Podcasts about Italian Jews

Send us a textIn this conversation, Bob Sorrentino interviews Phil DiNovo, the founder and executive director of the American Italian Heritage Museum. They discuss Phil's Italian background, the journey of Italian immigrants, the values and traditions that have been passed down through generations, and the importance of preserving Italian heritage. Phil shares insights about the establishment of the museum, community engagement, and the significance of collecting and preserving artifacts that represent Italian culture. The conversation highlights the contributions of Italian Americans and the need to instill a sense of heritage in younger generations.TakeawaysPhil's family has roots in Sicily, with grandparents immigrating in the early 1900s.The importance of hard work and frugality in Italian American families.Italian Americans have a rich cultural heritage that needs to be preserved.The role of family and community in maintaining traditions is crucial.Phil founded the American Italian Heritage Museum to educate and celebrate Italian culture.The museum offers various programs and events to engage the community.Italian Americans have made significant contributions to American history.Collecting artifacts is essential for preserving Italian heritage.It's important to ask family members about their stories and heritage.The conversation emphasizes the need for younger generations to appreciate their cultural roots.Sound Bites"We have family all the way over to California.""Italian Americans, I think, are pretty good savers.""It's your job to teach the young.""We need to learn more about our heritage.""We owe them so much.""You never know who's going to walk through the door.""People don't realize that they're Italian Jews."Turnkey. The only thing you'll lift are your spirits.Support the showPurchase my book "Farmers and Nobles" here or at Amazon.

In Part 3 of our look at the history of the Italian Jews, we discuss the Napoleonic era to the Reunification of Italy

