineup includes Natan Badalov, Isaac Gartenberg, Olga Namer, Two Jews, and Ami Kozak. Expect global Jewish humor with heat, heritage, and nonstop laughs.

Sina Kahen book talk with Habura
2026-06-18 - 2026-06-19
Sina Kehan in Conversation – The Battle for the Jewish Mind: The Maimonidean Controversies and Why They Matter Today

SMQN Shabbat dinner
2026-06-19 - 2026-06-20
SMQN’s Shabbat dinners are a special time for us to gather as an LGBTQ+ community and celebrate our Sephardic & Mizrahi heritage with our friends and loved ones. Join us this month as we celebrate Festival Sefarad NYC with the American Sephardi Federation and UJA-Federation of New York.
Thanks to the support of UJA-Federation of New York, OneTable, and Jewish LGBTQ Donor Network, the highly subsidized cost of the entire dinner is only $10. No need to bring anything to add to the nourishment!
The Sephardic Mizrahi Q Network (SMQN) is an innovative grassroots movement that is committed to building a vibrant, supportive and much-needed community for an often-overlooked segment of the Jewish world: LGBTQ+ Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews. We invite our friends from other backgrounds to join us in elevating these multilayered Jewish identities.

Ethiopian Shabbat Dinner by Kehilat Harlem
2026-06-19 - 2026-06-20

Synagogues of Greece exhibit opening
2026-06-21 - 2026-06-22

Calligraphy workshop
2026-06-22 - 2026-06-23
Join educator, artist, and community builder Ruben Shimonov for a voyage into the rich visual worlds of Arabic, Hebrew and Persian calligraphy—as well as the connections between the languages. Ruben will also present his own multilingual calligraphy, sharing the ways he has used his art to build interfaith bridges and celebrate the cultural diversity of the Greater Sephardi world. Participants will then have the opportunity to engage with these languages through a hands-on calligraphy workshop.
This event is part of the American Sephardi Federation’s Festival Sefarad NYC, a monthlong celebration of the Greater Sephardi world.

Faith, Freedom, and the Founding: A Symposium on Sephardic Jews in America
2026-06-23 - 2026-06-24 | Shearith Israel, 2 W 70th St, New York, NY, 10023, United States
In 1654, 23 Sephardic Jews arrived in New Amsterdam, laying the foundations of the first Jewish community in North America. From that humble beginning, American Jews have served, sacrificed, and contributed in every generation to the flourishing and defense of American liberty. As we approach the Founding’s 250th Anniversary/372nd Anniversary of Jews in America, the ASF is creating a symposium in New York on 23 June at Shearith Israel (NYC’s Spanish & Portuguese Community) to spotlight the enduring yet unheralded legacy of Jewish patriots, as well as illuminating how Judeo-Christian Covenantal teachings helped shape the vision of the Founding Fathers. We seek to honor the role of Sephardic Jews in America’s story—both their direct contributions to the Revolution and the influence of Covenantal teachings on the Constitution—as well as to explore the Judeo-Christian intellectual, moral, and cultural roots of the Republic. Our event will bring together elected officials, scholars, community leaders, and the public in a space that fosters dialogue, recognition, and renewed understanding of the principles that unite all Americans.
By recovering the stories of America’s first Jewish community and their devotion to liberty, the event will remind all Americans of how the values that forged the Republic continue to sustain it.

Ariel Stachel one man show performance
2026-06-24 - 2026-06-25 | Museum of Jewish Heritage
