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For thousands of years since successive waves of invaders chased the Israelites from their ancestral home, Jews have carried their religion with them wherever they have gone. Living in the Diaspora, Jews maintained their way of life, gathering in communities to share their traditions. Others were touched by the faith of the Jews scattered among them, or by the words of the Torah, and bound their lives to this enduring heritage. There are scarcely more than thirteen million Jews in the world today; most of them live in established Jewish centers like Israel and large cities in North America and Western Europe. But what many do not know is that there are Jewish communities in Africa, Asia, South America, even parts of Europe and the Former Soviet Union, in which the Jewish populations do not have white skin or do not live fast-paced, modern lives. Some of these communities exist in places so geographically and culturally distant from other Jews that they must struggle daily to maintain the religion of their ancestors.
Scattered Among the Nations is a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the Jewish and non-Jewish world about the beauty and diversity of our people. We assist geographically and politically isolated Jewish or Judaism-practicing communities to continue embracing the Jewish religion and culture, while documenting these communities as they are today before they disappear through immigration or assimilation.
*** Some SAN News and Updates ***
-- Check out this great article about Bryan and Scattered Among the Nations from Jweekly.com.
-- "Jews of Color: In Color!" photo exhibits have been a great success at places like the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Washington, DC (read an article about the exhibit in Washington Jewish Week), the the Herbert & Eileen Bernard Museum of Judaica at Congregation Emanu-El in New York and the Peninsula Jewish Community Center in the San Francisco Bay Area. For a more complete list of SAN photo exhibit locations,click here. -- Scattered Among the Nations has been working lately with Rabbi Howard Gorin on communicating with and supporting communities of practicing Jews in Nigeria. For more information about Rabbi Gorin and his experience with Jewish practices in Nigeria, visit his web site, http://www.rabbihowardgorin.org, and read about his work in this article from the United Synagogue Review. -- Listen to an interview with Bryan Schwartz on WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show, January 12, 2007. (download mp3)
-- A Scattered Among the Nations photo exhibit in State College, Pennsylvania, has been featured in "Exhibit tells story of Jews Worldwide" from The Centre Dailly Times.
On our website, you can:
- find out how to join Scattered Among the Nations,
- become involved with our current aid projects,
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learn about our upcoming book entitled Jews of Color: In Color!,
- schedule multimedia educational seminars focusing on different isolated Jewish communities,
- order handicrafts produced by Jewish communities from every corner of the world,
- order photographic prints of Jewish people, places and symbols,
- read profiles of Scattered Among the Nations' Board of Directors and the artists producing our book,
- schedule a photo exhibit for your museum, synagogue or community center,
- link to recent articles published by our organization's leadership, and
- meet some of the isolated Jewish communities Scattered Among the Nations supports . . .
Peru's Inca Jews |
India's Benei Menashe | Uganda's Abayudaya
| Zimbabwe's Shona Jews | Ghana's Sefwi Jews
| India's Bene Israel
| Moises Ville, Argentina's Jews | The Jews of the Brazilian Amazon | The Jewish village of Krasnaya Sloboda, Azerbaijan
| The Jews of the Former Shtetls in Vinnitsya Oblast, Ukraine
| Uzbekistan's Bukharan Jews | Morocco's Berber Jews
| The Jews of the Island of Djerba, Tunisia
|The Jews of Oudtshoorn, South Africa | The Sefardim of Belmonte, Portugal
LEARN ABOUT OUR OUR UPCOMING BOOK, JEWS OF COLOR: IN COLOR!.
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