Listen to the premiere episode of the second season of The Forgotten Exodus, the multi-award-winning, chart-topping, and first-ever narrative podcast series to focus exclusively on Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews. This week's episode focuses on Jews from Tunisia. If you like what you hear, subscribe before the next episode drops on September 3. “In the Israeli DNA and the Jewish DNA, we have to fight to be who we are. In every generation, empires and big forces tried to erase us . . . I know what it is to be rejected for several parts of my identity... I'm fighting for my ancestors, but I'm also fighting for our future generation.”  Hen Mazzig, a writer, digital creator, and founder of the Tel Aviv Institute, shares his powerful journey as a proud Israeli, LGBTQ+, and Mizrahi Jew, in the premiere episode of the second season of the award-winning podcast, The Forgotten Exodus. Hen delves into his family's deep roots in Tunisia, their harrowing experiences during the Nazi occupation, and their eventual escape to Israel. Discover the rich history of Tunisia's ancient Amazigh Jewish community, the impact of French colonial and Arab nationalist movements on Jews in North Africa, and the cultural identity that Hen passionately preserves today. Joining the conversation is historian Lucette Valensi, an expert on Tunisian Jewish culture, who provides scholarly insights into the longstanding presence of Jews in Tunisia, from antiquity to their exodus in the mid-20th century. ___ Show notes: Sign up to receive podcast updates here. Learn more about the series here. Song credits:  "Penceresi Yola Karsi" -- by Turku, Nomads of the Silk Road Pond5:  “Desert Caravans”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Tiemur Zarobov (BMI), IPI#1098108837 “Sentimental Oud Middle Eastern”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Sotirios Bakas (BMI), IPI#797324989. “Meditative Middle Eastern Flute”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Danielyan Ashot Makichevich (BMI), IPI Name #00855552512, United States BMI “Tunisia Eastern”: Publisher: Edi Surya Nurrohim, Composer: Edi Surya Nurrohim, Item ID#155836469. “At The Rabbi's Table”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Fazio Giulio (IPI/CAE# 00198377019). “Fields Of Elysium”; Publisher: Mysterylab Music; Composer: Mott Jordan; ID#79549862  “Frontiers”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Pete Checkley (BMI), IPI#380407375 “Hatikvah (National Anthem Of Israel)”; Composer: Eli Sibony; ID#122561081 “Tunisian Pot Dance (Short)”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: kesokid, ID #97451515 “Middle East Ident”; Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Alpha (ASCAP); Composer: Alon Marcus (ACUM), IPI#776550702 “Adventures in the East”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI) Composer: Petar Milinkovic (BMI), IPI#00738313833. ___ Episode Transcript: HEN MAZZIG: They took whatever they had left and they got on a boat. And my grandmother told me this story before she passed away on how they were on this boat coming to Israel.  And they were so happy, and they were crying because they felt that finally after generations upon generations of oppression they are going to come to a place where they are going to be protected, and that she was coming home. MANYA BRACHEAR PASHMAN: The world has overlooked an important episode in modern history: the 800,000 Jews who left or were driven from their homes in the Middle East and North Africa in the mid-20th century. Welcome to the second season of The Forgotten Exodus, brought to you by American Jewish Committee. This series explores that pivotal moment in history and the little-known Jewish heritage of Iran and Arab nations. As Jews around the world confront violent antisemitism and Israelis face daily attacks by terrorists on multiple fronts, our second season explores how Jews have lived throughout the region for generations–despite hardship, hostility, and hatred–then sought safety and new possibilities in their ancestral homeland. I'm your host, Manya Brachear Pashman. Join us as we explore untold family histories and personal stories of courage, perseverance, and resilience from this transformative and tumultuous period of history for the Jewish people and the Middle East.  The world has ignored these voices. We will not. This is The Forgotten Exodus.  Today's episode: leaving Tunisia. __ [Tel Aviv Pride video] MANYA BRACHEAR PASHMAN: Every June, Hen Mazzig, who splits his time between London and Tel Aviv, heads to Israel to show his Pride. His Israeli pride. His LGBTQ+ pride. And his Mizrahi Jewish pride. For that one week, all of those identities coalesce.  And while other cities around the world have transformed Pride into a June version of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Israel is home to one of the few vibrant LGBTQ communities in the Middle East. Tel Aviv keeps it real. HEN: For me, Pride in Israel, in Tel Aviv, it still has this element of fighting for something. And that it's important for all of us to show up and to come out to the Pride Parade because if we're not going to be there, there's some people with agendas to erase us and we can't let them do it. MANYA: This year, the Tel Aviv Pride rally was a more somber affair as participants demanded freedom for the more than 100 hostages still held in Gaza since October 7th.  On that day, Hamas terrorists bent on erasing Jews from the Middle East went on a murderous rampage, killing more than 1,200, kidnapping 250 others, and unleashing what has become a 7-front war on Israel. HEN: In the Israeli DNA and the Jewish DNA we have to fight to be who we are. In every generation, empires and big forces tried to erase us, and we had to fight. And the LGBTQ+ community also knows very well how hard it is. I know what it is to be rejected for several parts of my identity. And I don't want anyone to go through that. I don't want my children to go through that. I'm fighting for my ancestors, but I'm also fighting for our future generation. MANYA: Hen Mazzig is an international speaker, writer, and digital influencer. In 2022, he founded the Tel Aviv Institute, a social media laboratory that tackles antisemitism online. He's also a second-generation Israeli, whose maternal grandparents fled Iraq, while his father's parents fled Tunisia – roots that echo in the family name: Mazzig. HEN: The last name Mazzig never made sense, because in Israel a lot of the last names have meaning in Hebrew.  So I remember one of my teachers in school was saying that Mazzig sounds like mozeg, which means pouring in Hebrew. Maybe your ancestors were running a bar or something? Clearly, this teacher did not have knowledge of the Amazigh people. Which, later on I learned, several of those tribes, those Amazigh tribes, were Jewish or practiced Judaism, and that there was 5,000 Jews that came from Tunisia that were holding both identities of being Jewish and Amazigh.  And today, they have last names like Mazzig, and Amzaleg, Mizzoug. There's several of those last names in Israel today. And they are the descendants of those Jewish communities that have lived in the Atlas Mountains. MANYA: The Atlas Mountains. A 1,500-mile chain of magnificent peaks and treacherous terrain that stretch across Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, separating the Sahara from the Mediterranean and Atlantic coastline.  It's where the nomadic Amazigh have called home for thousands of years. The Amazigh trace their origins to at least 2,000 BCE  in western North Africa. They speak the language of Tamazight and rely on cattle and agriculture as their main sources of income.  But textiles too. In fact, you've probably heard of the Amazigh or own a rug woven by them. A Berber rug. HEN: Amazigh, which are also called Berbers. But they're rejecting this term because of the association with barbarians, which was the title that European colonialists when they came to North Africa gave them. There's beautiful folklore about Jewish leaders within the Amazigh people. One story that I really connected to was the story of Queen Dihya that was also known as El-Kahina, which in Arabic means the Kohen, the priest, and she was known as this leader of the Amazigh tribes, and she was Jewish.  Her derrogaters were calling her a Jewish witch, because they said that she had the power to foresee the future. And her roots were apparently connected to Queen Sheba and her arrival from Israel back to Africa. And she was the descendant of Queen Sheba. And that's how she led the Amazigh people.  And the stories that I read about her, I just felt so connected. How she had this long, black, curly hair that went all the way down to her knees, and she was fierce, and she was very committed to her identity, and she was fighting against the Islamic expansion to North Africa.  And when she failed, after years of holding them off, she realized that she can't do it anymore and she's going to lose. And she was not willing to give up her Jewish identity and convert to Islam and instead she jumped into a well and died. This well is known today in Tunisia. It's the [Bir] Al-Kahina or Dihya's Well that is still in existence. Her descendants, her kids, were Jewish members of the Amazigh people.  Of course, I would like to believe that I am the descendant of royalty. MANYA: Scholars debate whether the Amazigh converted to Judaism or descended from Queen Dihya and stayed.  Lucette Valensi is a French scholar of Tunisian history who served as a director of studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris, one of the most prestigious institutions of graduate education in France. She has written extensively about Tunisian Jewish culture.   Generations of her family lived in Tunisia. She says archaeological evidence proves Jews were living in that land since Antiquity. LUCETTE VALENSI: I myself am a Chemla, born Chemla. And this is an Arabic name, which means a kind of belt. And my mother's name was Tartour, which is a turban [laugh]. So the names were Arabic. So my ancestors spoke Arabic. I don't know if any of them spoke Berber before, or Latin. I have no idea. But there were Jews in antiquity and of course, through Saint Augustin. MANYA: So when did Jews arrive in Tunisia? LUCETTE: [laugh] That's a strange question because they were there since Antiquity. We have evidence of their presence in mosaics of synagogues, from the times of Byzantium. I think we think in terms of a short chronology, and they would tend to associate the Jews to colonization, which does not make sense, they were there much before French colonization. They were there for millennia. MANYA: Valensi says Jews lived in Tunisia dating to the time of Carthage, an ancient city-state in what is now Tunisia, that reached its peak in the fourth century BCE. Later, under Roman and then Byzantine rule, Carthage continued to play a vital role as a center of commerce and trade during antiquity.  Besides the role of tax collectors, Jews were forbidden to serve in almost all public offices. Between the 5th and 8th centuries CE, conditions fluctuated between relief and forced conversions while under Christian rule.  After the Islamic conquest of Tunisia in the seventh and early eighth centuries CE, the treatment of Jews largely depended on which Muslim ruler was in charge at the time.  Some Jews converted to Islam while others lived as dhimmis, or second-class citizens, protected by the state in exchange for a special tax known as the jizya. In 1146, the first caliph of the Almohad dynasty, declared that the Prophet Muhammad had granted Jews religious freedom for only 500 years, by which time if the messiah had not come, they had to convert.  Those who did not convert and even those who did were forced to wear yellow turbans or other special garb called shikra, to distinguish them from Muslims. An influx of Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal arrived in the 14th Century. In the 16th Century, Tunisia became part of the Ottoman Empire, and the situation of Jews improved significantly. Another group who had settled in the coastal Tuscan city of Livorno crossed the Mediterranean in the 17th and 18th centuries to make Tunisia their home. LUCETTE: There were other groups that came, Jews from Italy, Jews from Spain, of course, Spain and Portugal, different periods. 14th century already from Spain and then from Spain and Portugal. From Italy, from Livorno, that's later, but the Jews from Livorno themselves came from Spain.  So I myself am named Valensi. From Valencia. It was the family name of my first husband. So from Valencia in Spain they went to Livorno, and from Livorno–Leghorn in English–to Tunisia. MANYA: At its peak, Tunisia's Jewish population exceeded 100,000 – a combination of Sephardi and Mizrahi. HEN: When we speak about Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, specifically in the West, or mainly in the West, we're referring to them as Sephardi. But in Tunisia, it's very interesting to see that there was the Grana community which are Livorno Jews that moved to Tunisia in the 1800s, and they brought the Sephardi way of praying.  And that's why I always use the term Mizrahi to describe myself, because I feel like it encapsulates more of my identity. And for me, the Sephardi title that we often use on those communities doesn't feel accurate to me, and it also has the connection to Ladino, which my grandparents never spoke.  They spoke Tamazight, Judeo-Tamazight, which was the language of those tribes in North Africa. And my family from my mother's side, from Iraq, they were speaking Judeo-Iraqi-Arabic.  So for me, the term Sephardi just doesn't cut it. I go with Mizrahi to describe myself. MANYA: The terms Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi all refer to the places Jews once called home.  Ashkenazi Jews hail from Central and Eastern Europe, particularly Germany, Poland, and Russia. They traditionally speak Yiddish, and their customs and practices reflect the influences of Central and Eastern European cultures.  Pogroms in Eastern Europe and the Holocaust led many Ashkenazi Jews to flee their longtime homes to countries like the United States and their ancestral homeland, Israel.  Mizrahi, which means “Eastern” in Hebrew, refers to the diaspora of descendants of Jewish communities from Middle Eastern countries such as: Iraq, Iran, and Yemen, and North African countries such as: Tunisia, Libya, and Morocco. Ancient Jewish communities that have lived in the region for millennia long before the advent of Islam and Christianity. They often speak dialects of Arabic. Sephardi Jews originate from Spain and Portugal, speaking Ladino and incorporating Spanish and Portuguese cultural influences. Following their expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula in 1492, they settled in regions like North Africa and the Balkans. In Tunisia, the Mizrahi and Sephardi communities lived side by side, but separately. HEN: As time passed, those communities became closer together, still quite separated, but they became closer and closer. And perhaps the reason they were becoming closer was because of the hardship that they faced as Jews.  For the leaders of Muslim armies that came to Tunisia, it didn't matter if you were a Sephardi Jew, or if you were an Amazigh Jew. You were a Jew for them. MANYA: Algeria's invasion of Tunisia in the 18th century had a disproportionate effect on Tunisia's Jewish community. The Algerian army killed thousands of the citizens of Tunis, many of whom were Jewish. Algerians raped Jewish women, looted Jewish homes. LUCETTE: There were moments of trouble when you had an invasion of the Algerian army to impose a prince. The Jews were molested in Tunis. MANYA: After a military invasion, a French protectorate was established in 1881 and lasted until Tunisia gained independence in 1956. The Jews of Tunisia felt much safer under the French protectorate.  They put a lot of stock in the French revolutionary promise of Liberté, égalité, fraternité. Soon, the French language replaced Judeo-Arabic. LUCETTE: Well, under colonization, the Jews were in a better position. First, the school system. They went to modern schools, especially the Alliance [Israélite Universelle] schools, and with that started a form of Westernization.  You had also schools in Italian, created by Italian Jews, and some Tunisian Jews went to these schools and already in the 19th century, there was a form of acculturation and Westernization.  Access to newspapers, creation of newspapers. In the 1880s Jews had already their own newspapers in Hebrew characters, but Arabic language.  And my grandfather was one of the early journalists and they started having their own press and published books, folklore, sort of short stories. MANYA: In May 1940, Nazi Germany invaded France and quickly overran the French Third Republic, forcing the French to sign an armistice agreement in June. The armistice significantly reduced the territory governed by France and created a new government known as the Vichy regime, after the central French city where it was based.  The Vichy regime collaborated with the Nazis, establishing a special administration to introduce anti-Jewish legislation and enforce a compulsory Jewish census in all of its territories including Tunisia. Hen grew up learning about the Holocaust, the Nazis' attempt to erase the Jewish people. As part of his schooling, he learned the names of concentration and death camps and he heard the stories from his friends' grandparents.  But because he was not Ashkenazi, because his grandparents didn't suffer through the same catastrophe that befell Europe, Hen never felt fully accepted.  It was a trauma that belonged to his Ashkenazi friends of German and Polish descent, not to him. Or so they thought and so he thought, until he was a teenager and asked his grandmother Kamisa to finally share their family's journey from Tunisia. That's when he learned that the Mazzig family had not been exempt from Hitler's hatred. In November 1942, Tunisia became the only North African country to come under Nazi Germany's occupation and the Nazis wasted no time. Jewish property was confiscated, and heavy fines were levied on large Jewish communities. With the presence of the Einsatzkommando, a subgroup of the Einsatzgruppen, or mobile killing units, the Nazis were prepared to implement the systematic murder of the Jews of Tunisia. The tide of the war turned just in time to prevent that. LUCETTE: At the time the Germans came, they did not control the Mediterranean, and so they could not export us to the camps. We were saved by that. Lanor camps for men in dangerous places where there were bombs by the Allies. But not for us, it was, I mean, they took our radios. They took the silverware or they took money, this kind of oppression, but they did not murder us.  They took the men away, a few families were directly impacted and died in the camps. A few men. So we were afraid. We were occupied. But compared to what Jews in Europe were subjected to, we didn't suffer.  MANYA: Almost 5,000 Jews, most of them from Tunis and from certain northern communities, were taken captive and incarcerated in 32 labor camps scattered throughout Tunisia. Jews were not only required to wear yellow stars, but those in the camps were also required to wear them on their backs so they could be identified from a distance and shot in the event they tried to escape. HEN: My grandmother never told me until before she died, when she was more open about the stories of oppression, on how she was serving food for the French Nazi officers that were occupying Tunisia, or how my grandfather was in a labor camp, and he was supposed to be sent to a death camp in Europe as well. They never felt like they should share these stories. MANYA: The capture of Tunisia by the Allied forces in May 1943 led the Axis forces in North Africa to surrender. But the country remained under French colonial rule and the antisemitic legislation of the Vichy regime continued until 1944. Many of the Vichy camps, including forced labor camps in the Sahara, continued to operate.  Even after the decline and fall of the Vichy regime and the pursuit of independence from French rule began, conditions for the Mazzig family and many others in the Tunisian Jewish community did not improve.  But the source of much of the hostility and strife was actually a beacon of hope for Tunisia's Jews. On May 14, 1948, the world had witnessed the creation of the state of Israel, sparking outrage throughout the Arab world. Seven Arab nations declared war on Israel the day after it declared independence.  Amid the rise of Tunisian nationalism and its push for independence from France, Jewish communities who had lived in Tunisia for centuries became targets. Guilty by association. No longer welcome. Rabbinical councils were dismantled. Jewish sports associations banned. Jews practiced their religion in hiding. Hen's grandfather recounted violence in the Jewish quarter of Tunis.  HEN: When World War Two was over, the Jewish community in Tunisia was hoping that now that Tunisia would have emancipation, and it would become a country, that their neighbors and the country itself would protect them. Because when it was Nazis, they knew that it was a foreign power that came from France and oppressed them. They knew that there was some hatred in the past, from their Muslim neighbors towards them.  But they also were hoping that, if anything, they would go back to the same status of a dhimmi, of being a protected minority. Even if they were not going to be fully accepted and celebrated in this society, at least they would be protected, for paying tax. And this really did not happen. MANYA: By the early 1950s, life for the Mazzig family became untenable. By then, American Jewish organizations based in Tunis started working to take Jews to Israel right away.  HEN: [My family decided to leave.] They took whatever they had left. And they got on a boat. And my grandmother told me this story before she passed away on how they were on this boat coming to Israel.  And they were so happy, and they were crying because they felt that finally after generations upon generations of oppression of living as a minority that knows that anytime the ruler might turn on them and take everything they have and pull the ground underneath their feet, they are going to come to a place where they are going to be protected. And maybe they will face hate, but no one will hate them because they're Jewish.  And I often dream about my grandmother being a young girl on this boat and how she must have felt to know that the nightmare and the hell that she went through is behind her and that she was coming home. MANYA: The boat they sailed to Israel took days. When Hen's uncle, just a young child at the time, got sick, the captain threatened to throw him overboard. Hen's grandmother hid the child inside her clothes until they docked in Israel. When they arrived, they were sprayed with DDT to kill any lice or disease, then placed in ma'abarot, which in Hebrew means transit camps. In this case, it was a tent with one bed. HEN: They were really mistreated back then. And it's not criticism. I mean, yes, it is also criticism, but it's not without understanding the context. That it was a young country that just started, and those Jewish communities, Jewish refugees came from Tunisia, they didn't speak Hebrew. They didn't look like the other Jewish communities there. And while they all had this in common, that they were all Jews, they had a very different experience. MANYA: No, the family's arrival in the Holy Land was nothing like what they had imagined. But even still, it was a dream fulfilled and there was hope, which they had lost in Tunisia. HEN: I think that it was somewhere in between having both this deep connection to Israel and going there because they wanted to, and also knowing that there's no future in Tunisia. And the truth is that even–and I'm sure people that are listening to us, that are strong Zionists and love Israel, if you tell them ‘OK, so move tomorrow,' no matter how much you love Israel, it's a very difficult decision to make.  Unless it's not really a decision. And I think for them, it wasn't really a decision. And they went through so much, they knew, OK, we have to leave and I think for the first time having a country, having Israel was the hope that they had for centuries to go back home, finally realized. MANYA: Valensi's family did stay a while longer. When Tunisia declared independence in 1956, her father, a ceramicist, designed tiles for the residence of President Habib Bourguiba. Those good relations did not last.  Valensi studied history in France, married an engineer, and returned to Tunisia. But after being there for five years, it became clear that Jews were not treated equally and they returned to France in 1965. LUCETTE: I did not plan to emigrate. And then it became more and more obvious that some people were more equal than others [laugh]. And so there was this nationalist mood where responsibilities were given to Muslims rather than Jews and I felt more and more segregated.  And so, my husband was an engineer from a good engineering school. Again, I mean, he worked for another engineer, who was a Muslim. We knew he would never reach the same position. His father was a lawyer. And in the tribunal, he had to use Arabic. And so all these things accumulated, and we were displaced. MANYA: Valensi said Jewish emigration from Tunisia accelerated at two more mileposts. Even after Tunisia declared independence, France maintained a presence and a naval base in the port city of Bizerte, a strategic port on the Mediterranean for the French who were fighting with Algeria.  In 1961, Tunisian forces blockaded the naval base and warned France to stay out of its airspace. What became known as the Bizerte Crisis lasted for three days. LUCETTE: There were critical times, like what we call “La Crise de Bizerte.” Bizerte is a port to the west of Tunis that used to be a military port and when independence was negotiated with France, the French kept this port, where they could keep an army, and Bourguiba decided that he wanted this port back. And there was a war, a conflict, between Tunisia and France in ‘61.  And that crisis was one moment when Jews thought: if there is no French presence to protect us, then anything could happen. You had the movement of emigration.  Of course, much later, ‘67, the unrest in the Middle East, and what happened there provoked a kind of panic, and there were movements against the Jews in Tunis – violence and destruction of shops, etc. So they emigrated again. Now you have only a few hundred Jews left. MANYA: Valensi's first husband died at an early age. Her second husband, Abraham Udovitch, is the former chair of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Together, they researched and published a book about the Jewish communities in the Tunisian island of Djerba. The couple now splits their time between Paris and Princeton. But Valensi returns to Tunisia every year. It's still home. LUCETTE: When I go, strange thing, I feel at home. I mean, I feel I belong. My Arabic comes back. The words that I thought I had forgotten come back. They welcome you. I mean, if you go, you say you come from America, they're going to ask you questions. Are you Jewish? Did you go to Israel? I mean, these kind of very brutal questions, right away. They're going there. The taxi driver won't hesitate to ask you: Are you Jewish? But at the same time, they're very welcoming. So, I have no trouble. MANYA: Hen, on the other hand, has never been to the land of his ancestors. He holds on to his grandparents' trauma. And fear.  HEN: Tunisia just still feels a bit unsafe to me. Just as recent as a couple of months ago, there was a terror attack. So it's something that's still occurring.  MANYA: Just last year, a member of the Tunisian National Guard opened fire on worshippers outside El Ghriba Synagogue where a large gathering of Jewish pilgrims were celebrating the festival of Lag BaOmer. The synagogue is located on the Tunisian island of Djerba where Valensi and her husband did research for their book. Earlier this year, a mob attacked an abandoned synagogue in the southern city of Sfax, setting fire to the building's courtyard. Numbering over 100,000 Jews on the eve of Israel's Independence in 1948, the Tunisian Jewish community is now estimated to be less than 1,000.  There has been limited contact over the years between Tunisia and Israel. Some Israeli tourists, mostly of Tunisian origin, annually visit the El Ghriba synagogue in Djerba. But the government has largely been hostile to the Jewish state.  In the wake of the October 7 attack, the Tunisian parliament began debate on a law that would criminalize any normalization of ties with Israel. Still, Hen would like to go just once to see where his grandparents lived. Walked. Cooked. Prayed.  But to him it's just geography, an arbitrary place on a map. The memories, the music, the recipes, the traditions. It's no longer in Tunisia. It's elsewhere now – in the only country that preserved it. HEN: The Jewish Tunisian culture, the only place that it's been maintained is in Israel. That's why it's still alive. Like in Tunisia, it's not really celebrated. It's not something that they keep as much as they keep here.  Like if you want to go to a proper Mimouna, you would probably need to go to Israel, not to North Africa, although that's where it started. And the same with the Middle Eastern Jewish cuisine. The only place in the world, where be it Tunisian Jews and Iraqi Jews, or Yemenite Jews, still develop their recipes, is in Israel.  Israel is home, and this is where we still celebrate our culture and our cuisine and our identity is still something that I can engage with here.  I always feel like I am living the dreams of my grandparents, and I know that my grandmother is looking from above and I know how proud she is that we have a country, that we have a place to be safe at.  And that everything I do today is to protect my people, to protect the Jewish people, and making sure that next time when a country, when an empire, when a power would turn on Jews we'll have a place to go to and be safe. MANYA: Tunisian Jews are just one of the many Jewish communities who, in the last century, left Arab countries to forge new lives for themselves and future generations.  Join us next week as we share another untold story of The Forgotten Exodus. Many thanks to Hen for sharing his story. You can read more in his memoir The Wrong Kind of Jew: A Mizrahi Manifesto. Too many times during my reporting, I encountered children and grandchildren who didn't have the answers to my questions because they'd never asked. That's why one of the goals of this project is to encourage you to ask those questions. Find your stories. Atara Lakritz is our producer. T.K. Broderick is our sound engineer. Special thanks to Jon Schweitzer, Nicole Mazur, Sean Savage, and Madeleine Stern, and so many of our colleagues, too many to name really, for making this series possible.  You can subscribe to The Forgotten Exodus on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can learn more at AJC.org/theforgottenexodus.  The views and opinions of our guests don't necessarily reflect the positions of AJC.  You can reach us at theforgottenexodus@ajc.org. If you've enjoyed this episode, please be sure to spread the word, and hop onto Apple Podcasts or Spotify to rate us and write a review to help more listeners find us.

“In the Israeli DNA and the Jewish DNA, we have to fight to be who we are. In every generation, empires and big forces tried to erase us . . . I know what it is to be rejected for several parts of my identity... I'm fighting for my ancestors, but I'm also fighting for our future generation.”  Hen Mazzig, a writer, digital creator, and founder of the Tel Aviv Institute, shares his powerful journey as a proud Israeli, LGBTQ+, and Mizrahi Jew, in the premiere episode of the second season of the award-winning podcast, The Forgotten Exodus. Hen delves into his family's deep roots in Tunisia, their harrowing experiences during the Nazi occupation, and their eventual escape to Israel. Discover the rich history of Tunisia's ancient Amazigh Jewish community, the impact of French colonial and Arab nationalist movements on Jews in North Africa, and the cultural identity that Hen passionately preserves today. Joining the conversation is historian Lucette Valensi, an expert on Tunisian Jewish culture, who provides scholarly insights into the longstanding presence of Jews in Tunisia, from antiquity to their exodus in the mid-20th century. ___ Show notes: Sign up to receive podcast updates here. Learn more about the series here. Song credits:  "Penceresi Yola Karsi" -- by Turku, Nomads of the Silk Road Pond5:  “Desert Caravans”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Tiemur Zarobov (BMI), IPI#1098108837 “Sentimental Oud Middle Eastern”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Sotirios Bakas (BMI), IPI#797324989. “Meditative Middle Eastern Flute”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Danielyan Ashot Makichevich (BMI), IPI Name #00855552512, United States BMI “Tunisia Eastern”: Publisher: Edi Surya Nurrohim, Composer: Edi Surya Nurrohim, Item ID#155836469. “At The Rabbi's Table”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Fazio Giulio (IPI/CAE# 00198377019). “Fields Of Elysium”; Publisher: Mysterylab Music; Composer: Mott Jordan; ID#79549862  “Frontiers”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Pete Checkley (BMI), IPI#380407375 “Hatikvah (National Anthem Of Israel)”; Composer: Eli Sibony; ID#122561081 “Tunisian Pot Dance (Short)”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: kesokid, ID #97451515 “Middle East Ident”; Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Alpha (ASCAP); Composer: Alon Marcus (ACUM), IPI#776550702 “Adventures in the East”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI) Composer: Petar Milinkovic (BMI), IPI#00738313833. ___ Episode Transcript: HEN MAZZIG: They took whatever they had left and they got on a boat. And my grandmother told me this story before she passed away on how they were on this boat coming to Israel.  And they were so happy, and they were crying because they felt that finally after generations upon generations of oppression they are going to come to a place where they are going to be protected, and that she was coming home. MANYA BRACHEAR PASHMAN: The world has overlooked an important episode in modern history: the 800,000 Jews who left or were driven from their homes in the Middle East and North Africa in the mid-20th century. Welcome to the second season of The Forgotten Exodus, brought to you by American Jewish Committee. This series explores that pivotal moment in history and the little-known Jewish heritage of Iran and Arab nations. As Jews around the world confront violent antisemitism and Israelis face daily attacks by terrorists on multiple fronts, our second season explores how Jews have lived throughout the region for generations–despite hardship, hostility, and hatred–then sought safety and new possibilities in their ancestral homeland. I'm your host, Manya Brachear Pashman. Join us as we explore untold family histories and personal stories of courage, perseverance, and resilience from this transformative and tumultuous period of history for the Jewish people and the Middle East.  The world has ignored these voices. We will not. This is The Forgotten Exodus.  Today's episode: leaving Tunisia. __ [Tel Aviv Pride video] MANYA BRACHEAR PASHMAN: Every June, Hen Mazzig, who splits his time between London and Tel Aviv, heads to Israel to show his Pride. His Israeli pride. His LGBTQ+ pride. And his Mizrahi Jewish pride. For that one week, all of those identities coalesce.  And while other cities around the world have transformed Pride into a June version of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Israel is home to one of the few vibrant LGBTQ communities in the Middle East. Tel Aviv keeps it real. HEN: For me, Pride in Israel, in Tel Aviv, it still has this element of fighting for something. And that it's important for all of us to show up and to come out to the Pride Parade because if we're not going to be there, there's some people with agendas to erase us and we can't let them do it. MANYA: This year, the Tel Aviv Pride rally was a more somber affair as participants demanded freedom for the more than 100 hostages still held in Gaza since October 7th.  On that day, Hamas terrorists bent on erasing Jews from the Middle East went on a murderous rampage, killing more than 1,200, kidnapping 250 others, and unleashing what has become a 7-front war on Israel. HEN: In the Israeli DNA and the Jewish DNA we have to fight to be who we are. In every generation, empires and big forces tried to erase us, and we had to fight. And the LGBTQ+ community also knows very well how hard it is. I know what it is to be rejected for several parts of my identity. And I don't want anyone to go through that. I don't want my children to go through that. I'm fighting for my ancestors, but I'm also fighting for our future generation. MANYA: Hen Mazzig is an international speaker, writer, and digital influencer. In 2022, he founded the Tel Aviv Institute, a social media laboratory that tackles antisemitism online. He's also a second-generation Israeli, whose maternal grandparents fled Iraq, while his father's parents fled Tunisia – roots that echo in the family name: Mazzig. HEN: The last name Mazzig never made sense, because in Israel a lot of the last names have meaning in Hebrew.  So I remember one of my teachers in school was saying that Mazzig sounds like mozeg, which means pouring in Hebrew. Maybe your ancestors were running a bar or something? Clearly, this teacher did not have knowledge of the Amazigh people. Which, later on I learned, several of those tribes, those Amazigh tribes, were Jewish or practiced Judaism, and that there was 5,000 Jews that came from Tunisia that were holding both identities of being Jewish and Amazigh.  And today, they have last names like Mazzig, and Amzaleg, Mizzoug. There's several of those last names in Israel today. And they are the descendants of those Jewish communities that have lived in the Atlas Mountains. MANYA: The Atlas Mountains. A 1,500-mile chain of magnificent peaks and treacherous terrain that stretch across Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, separating the Sahara from the Mediterranean and Atlantic coastline.  It's where the nomadic Amazigh have called home for thousands of years. The Amazigh trace their origins to at least 2,000 BCE  in western North Africa. They speak the language of Tamazight and rely on cattle and agriculture as their main sources of income.  But textiles too. In fact, you've probably heard of the Amazigh or own a rug woven by them. A Berber rug. HEN: Amazigh, which are also called Berbers. But they're rejecting this term because of the association with barbarians, which was the title that European colonialists when they came to North Africa gave them. There's beautiful folklore about Jewish leaders within the Amazigh people. One story that I really connected to was the story of Queen Dihya that was also known as El-Kahina, which in Arabic means the Kohen, the priest, and she was known as this leader of the Amazigh tribes, and she was Jewish.  Her derrogaters were calling her a Jewish witch, because they said that she had the power to foresee the future. And her roots were apparently connected to Queen Sheba and her arrival from Israel back to Africa. And she was the descendant of Queen Sheba. And that's how she led the Amazigh people.  And the stories that I read about her, I just felt so connected. How she had this long, black, curly hair that went all the way down to her knees, and she was fierce, and she was very committed to her identity, and she was fighting against the Islamic expansion to North Africa.  And when she failed, after years of holding them off, she realized that she can't do it anymore and she's going to lose. And she was not willing to give up her Jewish identity and convert to Islam and instead she jumped into a well and died. This well is known today in Tunisia. It's the [Bir] Al-Kahina or Dihya's Well that is still in existence. Her descendants, her kids, were Jewish members of the Amazigh people.  Of course, I would like to believe that I am the descendant of royalty. MANYA: Scholars debate whether the Amazigh converted to Judaism or descended from Queen Dihya and stayed.  Lucette Valensi is a French scholar of Tunisian history who served as a director of studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris, one of the most prestigious institutions of graduate education in France. She has written extensively about Tunisian Jewish culture.   Generations of her family lived in Tunisia. She says archaeological evidence proves Jews were living in that land since Antiquity. LUCETTE VALENSI: I myself am a Chemla, born Chemla. And this is an Arabic name, which means a kind of belt. And my mother's name was Tartour, which is a turban [laugh]. So the names were Arabic. So my ancestors spoke Arabic. I don't know if any of them spoke Berber before, or Latin. I have no idea. But there were Jews in antiquity and of course, through Saint Augustin. MANYA: So when did Jews arrive in Tunisia? LUCETTE: [laugh] That's a strange question because they were there since Antiquity. We have evidence of their presence in mosaics of synagogues, from the times of Byzantium. I think we think in terms of a short chronology, and they would tend to associate the Jews to colonization, which does not make sense, they were there much before French colonization. They were there for millennia. MANYA: Valensi says Jews lived in Tunisia dating to the time of Carthage, an ancient city-state in what is now Tunisia, that reached its peak in the fourth century BCE. Later, under Roman and then Byzantine rule, Carthage continued to play a vital role as a center of commerce and trade during antiquity.  Besides the role of tax collectors, Jews were forbidden to serve in almost all public offices. Between the 5th and 8th centuries CE, conditions fluctuated between relief and forced conversions while under Christian rule.  After the Islamic conquest of Tunisia in the seventh and early eighth centuries CE, the treatment of Jews largely depended on which Muslim ruler was in charge at the time.  Some Jews converted to Islam while others lived as dhimmis, or second-class citizens, protected by the state in exchange for a special tax known as the jizya. In 1146, the first caliph of the Almohad dynasty, declared that the Prophet Muhammad had granted Jews religious freedom for only 500 years, by which time if the messiah had not come, they had to convert.  Those who did not convert and even those who did were forced to wear yellow turbans or other special garb called shikra, to distinguish them from Muslims. An influx of Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal arrived in the 14th Century. In the 16th Century, Tunisia became part of the Ottoman Empire, and the situation of Jews improved significantly. Another group who had settled in the coastal Tuscan city of Livorno crossed the Mediterranean in the 17th and 18th centuries to make Tunisia their home. LUCETTE: There were other groups that came, Jews from Italy, Jews from Spain, of course, Spain and Portugal, different periods. 14th century already from Spain and then from Spain and Portugal. From Italy, from Livorno, that's later, but the Jews from Livorno themselves came from Spain.  So I myself am named Valensi. From Valencia. It was the family name of my first husband. So from Valencia in Spain they went to Livorno, and from Livorno–Leghorn in English–to Tunisia. MANYA: At its peak, Tunisia's Jewish population exceeded 100,000 – a combination of Sephardi and Mizrahi. HEN: When we speak about Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, specifically in the West, or mainly in the West, we're referring to them as Sephardi. But in Tunisia, it's very interesting to see that there was the Grana community which are Livorno Jews that moved to Tunisia in the 1800s, and they brought the Sephardi way of praying.  And that's why I always use the term Mizrahi to describe myself, because I feel like it encapsulates more of my identity. And for me, the Sephardi title that we often use on those communities doesn't feel accurate to me, and it also has the connection to Ladino, which my grandparents never spoke.  They spoke Tamazight, Judeo-Tamazight, which was the language of those tribes in North Africa. And my family from my mother's side, from Iraq, they were speaking Judeo-Iraqi-Arabic.  So for me, the term Sephardi just doesn't cut it. I go with Mizrahi to describe myself. MANYA: The terms Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi all refer to the places Jews once called home.  Ashkenazi Jews hail from Central and Eastern Europe, particularly Germany, Poland, and Russia. They traditionally speak Yiddish, and their customs and practices reflect the influences of Central and Eastern European cultures.  Pogroms in Eastern Europe and the Holocaust led many Ashkenazi Jews to flee their longtime homes to countries like the United States and their ancestral homeland, Israel.  Mizrahi, which means “Eastern” in Hebrew, refers to the diaspora of descendants of Jewish communities from Middle Eastern countries such as: Iraq, Iran, and Yemen, and North African countries such as: Tunisia, Libya, and Morocco. Ancient Jewish communities that have lived in the region for millennia long before the advent of Islam and Christianity. They often speak dialects of Arabic. Sephardi Jews originate from Spain and Portugal, speaking Ladino and incorporating Spanish and Portuguese cultural influences. Following their expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula in 1492, they settled in regions like North Africa and the Balkans. In Tunisia, the Mizrahi and Sephardi communities lived side by side, but separately. HEN: As time passed, those communities became closer together, still quite separated, but they became closer and closer. And perhaps the reason they were becoming closer was because of the hardship that they faced as Jews.  For the leaders of Muslim armies that came to Tunisia, it didn't matter if you were a Sephardi Jew, or if you were an Amazigh Jew. You were a Jew for them. MANYA: Algeria's invasion of Tunisia in the 18th century had a disproportionate effect on Tunisia's Jewish community. The Algerian army killed thousands of the citizens of Tunis, many of whom were Jewish. Algerians raped Jewish women, looted Jewish homes. LUCETTE: There were moments of trouble when you had an invasion of the Algerian army to impose a prince. The Jews were molested in Tunis. MANYA: After a military invasion, a French protectorate was established in 1881 and lasted until Tunisia gained independence in 1956. The Jews of Tunisia felt much safer under the French protectorate.  They put a lot of stock in the French revolutionary promise of Liberté, égalité, fraternité. Soon, the French language replaced Judeo-Arabic. LUCETTE: Well, under colonization, the Jews were in a better position. First, the school system. They went to modern schools, especially the Alliance [Israélite Universelle] schools, and with that started a form of Westernization.  You had also schools in Italian, created by Italian Jews, and some Tunisian Jews went to these schools and already in the 19th century, there was a form of acculturation and Westernization.  Access to newspapers, creation of newspapers. In the 1880s Jews had already their own newspapers in Hebrew characters, but Arabic language.  And my grandfather was one of the early journalists and they started having their own press and published books, folklore, sort of short stories. MANYA: In May 1940, Nazi Germany invaded France and quickly overran the French Third Republic, forcing the French to sign an armistice agreement in June. The armistice significantly reduced the territory governed by France and created a new government known as the Vichy regime, after the central French city where it was based.  The Vichy regime collaborated with the Nazis, establishing a special administration to introduce anti-Jewish legislation and enforce a compulsory Jewish census in all of its territories including Tunisia. Hen grew up learning about the Holocaust, the Nazis' attempt to erase the Jewish people. As part of his schooling, he learned the names of concentration and death camps and he heard the stories from his friends' grandparents.  But because he was not Ashkenazi, because his grandparents didn't suffer through the same catastrophe that befell Europe, Hen never felt fully accepted.  It was a trauma that belonged to his Ashkenazi friends of German and Polish descent, not to him. Or so they thought and so he thought, until he was a teenager and asked his grandmother Kamisa to finally share their family's journey from Tunisia. That's when he learned that the Mazzig family had not been exempt from Hitler's hatred. In November 1942, Tunisia became the only North African country to come under Nazi Germany's occupation and the Nazis wasted no time. Jewish property was confiscated, and heavy fines were levied on large Jewish communities. With the presence of the Einsatzkommando, a subgroup of the Einsatzgruppen, or mobile killing units, the Nazis were prepared to implement the systematic murder of the Jews of Tunisia. The tide of the war turned just in time to prevent that. LUCETTE: At the time the Germans came, they did not control the Mediterranean, and so they could not export us to the camps. We were saved by that. Lanor camps for men in dangerous places where there were bombs by the Allies. But not for us, it was, I mean, they took our radios. They took the silverware or they took money, this kind of oppression, but they did not murder us.  They took the men away, a few families were directly impacted and died in the camps. A few men. So we were afraid. We were occupied. But compared to what Jews in Europe were subjected to, we didn't suffer.  MANYA: Almost 5,000 Jews, most of them from Tunis and from certain northern communities, were taken captive and incarcerated in 32 labor camps scattered throughout Tunisia. Jews were not only required to wear yellow stars, but those in the camps were also required to wear them on their backs so they could be identified from a distance and shot in the event they tried to escape. HEN: My grandmother never told me until before she died, when she was more open about the stories of oppression, on how she was serving food for the French Nazi officers that were occupying Tunisia, or how my grandfather was in a labor camp, and he was supposed to be sent to a death camp in Europe as well. They never felt like they should share these stories. MANYA: The capture of Tunisia by the Allied forces in May 1943 led the Axis forces in North Africa to surrender. But the country remained under French colonial rule and the antisemitic legislation of the Vichy regime continued until 1944. Many of the Vichy camps, including forced labor camps in the Sahara, continued to operate.  Even after the decline and fall of the Vichy regime and the pursuit of independence from French rule began, conditions for the Mazzig family and many others in the Tunisian Jewish community did not improve.  But the source of much of the hostility and strife was actually a beacon of hope for Tunisia's Jews. On May 14, 1948, the world had witnessed the creation of the state of Israel, sparking outrage throughout the Arab world. Seven Arab nations declared war on Israel the day after it declared independence.  Amid the rise of Tunisian nationalism and its push for independence from France, Jewish communities who had lived in Tunisia for centuries became targets. Guilty by association. No longer welcome. Rabbinical councils were dismantled. Jewish sports associations banned. Jews practiced their religion in hiding. Hen's grandfather recounted violence in the Jewish quarter of Tunis.  HEN: When World War Two was over, the Jewish community in Tunisia was hoping that now that Tunisia would have emancipation, and it would become a country, that their neighbors and the country itself would protect them. Because when it was Nazis, they knew that it was a foreign power that came from France and oppressed them. They knew that there was some hatred in the past, from their Muslim neighbors towards them.  But they also were hoping that, if anything, they would go back to the same status of a dhimmi, of being a protected minority. Even if they were not going to be fully accepted and celebrated in this society, at least they would be protected, for paying tax. And this really did not happen. MANYA: By the early 1950s, life for the Mazzig family became untenable. By then, American Jewish organizations based in Tunis started working to take Jews to Israel right away.  HEN: [My family decided to leave.] They took whatever they had left. And they got on a boat. And my grandmother told me this story before she passed away on how they were on this boat coming to Israel.  And they were so happy, and they were crying because they felt that finally after generations upon generations of oppression of living as a minority that knows that anytime the ruler might turn on them and take everything they have and pull the ground underneath their feet, they are going to come to a place where they are going to be protected. And maybe they will face hate, but no one will hate them because they're Jewish.  And I often dream about my grandmother being a young girl on this boat and how she must have felt to know that the nightmare and the hell that she went through is behind her and that she was coming home. MANYA: The boat they sailed to Israel took days. When Hen's uncle, just a young child at the time, got sick, the captain threatened to throw him overboard. Hen's grandmother hid the child inside her clothes until they docked in Israel. When they arrived, they were sprayed with DDT to kill any lice or disease, then placed in ma'abarot, which in Hebrew means transit camps. In this case, it was a tent with one bed. HEN: They were really mistreated back then. And it's not criticism. I mean, yes, it is also criticism, but it's not without understanding the context. That it was a young country that just started, and those Jewish communities, Jewish refugees came from Tunisia, they didn't speak Hebrew. They didn't look like the other Jewish communities there. And while they all had this in common, that they were all Jews, they had a very different experience. MANYA: No, the family's arrival in the Holy Land was nothing like what they had imagined. But even still, it was a dream fulfilled and there was hope, which they had lost in Tunisia. HEN: I think that it was somewhere in between having both this deep connection to Israel and going there because they wanted to, and also knowing that there's no future in Tunisia. And the truth is that even–and I'm sure people that are listening to us, that are strong Zionists and love Israel, if you tell them ‘OK, so move tomorrow,' no matter how much you love Israel, it's a very difficult decision to make.  Unless it's not really a decision. And I think for them, it wasn't really a decision. And they went through so much, they knew, OK, we have to leave and I think for the first time having a country, having Israel was the hope that they had for centuries to go back home, finally realized. MANYA: Valensi's family did stay a while longer. When Tunisia declared independence in 1956, her father, a ceramicist, designed tiles for the residence of President Habib Bourguiba. Those good relations did not last.  Valensi studied history in France, married an engineer, and returned to Tunisia. But after being there for five years, it became clear that Jews were not treated equally and they returned to France in 1965. LUCETTE: I did not plan to emigrate. And then it became more and more obvious that some people were more equal than others [laugh]. And so there was this nationalist mood where responsibilities were given to Muslims rather than Jews and I felt more and more segregated.  And so, my husband was an engineer from a good engineering school. Again, I mean, he worked for another engineer, who was a Muslim. We knew he would never reach the same position. His father was a lawyer. And in the tribunal, he had to use Arabic. And so all these things accumulated, and we were displaced. MANYA: Valensi said Jewish emigration from Tunisia accelerated at two more mileposts. Even after Tunisia declared independence, France maintained a presence and a naval base in the port city of Bizerte, a strategic port on the Mediterranean for the French who were fighting with Algeria.  In 1961, Tunisian forces blockaded the naval base and warned France to stay out of its airspace. What became known as the Bizerte Crisis lasted for three days. LUCETTE: There were critical times, like what we call “La Crise de Bizerte.” Bizerte is a port to the west of Tunis that used to be a military port and when independence was negotiated with France, the French kept this port, where they could keep an army, and Bourguiba decided that he wanted this port back. And there was a war, a conflict, between Tunisia and France in ‘61.  And that crisis was one moment when Jews thought: if there is no French presence to protect us, then anything could happen. You had the movement of emigration.  Of course, much later, ‘67, the unrest in the Middle East, and what happened there provoked a kind of panic, and there were movements against the Jews in Tunis – violence and destruction of shops, etc. So they emigrated again. Now you have only a few hundred Jews left. MANYA: Valensi's first husband died at an early age. Her second husband, Abraham Udovitch, is the former chair of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Together, they researched and published a book about the Jewish communities in the Tunisian island of Djerba. The couple now splits their time between Paris and Princeton. But Valensi returns to Tunisia every year. It's still home. LUCETTE: When I go, strange thing, I feel at home. I mean, I feel I belong. My Arabic comes back. The words that I thought I had forgotten come back. They welcome you. I mean, if you go, you say you come from America, they're going to ask you questions. Are you Jewish? Did you go to Israel? I mean, these kind of very brutal questions, right away. They're going there. The taxi driver won't hesitate to ask you: Are you Jewish? But at the same time, they're very welcoming. So, I have no trouble. MANYA: Hen, on the other hand, has never been to the land of his ancestors. He holds on to his grandparents' trauma. And fear.  HEN: Tunisia just still feels a bit unsafe to me. Just as recent as a couple of months ago, there was a terror attack. So it's something that's still occurring.  MANYA: Just last year, a member of the Tunisian National Guard opened fire on worshippers outside El Ghriba Synagogue where a large gathering of Jewish pilgrims were celebrating the festival of Lag BaOmer. The synagogue is located on the Tunisian island of Djerba where Valensi and her husband did research for their book. Earlier this year, a mob attacked an abandoned synagogue in the southern city of Sfax, setting fire to the building's courtyard. Numbering over 100,000 Jews on the eve of Israel's Independence in 1948, the Tunisian Jewish community is now estimated to be less than 1,000.  There has been limited contact over the years between Tunisia and Israel. Some Israeli tourists, mostly of Tunisian origin, annually visit the El Ghriba synagogue in Djerba. But the government has largely been hostile to the Jewish state.  In the wake of the October 7 attack, the Tunisian parliament began debate on a law that would criminalize any normalization of ties with Israel. Still, Hen would like to go just once to see where his grandparents lived. Walked. Cooked. Prayed.  But to him it's just geography, an arbitrary place on a map. The memories, the music, the recipes, the traditions. It's no longer in Tunisia. It's elsewhere now – in the only country that preserved it. HEN: The Jewish Tunisian culture, the only place that it's been maintained is in Israel. That's why it's still alive. Like in Tunisia, it's not really celebrated. It's not something that they keep as much as they keep here.  Like if you want to go to a proper Mimouna, you would probably need to go to Israel, not to North Africa, although that's where it started. And the same with the Middle Eastern Jewish cuisine. The only place in the world, where be it Tunisian Jews and Iraqi Jews, or Yemenite Jews, still develop their recipes, is in Israel.  Israel is home, and this is where we still celebrate our culture and our cuisine and our identity is still something that I can engage with here.  I always feel like I am living the dreams of my grandparents, and I know that my grandmother is looking from above and I know how proud she is that we have a country, that we have a place to be safe at.  And that everything I do today is to protect my people, to protect the Jewish people, and making sure that next time when a country, when an empire, when a power would turn on Jews we'll have a place to go to and be safe. MANYA: Tunisian Jews are just one of the many Jewish communities who, in the last century, left Arab countries to forge new lives for themselves and future generations.  Join us next week as we share another untold story of The Forgotten Exodus. Many thanks to Hen for sharing his story. You can read more in his memoir The Wrong Kind of Jew: A Mizrahi Manifesto. Too many times during my reporting, I encountered children and grandchildren who didn't have the answers to my questions because they'd never asked. That's why one of the goals of this project is to encourage you to ask those questions. Find your stories. Atara Lakritz is our producer. T.K. Broderick is our sound engineer. Special thanks to Jon Schweitzer, Nicole Mazur, Sean Savage, and Madeleine Stern, and so many of our colleagues, too many to name really, for making this series possible.  You can subscribe to The Forgotten Exodus on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can learn more at AJC.org/theforgottenexodus.  The views and opinions of our guests don't necessarily reflect the positions of AJC.  You can reach us at theforgottenexodus@ajc.org. If you've enjoyed this episode, please be sure to spread the word, and hop onto Apple Podcasts or Spotify to rate us and write a review to help more listeners find us.

In Part 2 of our look at the history of the Italian Jews, we primarily focus in on the Ghetto

aka the Pizza Bagel episode

Well, friends, we're trying something new this time.  Instead of spreading this encore season about George W. Strake out over an entire month, we're giving you the full season at once!  This episode is a longer episode that alleviates the impatience of waiting for the following week's episode, and it gives you the entire story of George W. Strake in one place. What we discover in this all-in-one episode is that George lives a journey that takes him through multiple industries and multiple countries and has him spending all but his last dollar on a chance. And, at times, this story makes us feel like we've stepped into an Indiana Jones movie. The Vatican needed a donor that would give unlimited funds, keep the project a secret, and take the risk that it may fail (as it had already done twice before!), and George W. Strake was the man for the job! George's faith in God and in the project allowed him to be part of not just a great discovery, but it also allowed him to play a pivotal role in saving a large number of Italian Jews from the Nazis. As the episode conclues, our hosts dig into George's faith, his generosity, and his care of his family. Will they decide that George Strake merits their title of holy donor?  Listen and find out! Truly, this season was two stories in one, digging for oil and digging for bones. Sometimes you need to be willing to take the big risks to uncover the discoveries that will create a lasting legacy.   --- Recommended reading: "The Fisherman's Tomb" by John O'Neill Special thanks to John O'Neill for contributing to this season. --- Holy Donors is brought to you by Petrus Development (petrusdevelopment.com) in cooperation with RED-C Catholic Radio (redcradio.org). For more about Holy Donors please visit our website at holydonors.com or find us @HolyDonors on Instagram and Facebook. Holy Donors: Bringing you inspiring stories of radical generosity that have changed the world.

The TRE Bookshow: TRE's Hannah Murray catches up with top authors, to discuss their latest releases 07/09/23 Hannah Murray will start by looking at the bestseller lists on Amazon UK and The Sunday Times, the oldest and most influential book sales chart in the UK, and seeing what new entries there are.  Jane Johnson is a British novelist and publisher. She is the UK editor for George R.R. Martin and Dean Koontz. She launched the Voyager imprint for Harper Collins, and for many years was the publisher of the works of J.R.R. Tolkein. She also worked on Peter Jackson's adaptation of Lord of the Rings, and wrote the tie-in books. Her latest novel 'The Black Crescent' is set in the mid-1950s Morocco against a backdrop of the violent end of the French protectorate.  Fiona Valpy is an acclaimed bestselling author whose books have sold two million copies worldwide. She draws inspiration from the stories of strong women, especially during the years of the Second World War. 'The Cypress Maze' is inspired by the incredible true story of English-born Iris Origo, who during WW2 in Italy, at great risk, harboured escaped P.O.W's, Italian Jews, and anti-fascists on their extensive estate in Tuscany.  Julia Winter spent thirteen years living in Poland after completing her history MA, and returned with her English-Polish family in 2013. Her debut novel 'The Brexit House' is a contemporary novel surrounding one families inheritance quarrel against the backdrop of Brexit. Kathy Reichs's first novel 'Deja Dead', published in 1997, won the Ellis Award for Best First Novel, and was an international bestseller. To date, she has written twenty-two novels featuring forensic psychologist Temperance Brennan. Kathy was also a producer of Fox Television's longest-running scripted drama, Bones, which was based on her work and her novels. 'The Bone Hacker' takes us on a journey through the twisted depths of a serial killer's mind, where bones hold the key to unlocking a terrifying plot that will put two countries, countless innocent civilians, and Tempe Brennan herself in grave danger... Kerry Fisher was an English teacher in Spain and Corsica, a holiday rep in Tuscany, and a PA in an art school in Florence. She has since become an author, and has sold well over one million copies of her books. Her two newest titles are 'The Rome Apartment' and 'Secrets at the Rome Apartment' They are the first two books in a new series set in Rome Susan Sachon has loved writing, books, and theatre since childhood. She's also worked in business, run a theatre arts school for kids, and somehow found time to gain a degree in Literature/Creative Writing, and a PhD in Shakespeare. She now writes fiction full-time, runs Shakespeare workshops and directs plays. Her latest crime thriller 'So Now Go Tell' is about 40 year old Jenny Watson, who is offered her dream job running a Shakspeare festival at a Tudor pub Adrian P Conway's honest, heartbreaking, spiritual, debut novella is set in the world of London teen gangs. 'The Pelican Crossing' is a modern twist on Romeo & Juliet. 

The last two Italian Jews living Bensonhurst ….NY …

As Italian Jews immigrated to the Ottoman Empire during the sixteenth century, many wanted to switch to the Sephardic liturgical style. The question then was whether it was permitted to abandon well-entrenched communal customs—a question that's very much relevant today. Liturgical Warfare Among 16th-Century Italian Jews

DeadYawn comments: "I like that there's honesty without emotional exhibitionism on the Luke Ford show. Also I'm ashamed to admit I find the humour very funny." You might wonder why some people are so right so often. FIFA and Qatar exemplify how much of the world works. It's not always about merit or a level playing field, everything conducted legally and ethically, all for the good of the game. During the World Cup, the officiating won't be perfect. The incentives of the people running things won't be perfectly aligned with what they're running. All sorts of things happen behind closed doors that we won't know about, but if we are emotionally honest with ourselves and something doesn't feel right, it likely means people are lying to you or you have incomplete information. It makes no sense for Qatar to have a world cup, ergo, people are lying. If I research something in the news, and it doesn't make sense, in all likelihood, people are lying. If you are emotionally honest and something doesn't make sense to you, either you are not getting all relevant info or you are being lied to. You know people who are good at spotting lies? People who are honest. Are you bad at noticing when people are lying to you and manipulating you? You are not honest with yourself. If FTX or Bernie Madoff don't make sense, then either you are missing info or you are being lied to. SBF and Abe Fortas got away with a ton of bad things because they were aligned with the Left. SBF got great press because he was aligned with the Left. If he had been aligned with Right, would not have happened. The people who controlled the discourse gave SBF good press. If crypto makes no sense to you, either you are missing info or people are lying to you. I think Crypto bros are lying to you. Theranos made no sense, it was a scam. John Mearsheimer: "It has become clear that the Russians are having difficulties defeating the Ukrainians, in ways that most people didn't anticipate back when we first talked. What also changed is that the war has escalated and the Russians are behaving more ruthlessly towards the Ukrainians than they were initially. That the Russians are now tearing apart the electric grid, which is causing immense human suffering and doing grave economic damage to Ukraine, is evidence of this." https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/john-mearsheimer-on-putins-ambitions-after-nine-months-of-war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharisees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_B._Shapiro https://torahinmotion.org/profile/dr-marc-shapiro https://www.scranton.edu/academics/cas/theology/marcshapiro.shtml A middle ground between Orthodoxy and Reform: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoFfpU_Qb9g https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Judaism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Judaism http://ieg-ego.eu/en/threads/crossroads/religious-and-confessional-spaces/andreas-braemer-reform-judaism-positive-historical-school-orthodoxy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Judaism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zecharias_Frankel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Raphael_Hirsch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Geiger https://torahinmotion.org/tim-torah/the-rise-of-reform-and-the-rabbinic-response-part-7mp3 Italian Jews & the body Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSFVD7Xfhn7sJY8LAIQmH8Q/join

https://torahinmotion.org/tim-torah/the-rise-of-reform-and-the-rabbinic-response-part-7mp3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharisees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_B._Shapiro https://torahinmotion.org/profile/dr-marc-shapiro https://www.scranton.edu/academics/cas/theology/marcshapiro.shtml A middle ground between Orthodoxy and Reform: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoFfpU_Qb9g https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Judaism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Judaism http://ieg-ego.eu/en/threads/crossroads/religious-and-confessional-spaces/andreas-braemer-reform-judaism-positive-historical-school-orthodoxy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Judaism Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSFVD7Xfhn7sJY8LAIQmH8Q/join https://odysee.com/@LukeFordLive, https://lbry.tv/@LukeFord, https://rumble.com/lukeford https://dlive.tv/lukefordlivestreams Superchat: https://entropystream.live/app/lukefordlive Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/lukeford/ Soundcloud MP3s: https://soundcloud.com/luke-ford-666431593 Code of Conduct: https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=125692 https://www.patreon.com/lukeford http://lukeford.net Email me: lukeisback@gmail.com or DM me on Twitter.com/lukeford Support the show | https://www.streamlabs.com/lukeford, https://patreon.com/lukeford, https://PayPal.Me/lukeisback Facebook: http://facebook.com/lukecford Feel free to clip my videos. It's nice when you link back to the original.

The Jerusalem Post Podcast with Yaakov Katz and Lahav Harkov. Yaakov and Lahav discuss the results of Jordan's king's speech of incitement at the UN, as witnessed by Yaakov in Jerusalem on Rosh Hashanna. They also talk about why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky topped the list of 50 Most Influential Jews this year. Plus, Jewish World Reporter Zvika Klein on Alternate Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's burgeoning speaking career, which is being planned even before he leaves government, and what Italian Jews think of their likely prime minister Giorgia Meloni. Our podcast is available on Google Play, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

#149With Prof. Kenneth Stow discussing the Diary of Anna of Rome and the book he wrote about the diaryWe discussed Italian Jews, Rome's Jewish Community, who Anna was, how the diary was found, why he decided to publish it, and more To purchase the book: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300219043/anna-and-tranquillo/

We watched videos by foreign tourists who visited Florence and we were shocked. We can't understand why foreign tourists waste their time on Ice Cream, Aperitivo and Pizza. The thing is, you don't need to go to Florence to enjoy them. You can get them anywhere in Italy and at a much lower price! Most importantly, you will waste your precious vacation days and return home without the real Florence experience. Start listening to this episode NOW, to improve your Italian while you learn: What to taste and how to eat like the Florentian people. Where to find some of the unique sites which almost no foreigner gets to visit. How to find out the history of the Italian Jews community and what they did when they first got their freedom. EAnd many more tips which will make your Florence vacation unique! If you have any thoughts or comments on our podcast, e-mail us at theitalianescapepodcast@gmail.com, or send us a voice message Follow us at: Twitter: https://twitter.com/it_escape_pod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/it_escape_pod/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/italian.escape.podcast Music credits: storyblocks.com Access Full Transcript Here: https://www.theitalianescapepodcast.com/transcripts/episode-10 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/italian-escape-podcast/message

A Concervative Rabbi who inspired cultured Italian Jews to Emunah, Torah, and Mitzvos

Part three makes us feel like we've stepped into an Indiana Jones movie. “An archeologist fighting the Nazis to find the Necropolis while being sponsored by a mysterious oil man across the seas.” You just can't make this stuff up. George was made for such a time as this. The Vatican needed a donor that would give unlimited funds, keep the project a secret and take the risk that it may fail as it had already done twice before. Enter George W. Strake. His faith in God and in the project allowed him to be part of not just a great discovery, but also play a pivotal role with the 850,000 Italian Jews that would be saved from the Nazis.What will Indiana George do next?---Recommended reading: "The Fisherman's Tomb" by John O'NeillSpecial thanks to John O'Neill for contributing to this season.---Holy Donors is brought to you by Petrus Development (petrusdevelopment.com) in cooperation with RED-C Catholic Radio (redcradio.org).For more about Holy Donors please visit our website at holydonors.com or find us @HolyDonors on Instagram and Facebook.Holy Donors: Bringing you inspiring stories of radical generosity that have changed the world.

You may never have heard of the disease Syndrome K but know that this deadly disease has a happy ending.  This week I take you to Italy to tell you the tale!Music by Dresden the Flamingo, I Married Dracula.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/Dissecting)

Bovo-Buch is Elia Levita's 16th century Yiddish treatment of the popular Italian chivalric romance Buovo d'Antona. Chivalric romances, popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe, are narratives which celebrate courtly love and manners and most often feature the adventures of heroic knights going on quests. Bovo-Buch, which was extremely popular among Ashkenazi Jewish communities of the time, adopts and adapts this form to its own purposes and is an example of the convergence that occurs when a narrative is introduced into a new cultural context.Dr. Erith Jaffe-Berg, Professor of theatre at the Department of Theatre, Film and Digital Production, University of California at Riverside, explains the cultural collision inherent in the book and illuminates its historical context. This extended episode is a reimagining of a three-episode series titled “Bovo-Buch: Chivalric Romance, Cultural Collision,” which we originally presented in September 2020 on Judaism Unbound.

Lisa Scottoline, the #1 bestselling author of 33 novels, joins Carol Fitzgerald to talk about her first work of historical fiction, ETERNAL, a sweeping historical epic inspired by true events. Lisa shares the inspiration for ETERNAL, which was four decades in the making. The seeds of it were sown during a class she took at the University of Pennsylvania. The class was taught by Philip Roth, and the fictional works of Primo Levi were part of the curriculum. She was drawn to write about the rise of Fascism and Mussolini in Italy and how the invasion of the Nazis put the lives of Italian Jews in jeopardy. Told through the eyes of three childhood friends -- Elisabetta, Marco, and Sandro -- the book makes the story of heartbreak, betrayal, and loss a personal one. Lisa shares details of her research for the book, including a trip to Italy where she created the videos that she has shared with readers on her website. It’s a riveting conversation about the book she feels she was destined to write. Book discussed in this episode: ETERNAL by Lisa Scottoline https://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/eternal-by-lisa-scottoline Check out our other videos: Bookaccino Book Club with William Kent Krueger: https://youtu.be/dX-mHWLmv5k Bookaccino Book Club with Jeanine Cummins: https://youtu.be/yY-yhIXjMYM Best Books of 2020: https://youtu.be/Q_N6r_l1-Ss More Bookreporter Talks To: Alexandra Andrews: https://youtu.be/OU6ZKkWfq2c Nadia Hashimi: https://youtu.be/sKz6KwjjFsw Gabriela Garcia: https://youtu.be/ikz9EjESdY0 Sign up for the weekly Bookreporter.com newsletter here: http://tbrnetwork.com/newsletters/bookreporter-weekly-newsletter-subscribe FOLLOW US Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bookreporter Website: https://www.bookreporter.com

In this week's episode, Ashley and I discuss her spirtual journey toward Orthodox Judaism, her barely noticeable Brooklyn accent, pharmacuetical greed, and COVID conspiracies. Thinkin of missin this episode?! Fuggedaboudit m*****! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rafael-pinsky/message

The winner of the 1971 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, Vittorio De Sica's The Garden of the Finzi-Continis tells an aching story of doomed love within a wealthy Jewish community in Fascist Italy. The 1938 racial laws, enforcing the segregation of Italian Jews, have just been introduced, but the titular family's titular garden offers insulation from the rising tide of fascism - for a while. Mike finds the film's love triangle somewhat banal, but is impressed with the subtly observed way in which the central characters allow themselves to remain comfortably ignorant of the increasingly hostile and dangerous Italy beyond their walls; comparisons to frogs in saucepans abound, not to mention the present-day normalisation of absurd corruption and violence in the Greatest Country in the World™. José is more keen on the romance, but still, the film's sociopolitical side remains our focus. We consider the film's use of physical space, the ways in which the Jewish characters can navigate it without being suspected by the racist public, but find themselves eager to retreat to safety as the film develops. We note that The Garden of the Finzi-Continis was made 25 years after the end of the Second World War, but 50 years prior to today: it's now conspicuously an historical artefact that speaks to the time in which it was made, and whose proximity to the horrors it dramatises is necessary to keep in mind. And Mike reflects on his relationship with his Jewishness in this day and age, and how the film demonstrates that whatever divisions we may find among ourselves, to those who hate us, there's no distinction. It's also Bonfire Night - well, the day after, but it's a Friday evening so the festivities continue - and we celebrate by closing the window and trying to ignore the fireworks going off outside. Recorded on 6th November 2020.

Orly talks to Micheal Sierra about the prospect of aliyah from Italian Jews. She also speaks to Ann Lamm about her experience in Israel. Listen in and celebrate independence day with Orly! From Jerusalem With Love 29APR2020 - PODCAST

In this exciting show, Orly Benny Davis speaks with Uzi Dayan, a member of knesset and the former commanding officer of Binyamin Netanyahu! Uzi Dayan served as head of Central Command, Deputy Chief of Staff, and headed the Israeli National Security Council (2003–2005). He was a member and later head of an elite commando unit that reportedly made eight to ten attempts to assassinate Yasser Arafat. What does he think of Bibi, and does he think Bibi will be able to form a new government? Also, Orly speaks to Oren Raccha in Italy, as he gives her a report of the corona situation there on the ground, as well as his thoughts if Italian Jews will now make aliyah and move to Israel. From Jerusalem With Love 16APR2020 - PODCAST

On February 8, 2020, we celebrated a very special moment in the Torah, a very musical moment in Jewish biblical history. On Shabbat Shirah we read the Song of the Sea and our service included extraordinary music to celebrate Moses and Miriam leading the Israelites across the Sea of Reeds (The Red Sea) and out of Egypt. Cantor Rosemberg delivered the Shabbat Sermon. His topic was Jewish Italian Music and Traditions and his teaching explored the rich history and different musical traditions of the Italian Jews. Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/shabbat-shirah-sermon-cantor-elias-rosemberg/

Spokesmen Cycling Podcast Tuesday 8th October 2019 SPONSOR: Jenson USA HOST: Carlton Reid GUESTS: Holocaust survivor Paul Alexander Canadian journalist Aili McConnon, co-author of Bartali biography, "The Road to Valor" Gino Bartali's granddaughter Giulia Bartali Yuval Markovich, Bartali Youth Leadership School Dr. Ilana Tischler, director-general, Ben Shemen Youth Village, Israel Former pro cyclist Ran Margaliot, co-founder of Israel Cycling Academy and Bartali Youth Leadership School TOPICS: A 77-year-old secret, a new, cycling-based boarding school that commemorates it, and the kick-off for a 180 kilometre bike ride that retraces its roots. This episode is about Gino Bartali's 1948 Tour de France victory, his secret wartime rides to smuggle fake IDs for Italian Jews, a new Israeli cycling-based boarding school launched in his honour, and the Bartali 180 commemorative cycle ride from Florence to Assisi, retracing Bartali's mid-1940s training-cum-smuggling route.

In the latest edition of our 'Talking Europe' podcast series, Carlotta Ferrara Degli Uberti (UCL Italian) and Uta Staiger discuss the role and cultural imagination of the Jewish minority in Italy – from the unification of the country into a new nation-state until the end of the First World War. Dr Ferrara's book investigates key concepts such as family, religion, nation, assimilation and Zionism, as well as the interaction between public and private spheres, as they shift and change over time.

The Scaring and the Daring In this season of getting scared, will you dare to be different and choose a Halloween costume that might evangelize trick or treaters? Peggy lists the top five saints who lend themselves to fabulous costumes for scaring and inspiring. Author Mark Sullivan talks about his 2017 bestseller “Beneath a Scarlet Sky” the true story of one young Italian man’s incredible daring during WWII and the Catholic priests who helped him save the lives of Jews during one of history’s darkest hours. Mark Sullivan continues his conversation with Peggy about Cardinal Alfredo Schuster of Milan, Italy, whose cause for sainthood stemmed from his heroic efforts to save Italian Jews during Hitler and Mussolini’s reign of terror. What is Dia de Muertos and why has its imagery become synonymous with the celebration of Halloween in modern culture? Fr. Rafael Lueveno, professor at Chapman University, talks about this holiday’s ethnic origins and its relevance to our faith.

In his new book, The Italian Executioners: The Genocide of the Jews of Italy (Princeton University Press, 2018), Simon Levis Sullam, associate professor of modern history at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, examines how ordinary Italians became willing perpetrators and actively participated in the deportation of Italian Jews between 1943 and 1945. Levis Sullam challenges long held notions that Italians were largely resistant to deportations and protective of their Jewish neighbors. Through detailing the actions of ordinary Italians as they participated in arrests, looting and betrayals he dismantles the myth of italiani brava gente- the “good Italians.” This concise book does much to correct a tremendous blind spot in the history of the Holocaust in Italy.

In his new book, The Italian Executioners: The Genocide of the Jews of Italy (Princeton University Press, 2018), Simon Levis Sullam, associate professor of modern history at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, examines how ordinary Italians became willing perpetrators and actively participated in the deportation of Italian Jews between 1943 and 1945. Levis Sullam challenges long held notions that Italians were largely resistant to deportations and protective of their Jewish neighbors. Through detailing the actions of ordinary Italians as they participated in arrests, looting and betrayals he dismantles the myth of italiani brava gente- the “good Italians.” This concise book does much to correct a tremendous blind spot in the history of the Holocaust in Italy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his new book, The Italian Executioners: The Genocide of the Jews of Italy (Princeton University Press, 2018), Simon Levis Sullam, associate professor of modern history at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, examines how ordinary Italians became willing perpetrators and actively participated in the deportation of Italian Jews between 1943 and 1945. Levis Sullam challenges long held notions that Italians were largely resistant to deportations and protective of their Jewish neighbors. Through detailing the actions of ordinary Italians as they participated in arrests, looting and betrayals he dismantles the myth of italiani brava gente- the “good Italians.” This concise book does much to correct a tremendous blind spot in the history of the Holocaust in Italy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his new book, The Italian Executioners: The Genocide of the Jews of Italy (Princeton University Press, 2018), Simon Levis Sullam, associate professor of modern history at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, examines how ordinary Italians became willing perpetrators and actively participated in the deportation of Italian Jews between 1943 and 1945. Levis Sullam challenges long held notions that Italians were largely resistant to deportations and protective of their Jewish neighbors. Through detailing the actions of ordinary Italians as they participated in arrests, looting and betrayals he dismantles the myth of italiani brava gente- the “good Italians.” This concise book does much to correct a tremendous blind spot in the history of the Holocaust in Italy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his new book, The Italian Executioners: The Genocide of the Jews of Italy (Princeton University Press, 2018), Simon Levis Sullam, associate professor of modern history at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, examines how ordinary Italians became willing perpetrators and actively participated in the deportation of Italian Jews between 1943 and 1945. Levis Sullam challenges long held notions that Italians were largely resistant to deportations and protective of their Jewish neighbors. Through detailing the actions of ordinary Italians as they participated in arrests, looting and betrayals he dismantles the myth of italiani brava gente- the “good Italians.” This concise book does much to correct a tremendous blind spot in the history of the Holocaust in Italy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his new book, The Italian Executioners: The Genocide of the Jews of Italy (Princeton University Press, 2018), Simon Levis Sullam, associate professor of modern history at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, examines how ordinary Italians became willing perpetrators and actively participated in the deportation of Italian Jews between 1943 and 1945. Levis Sullam challenges long held notions that Italians were largely resistant to deportations and protective of their Jewish neighbors. Through detailing the actions of ordinary Italians as they participated in arrests, looting and betrayals he dismantles the myth of italiani brava gente- the “good Italians.” This concise book does much to correct a tremendous blind spot in the history of the Holocaust in Italy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his new book, The Italian Executioners: The Genocide of the Jews of Italy (Princeton University Press, 2018), Simon Levis Sullam, associate professor of modern history at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, examines how ordinary Italians became willing perpetrators and actively participated in the deportation of Italian Jews between 1943...

In his new book, The Italian Executioners: The Genocide of the Jews of Italy (Princeton University Press, 2018), Simon Levis Sullam, associate professor of modern history at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, examines how ordinary Italians became willing perpetrators and actively participated in the deportation of Italian Jews between 1943 and 1945. Levis Sullam challenges long held notions that Italians were largely resistant to deportations and protective of their Jewish neighbors. Through detailing the actions of ordinary Italians as they participated in arrests, looting and betrayals he dismantles the myth of italiani brava gente- the “good Italians.” This concise book does much to correct a tremendous blind spot in the history of the Holocaust in Italy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What was Italy's role in the Holocaust? Why is it that Italy is known as the Axis power that was benevolent to Jews, despite a scholarly consensus that many Italians actively participated in anti-Jewish persecution? In Italy's Jews from Emancipation to Fascism (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Shira Klein skillfully narrates the historical developments that belie this myth, and the complex process that have led to its perpetuation. By examining the experiences of Italian Jews during the Second World War from a wide chronological lens, Klein shows how the particular history of Italian Jews in the century prior to the Holocaust helped to mold their positive perception of Italy during and in the aftermath of genocide. Drawing from oral testimonies as well as unpublished memoirs, Klein reveals how a uniquely Jewish Italian patriotism was fostered in the decades leading up to (and even during) Fascism. Through their allegiance to Italy, she explains, many Jewish exiles and survivors themselves helped to spread the myth of Italian innocence. Shira Klein is Assistant Professor of History at Chapman University. Robin Buller is a PhD Candidate in History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

What was Italy’s role in the Holocaust? Why is it that Italy is known as the Axis power that was benevolent to Jews, despite a scholarly consensus that many Italians actively participated in anti-Jewish persecution? In Italy’s Jews from Emancipation to Fascism (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Shira Klein skillfully narrates the historical developments that belie this myth, and the complex process that have led to its perpetuation. By examining the experiences of Italian Jews during the Second World War from a wide chronological lens, Klein shows how the particular history of Italian Jews in the century prior to the Holocaust helped to mold their positive perception of Italy during and in the aftermath of genocide. Drawing from oral testimonies as well as unpublished memoirs, Klein reveals how a uniquely Jewish Italian patriotism was fostered in the decades leading up to (and even during) Fascism. Through their allegiance to Italy, she explains, many Jewish exiles and survivors themselves helped to spread the myth of Italian innocence. Shira Klein is Assistant Professor of History at Chapman University. Robin Buller is a PhD Candidate in History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What was Italy’s role in the Holocaust? Why is it that Italy is known as the Axis power that was benevolent to Jews, despite a scholarly consensus that many Italians actively participated in anti-Jewish persecution? In Italy’s Jews from Emancipation to Fascism (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Shira Klein skillfully narrates the historical developments that belie this myth, and the complex process that have led to its perpetuation. By examining the experiences of Italian Jews during the Second World War from a wide chronological lens, Klein shows how the particular history of Italian Jews in the century prior to the Holocaust helped to mold their positive perception of Italy during and in the aftermath of genocide. Drawing from oral testimonies as well as unpublished memoirs, Klein reveals how a uniquely Jewish Italian patriotism was fostered in the decades leading up to (and even during) Fascism. Through their allegiance to Italy, she explains, many Jewish exiles and survivors themselves helped to spread the myth of Italian innocence. Shira Klein is Assistant Professor of History at Chapman University. Robin Buller is a PhD Candidate in History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What was Italy’s role in the Holocaust? Why is it that Italy is known as the Axis power that was benevolent to Jews, despite a scholarly consensus that many Italians actively participated in anti-Jewish persecution? In Italy’s Jews from Emancipation to Fascism (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Shira Klein skillfully narrates the historical developments that belie this myth, and the complex process that have led to its perpetuation. By examining the experiences of Italian Jews during the Second World War from a wide chronological lens, Klein shows how the particular history of Italian Jews in the century prior to the Holocaust helped to mold their positive perception of Italy during and in the aftermath of genocide. Drawing from oral testimonies as well as unpublished memoirs, Klein reveals how a uniquely Jewish Italian patriotism was fostered in the decades leading up to (and even during) Fascism. Through their allegiance to Italy, she explains, many Jewish exiles and survivors themselves helped to spread the myth of Italian innocence. Shira Klein is Assistant Professor of History at Chapman University. Robin Buller is a PhD Candidate in History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What was Italy’s role in the Holocaust? Why is it that Italy is known as the Axis power that was benevolent to Jews, despite a scholarly consensus that many Italians actively participated in anti-Jewish persecution? In Italy’s Jews from Emancipation to Fascism (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Shira Klein skillfully narrates the historical developments that belie this myth, and the complex process that have led to its perpetuation. By examining the experiences of Italian Jews during the Second World War from a wide chronological lens, Klein shows how the particular history of Italian Jews in the century prior to the Holocaust helped to mold their positive perception of Italy during and in the aftermath of genocide. Drawing from oral testimonies as well as unpublished memoirs, Klein reveals how a uniquely Jewish Italian patriotism was fostered in the decades leading up to (and even during) Fascism. Through their allegiance to Italy, she explains, many Jewish exiles and survivors themselves helped to spread the myth of Italian innocence. Shira Klein is Assistant Professor of History at Chapman University. Robin Buller is a PhD Candidate in History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What was Italy’s role in the Holocaust? Why is it that Italy is known as the Axis power that was benevolent to Jews, despite a scholarly consensus that many Italians actively participated in anti-Jewish persecution? In Italy’s Jews from Emancipation to Fascism (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Shira Klein skillfully narrates the historical developments that belie this myth, and the complex process that have led to its perpetuation. By examining the experiences of Italian Jews during the Second World War from a wide chronological lens, Klein shows how the particular history of Italian Jews in the century prior to the Holocaust helped to mold their positive perception of Italy during and in the aftermath of genocide. Drawing from oral testimonies as well as unpublished memoirs, Klein reveals how a uniquely Jewish Italian patriotism was fostered in the decades leading up to (and even during) Fascism. Through their allegiance to Italy, she explains, many Jewish exiles and survivors themselves helped to spread the myth of Italian innocence. Shira Klein is Assistant Professor of History at Chapman University.   Robin Buller is a PhD Candidate in History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

What was Italy’s role in the Holocaust? Why is it that Italy is known as the Axis power that was benevolent to Jews, despite a scholarly consensus that many Italians actively participated in anti-Jewish persecution? In Italy’s Jews from Emancipation to Fascism (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Shira Klein skillfully narrates the historical developments that belie this myth, and the complex process that have led to its perpetuation. By examining the experiences of Italian Jews during the Second World War from a wide chronological lens, Klein shows how the particular history of Italian Jews in the century prior to the Holocaust helped to mold their positive perception of Italy during and in the aftermath of genocide. Drawing from oral testimonies as well as unpublished memoirs, Klein reveals how a uniquely Jewish Italian patriotism was fostered in the decades leading up to (and even during) Fascism. Through their allegiance to Italy, she explains, many Jewish exiles and survivors themselves helped to spread the myth of Italian innocence. Shira Klein is Assistant Professor of History at Chapman University. Robin Buller is a PhD Candidate in History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So, you think you had a busy day? Consider what a typical working day might be like for composer Megan Cavallari. Start with the fact that Cavallari is one of only a very small handful of women who have established themselves as major creative artists in the professional music industry. But not even most of the men can point to a resume as diverse, eclectic, and impressive as this diminutive Jewish-Italian Philadelphia native: more than a 100 film scores as performer, arranger, conductor, or composer; the official composer of the L.A. Kings for ten seasons; 25 television shows; 16 stage musicals; and hundreds of songs, jingles, and assorted musical offerings have earned her respect, acclaim, multiple professional awards, and a reputation as someone who seemingly creates and produces music in every waking moment of a 37 hour day. Then consider that while music is the dominant focus of Megan Cavallari’s professional life, it’s probably the easiest thing she does. For kicks, she might suit up and play left wing in a men’s hockey league, where she might find herself hurtling over the ice after being checked by a guy twice her weight. Or, she might be dealing with the very real challenges facing her eleven year-old daughter, surviving life with debilitating juvenile arthritis. She might be at temple, reaffirming a faith that is part and parcel of a family legacy with all the drama of an HBO miniseries. Or she might be talking to children in a hospital’s terminal ward, recording their thoughts in private and open conversations – just because she knows those moments of free thought and reflection are all the more valuable to those with little time left. In short, your busy day has nothing on Megan Cavallari’s. Cavallari sees a strong personal and spiritual component to her projects, beginning with a lesson learned from one of her early mentors and champions. “Danny Elfman used to say about making music, ‘you put the antenna up and you hope God is listening.’” Cavallari had just completed her master’s degree at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts when she came to California with her award-winning musical project and caught the ear of Elfman. Her first high-profile gig was alongside Elfman as he composed and recorded the now-classic score from Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” which lead to work on several subsequent Elfman scores. She likewise worked with legendary film scoring artists Jerry Goldsmith and Edward Shearmur, and artists such as Johnny Mathis. “Music takes people into a very different space and realm, and engaging with that means I’m always full of new ideas.” She also confesses to a history of being in the right place at the right time, and being around the right people. “I’m super lucky – and then I surround myself with great musicians, producers, directors, and music supervisors who keep asking me to do things!” The gritty dedication to teamwork also explains her passion for ice hockey, reflected in the many pieces of memorabilia that populate her recording studio as well as her passion for the Kings, who are more than just one of her many employers. “Hockey reminds me of life,” she explains. “You fall down hard, you get up. It’s poetry at eighty miles an hour, and it all comes down to getting that puck past that huge man into that tiny cage. There’s no star – you have to work as a team, you have to have those guys behind you, you have to have your line. I have my line in my work – my musicians, my agents – and my line has to be great for everything to work.” That the work ethic is the product of strong, passionate parents shouldn’t be surprising, but the story of Megan Cavallari’s family offers additional perspective. Her Jewish mother’s family, emigrated from Russia and engaged as union activists, were targeted by the FBI and blacklisted during the McCarthy era (an uncle was called before congressional committees), which lead them to hide their Jewishness. Meanwhile, her Italian-born father was raised Catholic, but had rejected the church when he saw how they treated Italian Jews during World War II. “My father was more into Judaism than my mother,” Cavallari says. “Passover was his favorite holiday.” Learning prayers from her grandmother and great aunt, Megan wasn’t able to fully explore and embrace her traditions until she relocated to California after college. Despite the complex issues of religious identity, Cavallari’s parents excelled and exemplifying the better values of both faith and social responsibility – they were teachers who specialized in working with disadvantaged kids. “My parents had a loving relationship for 43 years, and I grew up in a home that was completely supportive,” she explains, citing a brother and sister who are both business owners “and fighters.” That fight is needed on a daily basis when it comes to raising daughter Shoshana, who is in chronic pain from juvenile arthritis. “She’s suffering, but she has such a great attitude,” Cavallari observes, proud that her daughter will attend the prestigious Milken Community School next year. “She’s really my role model – kids tend to look at the bright side of things, so I learn a lot from them.” That’s one of the impulses that lead to Cavallari beginning the Talk Foundation Project. The idea is simple: with some simple digital recording technology, she visits with children in terminal health situations and simply allows them to talk. Currently engaging with Kaiser Permanente with specialists who work in childhood oncology, the recordings are simply private mementos of the subject’s life at that moment. “I say a prayer before I go into the room, I remind myself that this is for the good,” she says of the 20- to 30-minute conversations. “Some of these kids are happy, some are angry, some are going to rant or scream – but whatever they need to do, they do it.” The constant demands for writing and producing music keep Cavallari focused, despite the many obstacles that she has faced. “Less than half-a-percent of composers are women,” she says. She recalls a particularly humiliating moment early in her career: an agent had submitted her as “M. Cavallari,” and she was hired based on her demo. But upon entering a production meeting, she was told that “casting was upstairs.” After explaining who she was, she was terminated because someone on the production insisted that only a man could compose the score for an action film. That’s lead to one of Cavallari’s bucket-list projects: “Someday, I want to do a ‘Mission: Impossible’ score with an all-female orchestra.” (Her other bucket-list gig would be working with fellow vegan Moby.) Until then, Cavallari is hard at work on a new animated musical film project called “Jacob Marley” with director Russ Francis, with several other high-profile film gigs in development. She’s also begun a relationship with Grammy-nominated pop producer Eric Robinson, and is working with producer/composer Jonathon McHugh on a new opera about WWII hero Irena Sandler (who rescued 2500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto), which will debut with the Angel City Chorus. All projects to fill an ordinary day in the life of a not-so-ordinary composer. http://megancavallari.com/

Pastor Andy Davis preaches on Galatians 3:6-14 and is how we can become adopted sons and daughters of Abraham by simple faith in Christ. - SERMON TRANSCRIPT - Turn in your Bibles to Galatians 3:6-14. You just heard Rick read it very beautifully for us. As we come to this incredible passage of Scripture, my mind goes to an Old Testament passage. This text is rich with Old Testament quotations, one after the other, and Paul is meditating on these. I'm brought to Isaiah 55:8-9, which says there, "My thoughts," this is the Lord speaking to the human race, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways, says the Lord. As the Heavens are higher than the Earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts." Why do I begin there? Because as I look at the text today, the text testifies that everyone who has faith in Jesus Christ, is mysteriously a child of Abraham. And what I want you to do, is to see in the text, (and understand the significance of it), to help you to see that God willed, in a very mysterious way, a single individual living 4,000 years ago to be the father of our faith. He was living in Ur of the Chaldees at that point, and God called him to leave his country, his homeland, and begin a life of faith, of journeying in faith. And that this man, Abraham, is our father in faith. I want you to understand the significance of that, and that if you are not a child of Abraham, you will get nothing of his inheritance, which is everything in the world. And so it's incredibly beneficial to be an honorary Jew, and that's what we Gentile believers in Christ are. We have been adopted as sons and daughters of Abraham. Now, about nine years ago, I was on route to a ministry opportunity in Romania, and I was at an airport in Italy, and I saw a group of a certain sect of Jews walking through the airport. And I don't know what it is, I hadn't seen that type of attire in America before. Maybe if I went to certain larger cities I would. But this was a sect of Judaism that took very seriously some aspects of the law of Moses. And they had black hats, and they had long beards, and they had the ear-locks, and they had the flowing robes. And right around that time, I was thinking about, and memorizing, and working on Romans 9-11. And there in Romans 11, it talks about how God has established this incredible olive tree with this root system, and the root system were the patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And that I, as a believer in Jesus Christ, am like a wild olive shoot, and I've been grafted into this Jewish tree, and I've got Jewish sap flowing through me now, through that root system. And I thought, I toyed with the idea of going up to these, I don't know, Italian Jews, or something like that, and saying, "I just want you to know that I'm an honorary Jew." And to see how that conversation would go. I think if you went up to an average person in America, who wasn't biblically literate, and said, "You can be an honorary Jew," they would say, "Why in the world would I want to do that?" And so we would either be rejected by the Orthodox Jews, especially after the events of the 20th century, and the horrors of the Holocaust. Rejected, the whole concept rejected, out of hand by them. Or from the average non-biblically literate citizen of the US, we would receive a yawn and a question, "What difference would that make? What do I get for being an honorary Jew?" And so my desire today, is to try to make that clear through Galatians 3:6-14. As we come into this incredible plan of God, a plan that no human being could ever have concocted, no human could ever have crafted this, I think about that passage in Isaiah 55. God's ways are not our ways, as the heavens are higher than the Earth, so are his ways soaring above us. I. The Eternity and Unity of God’s Salvation Plan We come into the incredible plan of God here, and looking down the corridors of time, the eternity, and the unity of God's salvation plan floats to the top here for me. The eternity of it, the fact that this is a salvation plan that was crafted in the mind of God before the world began. It's an eternal plan, it's right on schedule. God knew exactly what he was doing when he crafted this plan. Many passages teach the eternality of God's salvation plan. First Corinthians 2:7 says, "We speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began." The hidden wisdom of God, the secret wisdom of God, and God destined it for your glory and mine before time began. In 2 Timothy 1:9-10, speaking of how God has saved us, and called us to a holy life, "not because of anything we have done, but because of His own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it is now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus." So, if you're elect, if you're one of the children of God, God gave you grace. In his mind, He gave you grace in Christ Jesus before the world began. Titus 1:2 speaks of a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time. Ephesians 1 says that, "God chose us in Christ before the creation of the world, to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love, He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ." And then Peter speaks of the same thing, focusing on the death of Christ, on the death of Jesus in our place. 1 Peter 1 speaks of the, "Precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He, [Jesus], Was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last time for your sake." So God had all of this worked out before the creation of the world. As history began, he started to unfold his plan. He knew exactly what was going to happen. The eternality of the plan of God is on my mind here, but also the unity of the plan of God. God has willed to save sinners from all over the world, from every tribe, and language, and people, and nation, to save sinners out of their nations the same way. Everybody gets saved the same way. Isn't that incredible? And that he's been working this out from 4,000 years ago. Even before that, by faith in the promise of God, that ultimately is Jesus Christ, sinners are justified. So that means that every Old Testament saint was saved the same way as every New Testament saint, and everyone that's ever been saved from sin. We've all been saved the same way. Hebrews 11, that faith chapter, traces all this out, beginning with Abel and the sacrifice that he offered, right on through, through Enoch's walking with God, through Noah's building the ark, all the way through. And the message, the unified message of Hebrews 11, is that all of those people were justified by faith, apart from works of the law. Same message that we have here in Galatians. "God has willed to save sinners from all over the world, from every tribe, and language, and people, and nation, to save sinners out of their nations the same way.... By faith in the promise of God, that ultimately is Jesus Christ." Romans chapter 4 teaches that both Abraham and David, and therefore, all Old Testament saints, were justified by faith in the promised Christ. Basically, Old Testament saints looked ahead, based on the word of God, looked ahead to a Christ who hadn't even been born yet, the same way we look back to a Christ who's already ascended to heaven. And neither they nor we can see him with our own eyes, we're justified the exact same way. So we have the eternality and the unity of the plan of God. Now, the Apostle Paul is giving here a powerful answer to the false teachers that were troubling the Gentile Christians in Galatian churches. He's giving a powerful answer to the Judaizers. These were Jewish people who would come in after Paul and Barnabas had planted these churches in Asia Minor, and they'd preach the pure Gospel, Paul and Barnabas did, they established healthy churches, and then they left. And then in come these Judaizers, these false teachers, who were trying to blend the work of Christ with the law of Moses, and said, "This is the recipe for human salvation, the work of Christ on the cross plus your obedience to the law of Moses. If you do these two things, you will be saved." And no doubt, these Judaizers were very intimidating to Gentile Christians. They came with a raft of Old Testament Scriptures. They came with clear precepts, line upon line from the laws of Moses. And these neophytes, these Gentiles who had very little knowledge of the Jewish religion, had no ability to refute them, they could not answer them. They were helpless, and they needed a defender, they needed a champion, and that was the Apostle Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. And he steps in, it's left to a Jew. Paul is a Jew, and he's able to marshal, as he does here beautifully in this section that you heard Rick read for us, one Old Testament Scripture after another to prove his basic point, sinners are justified by faith alone, and not by works of the law. And that's what he's trying to prove. The Judaizers were intimidating people, who are misusing these Old Testament Scriptures. Paul knew them better than they did. He knew the scriptures and he said, "You're just not looking closely enough." And so he taught plainly from the Old Testament, justification by faith alone. And this is incredible encouragement to us, who read centuries later about all of this. We come to the Book of Galatians, and we as believers in Christ, can be assured and encouraged about our salvation. And we can know that our sins are truly forgiven, not by our works, but simply by faith in Christ. And we are free from condemnation by the law. We are free from all fear of condemnation, we are done with that, because Christ has become a curse for us. And we are, in some mysterious way, adopted sons and daughters of Abraham, and we stand to inherit what Abraham stood to inherit. And we will sit at table someday in the kingdom, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because of the work of Jesus Christ. Now, we have to prove all of this from Scripture, these assertions. We have to make it clear, and so Paul's going to give positive and negative proof from the Old Testament Scriptures, that these things are so. Now, he has already, in Galatians 3:1-5, appealed to their experience, the Galatians' experience with the Gospel. You remember, we talked about that last time? Look again in verses 1-5, Galatians 3:1-5, he says there, "You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? Have you suffered so much for nothing –if it really was for nothing? Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?" And so he's going back to their experience, "You remember how it was when I came to your town, and I preached Christ crucified, and as you heard, you didn't do anything? You didn't go out and obey anything. You just heard, believed, and the Holy Spirit was poured out on you, you remember? Remember how it was when the Spirit flooded into your lives, and you were filled with joy, and filled with confidence, and assurance that your sins were forgiven, and you began to live the Spirit-filled life? You were filled with all of that. Do you remember how it was?" So he's going back to their experience. Now, he's going to say, "How it was for you, that's the way it has always been. Back to the time of Abraham, that's how sinners have always been made right with God." So he's going to give positive evidence from the case of Abraham, and from that, based on how was Abraham justified, he's going to draw a powerful implication, "You, believers in Christ, are children of Abraham." And then he's going to go negative on them the rest of the verse, from verse 10-14. He's going to talk about what the law cannot do, "It cannot justify, the law can only curse you." And so he's going to show that the law only brings curses, but that Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, and so, therefore, the implication is you can be free from all curses by faith in Christ, so that's where we're going. II. Positive Old Testament Proof: Abraham Justified by Faith Let's look first at the positive Old Testament proof, Abraham was justified by faith. Verses 6-9. Look at verse 6 right away, "Consider Abraham, he believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness." This is the centerpiece of Paul's argument here. He's going to bring in as witness number one, as central evidence, this man Abraham. Abraham was the father of the Jewish nation. This is brilliant strategy by the Apostle Paul, isn't it? Here are these Judaizers, they're trying to pull rank on these poor Gentile converts, and Paul pulls rank on them, "So let's look at the case of Abraham. You remember Abraham, don't you? Father of the nation. Let's try to find out what he discovered concerning justification." It's just really brilliant here. The Judaizers claim to have all the history, and the logic, and the law on their side, and Paul trumps them all by reaching for Abraham. And so he raises up Abraham as an example, and the awesome assertion he makes here, is that Abraham was justified by faith, and not by works of the law. This is proof. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Gentiles, on the Galatians, that was proof of their experience, but it goes even deeper than that. Abraham, centuries before that, was justified the exact same way. The verse begins, in verse 6, ESV has it a little clearer, "Just as Abraham believed God, and it was credited, or counted to him as righteousness." In other words, verses 1-5, what you guys experienced, what happened to you, hearing with faith, God forgiving, God blessing, that exact same thing happened in Abraham's life. "Just as," that's how the verse begins, "Just as Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness." Now, this is an incredibly important statement, "Abraham believed God. " Now, look at it carefully, it does not say he believed in God, okay? It's true he believed in God, but even the demons believe that there is a God and they shudder. It's a different thing, a higher thing, to believe God. Believe what? Believe what God has spoken, believe the promise. "I believe God when he says this to me." You see what I'm saying? Now, you have to believe in God to believe God, and so he believed what God had spoken to him, he believed the promise that he had made, he believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Now, what does that mean? The words 'credited' are very important for our faith. We believe that righteousness was credited to Abraham's account. He was seen to be, on the basis of faith, righteous in the sight of God. You can't put a price on the value of that. If you are not that righteous, if you are not perfectly righteous, you cannot be with God. It says in Habakkuk chapter 1:13, [God's] "eyes are too pure to look on evil. He cannot tolerate wrong." If you are not perfectly righteous, you cannot be with God. Perfect righteousness is required, but this is what this statement is saying, that perfect righteousness was credited to Abraham's account on the basis of his faith. Now, how many of you, I don't want you to raise your hands, but how many of you have anonymous numbered accounts in Swiss banks? I know you're saying, you're saying, "If I had one, I wouldn't be raising my hand here and I have it for that very reason." I don't know that much about them, except for movies that I watch, where millions of dollars get wired to the account, and they find out that the money's there, and then something happens in the movie. Do you realize what kind of righteousness was wired to your account when you believed in Jesus? It's absolutely limitless, perfect righteousness credited to you the moment you trusted in Jesus, and that's what needed to happen, because without perfect righteousness, you can't go to heaven. And so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned, or credited to him as righteousness. Not only did this happen for him, but he became a paradigm, an example for everyone that would follow. It's the same for everyone. Now, God's purpose, God's saving purpose was for all nations. From the very beginning, he intended to save all nations. Amazingly, he intended to save all nations through this man Abraham. Now, who was Abraham? Abraham was, by some accounts, it seems, a moon-worshipping pagan living in Ur of the Chaldeans, where we would call Babylon, in that area. And at some point in his life, he heard God speak to him. God called him out of the darkness of paganism and he gave him this statement. He says, and this is Genesis 12:1-3, God said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people, and your father's household, and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse, [Listen] and all peoples on Earth will be blessed through you." That is staggeringly important. All peoples on Earth, every single people group, every single nation on the face of the Earth, blessed through this man, Abraham. That was God's intention from the very beginning. God was intending to save the nations, to save people, to save Gentiles. Is that relevant to the Galatians? Yes, they're Gentiles. And God was intending to save the Gentiles, the Galatians through Abraham. And so he makes it plain. Look at verse 8 in our text, "The Scripture foresaw... " Interesting expression there. "The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announce the Gospel in advance to Abraham. All nations will be blessed through you." He's quoting Genesis 12:3. God intended to save people from every tribe, and language, and people, and nation, through this one nation, the Jews, through this one man, Abraham. And Paul personifies Scripture. I find that amazing, the Genesis account, "The Scripture foresaw." Isn't that an interesting expression? It's like the Scripture could know something in advance. But I think we really know that it's God who is doing the foreseeing. And that God knew, that one day, he would be justifying Gentiles through Abraham. And he announced it in the Scripture, made it plain. I think that's what's going on there. And so notice, he also says, "He announced the Scripture," announced the Gospel in advance to Abraham. Again, the unity of the work of God. It is always only been one message that saves. It's the Gospel that was announced, "All peoples on Earth will be blessed through you." It was the Gospel, and so this saving message came through. Now, that was just the beginning of Abraham's life of faith. I don't know how God communicated to Abraham. I don't know if it was a still small voice, or an audible voice, or what happened. But I know he heard Him and he began to orient his life that way. And it's hard to trace out exactly what happened from the first calling, and the events of his life. But in due time, at the proper time, he moved to the promised land. He went to the land that God showed him and he began to travel in that land as a stranger in a foreign country. He lived in tents and he was not able to settle down there. The land wasn't his yet, and so he was traveling as a stranger in a foreign country. But he was hearing God speaking to him and he was worshipping God. And he was setting up altars in the promised land, and calling on the name of the Lord. And it says that, "Abraham was called God's friend and he had a relationship with Him." And so by faith, he's developing his love relationship with God. At a certain time, he and his nephew Lot, their herdsmen quarreled, and there wasn't enough land for their sheep, and all that. And so they separated, and Lot went down to Sodom and Gomorrah, where he was. And God walked through the land with Abraham, and he said, "Look at this land. Look at the length and the width of it. Look at it. I'm going to give this land to you and to your offspring forever." And so Abraham heard him say that, and he believed that. But then came beautifully, Genesis 15, one of the great chapters in the Bible. I've been thinking about Genesis 15 for years. I'll never stop thinking about it. And it's in my mind, as I began this sermon. When it says, "As the Heavens are higher than the Earth, so are my ways higher than your ways." That's about what God said to Abraham that night. Abraham decided not to take any of the plunder from the battle with the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, and he said, "I don't want any of their filthy money." And then God appeared to Abraham, and said, "Fear not, Abraham. I am your shield and I am your very great reward." I'm what you get. And he said, "Well, if we could have a conversation here. How can you give me anything, because I don't have an heir? And this guy Eliezer of Damascus is my heir. What are we going to do about that? You said, 'I'm going to be the father of many nations.' I'm not seeing that right now. Eliezer's a great guy, alright. I'm sure he'll be excited to get whatever it is I have to give him, but what's happening?" And God said, "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." And then I don't know if he said, "Come on out and look at the stars," but that's what happened. Imagine him going out of his tent and just looking up at the stars. And as the heavens are higher than the Earth, there is God in all of his immensity, and it's one of those beautiful starry nights. It must have been, maybe low humidity in a desert area and you can see a lot of stars. "Count them if you can, Abraham. So shall your offspring be." It's a promise. "You're going to have that many offspring. You're going to have that many descendants, like the stars in the night sky." Abraham believed the Lord and it was credited him as righteousness. Now, I actually don't think that's the first time he believed him, but that was a key moment in his relationship and a paradigm example. The promise spoken, he heard, he believed that it's true. And he was justified on that basis. Isn't it amazing that one of those stars, one of those descendants would be Jesus, the Son of God, the Son of man, who would die on the cross for our sins, for Abraham's sins, Isaac's and Jacob's sins, and give us eternal life? But then God reiterated the promise concerning the land, "And by the way, I'm going to give you that land. I already told you. I haven't changed my mind." He says, "Well, how do I know that I'm going to get it? I'm still a stranger. I'm living in a tent. How do I know?" And that's when they had that awesome covenant cutting ceremony, where he laid out some animal pieces in a path, and a dreadful darkness came over Abraham, and God reiterated the promise, and was very clear, four centuries, that his people would be strangers in a country not their own. They'd be enslaved and mistreated, but God would punish that nation, he'd bring them out with great power, and they would inherit that land. And then a torch, and a fire pot came representing God, and he passed through the pieces, and the covenant cutting ceremony was sealed. In effect, God said, "May I cease to exist, may I be exploded like these animals, if I don't keep my promise to you." He swore by himself, he would do it. And Abraham believed all of that, descendants like the stars in the sky, and the land that would be his forever, his and his descendants. That's the faith of Abraham. Now, sometime later, in Genesis 17, God gave him the gift of circumcision. In Genesis 17:4, "Behold my covenant is with you and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations." Very important statement. Thus Abraham was justified as an uncircumcised Gentile, that's the whole key. And Paul makes that point in Romans 4:9-11. He speaks of the blessedness of the Gospel, the blessedness of full forgiveness of sins. And he says, "Is this blessedness only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised?" Well, we have been saying that Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised or before? ... I'm pausing for dramatic effect. Okay, I'm putting a big gap as we're waiting for the answer. Well, when was it? It was before he was circumcised. Ta-da! That's the whole point. He was an uncircumcised Gentile when he received the blessing of justification. It was not after, but before, and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith, while he was still uncircumcised. Judaizers, leave town, you're finished because Abraham is the paradigm example of an uncircumcised Gentile, who received all of these blessings simply by faith. So where do we fit in? Well, true Jews, true Jews are of the same faith of Abraham, and so is anyone who is of the same faith as Abraham. We are also considered to be, reckoned to be, sons and daughters of Abraham. "He [Abraham] was an uncircumcised Gentile when he received the blessing of justification. It was not after, but before, and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith, while he was still uncircumcised." Now, the Jews prided themselves in their genealogical descent from Abraham. They were children of Abraham and they talked about it a lot. After the exile to Babylon, when they came back, they were big into genealogies. And you had to prove from your genealogy that you were in the priesthood, you had to prove from your genealogy that you were even a Jew. And if you were of a mongrel race, they didn't want you. They were very zealous about being Jews and the genealogy is very important to them. And so in Jesus' day, when he came, Jesus faced his Jewish enemies who wanted to kill him, they hated him. And Jesus said, "You are doing the things your own father does," meaning the devil. And they said, "Abraham is our father." Hmm. Jesus answered, "If you were Abraham's children, then you would do the things Abraham did." In other words, just because you are genealogically connected to Abraham, doesn't mean you're actually a son or daughter of Abraham. And so Paul makes this exact same point in Romans 2:28-29, "A man is not a Jew, if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward in physical. No, a man is a Jew, if he is one inwardly. And circumcision is circumcision of the heart by the Spirit, not by the law. Such a man's praise does not come from men, but from God." In other words, you want to know who the Jews are? Believers in Jesus. Whether they've been circumcised or uncircumcised is immaterial. It doesn't matter at all. What matters is, do you have the same faith as Abraham? And so he says, "Abraham's the father of all who believe, both Jew and Gentile." Romans 4:11 and 12, "So then Abraham is the father of all who believe, but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them." And listen to this, Romans 4:12, "He is the father of the circumcised, who not only are circumcised, but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had, while he was still uncircumcised." Walking in the footsteps of faith after Abraham, that's how you can know whether you're a child of Abraham or not. Look at our text, look at verse 7, "Understand then, that those who believe are children of Abraham." And again, verse 9, "So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham." III. The Implication: You Can Be a Child of Abraham! This is the incredible implication of our text today. You can be a Jew. You can be a son or daughter of Abraham. Every single person in this room can be a son or daughter of Abraham, Caucasian-Americans and African-Americans alike can be sons and daughters of Abraham. Asian people, European, Latinos can be sons and daughters of Abraham. Men and women, boys and girls can be sons and daughters of Abraham. Wealthy German businessmen can be sons and daughters of Abraham. Frail, elderly women in nursing homes can be daughters of Abraham. Redneck Nazi skinheads, who have spent years shouting anti-Semitic threats, can be converted and become Jews. It's incredible. This is what it's teaching here. Anyone can be a child of Abraham, by faith in Jesus Christ. And what's required, is not obedience to the laws of Moses. What's required is faith in Jesus Christ. Now, many people would just respond with a yawn to that. Can I just deal with that right now? Let's put it this way. It says very plainly in Romans 4:12 that God has made Abraham heir of the world. Can I speak quite plainly to you? If you're not named in his will, you get nothing. If you're not named in Abraham's will, you get nothing. He gets it all. Now, you may think, "That's not fair." Take it up with God. God chose Abraham and chose to save the world through Abraham. And if you are a son or daughter of Abraham, you are heir of the world too, and you'll get a piece of the new heaven, and the new Earth that's coming. By the way, that term "heir of the world" is not found, as far as I can tell, in the Old Testament. He was heir of the Promised Land. It's Romans that says, "Heir of the world." My feeling is, if God gives him that patch of ground and more, he has not violated his promise. He can be generous. If God doesn't give him that patch of ground, He has broken his promise. He's going to give him that plus everything. He is heir of the world. So it is not a yawning matter to be a son or daughter of Abraham. If you're not, you get nothing, but if you are a son or daughter of Abraham, you get everything. You get named in the will, along with Abraham, and so you get the inheritance. You get God as your reward. You get to have him in heaven forever and forever. As he said to Abraham, "I am your shield and your very great reward," and you get to be an heir of the world. Alright, that's positive. IV. Negative Old Testament Proof: Curses from the Law What about the negative proof in the Old Testament? Look at verses 10-14, "All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law.' Now, clearly, no one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous will live by faith. The law is not based on faith. On the contrary, the man who does these things will live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." "He redeemed us," [verse 14] "in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith, we might receive the promise of the Spirit." Now, we've been talking about all the blessings, blessings flowing to us through Abraham. We can get Abraham's blessings. Well, the Old Testament also speaks of curses, blessings and curses. The law is filled with blessings and curses. Yes, there's a bunch of blessings, but there's even a longer section dealing with curses. And to rely on obeying the law, is to live under a curse, according to Paul. In Deuteronomy 28, it lists blessings for complete obedience, but also curses for disobedience. Listen to Deuteronomy 28:15-19, "However, if you do not obey the Lord, your God, and do not carefully follow all His commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you, and overtake you. You'll be cursed in the city and cursed in the country. Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed. The fruit of your womb will be cursed. The crops of your land will be cursed. The calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks will be cursed. You'll be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out. You'll be cursed in the morning and cursed in the evening." All of these things, the flowing of curses come on those who do not perfectly keep the law. But all of those are a pale shadow of the real curse. And the real curse doesn't happen here on Earth. The real curse is reflected for us in Matthew 25:41, When the judge of all the Earth will say to those on his left, the goats, the unbelievers, "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." That's the curse that Paul has in mind here, eternity in hell. Now, the specific curse falls on anyone who fails to obey everything in the law all the time. Look at verse 10, "All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law.' " So here it is, I'll say it in two words. All the law, all the time. Anything short of that, you're condemned to hell. All the law, all the time. It says plainly in James 2:10, "Whoever keeps the whole law, and yet stumbles at just one point, is guilty of breaking all of it." And the law has no provision for covering of sin. All it does is turn on you at that point, accuse you and condemn you. That's all the law can do, it cannot save you. And so as Peter said, It's a yoke, a crushing yoke that neither we, nor our fathers were able to bear. Take a single aspect of it, "You shall not covet.” You shall not set your heart on anything that doesn't belong to you and desire it. Can you keep that law? Can you keep it for a day? Even if you could keep it for a day, it's only part of the law. And could you keep it the rest of your life? And the problem is, you've already broken it, so what are you going to do? By the time you hear about this, you're already a transgressor, you have no hope of salvation by the law, you're under a curse, if you rely on that to save you. The obvious conclusion is justification cannot be by the law. verse 11, "Clearly, no one is justified before God by the law. On the contrary, the righteous will live by faith." Isn't that sweet, how Paul can't stay negative for very long? Curse, curse, curse, it's like, "Oh, just cling to this, the righteous will live by faith. Live by faith." Therefore, we have here, in verses 11 and 12, two ways to live, "The righteous can live by faith," or verse 12, "On the contrary, the man who does these things will live by them." So you have two ways to live, by faith, by grace, by the Spirit, by the blood of Jesus, or by law, by self-effort, self-righteousness, whatever's good in your own sight, two different ways to live. And one of them leads to life, and one of them leads to death. "So you have two ways to live, by faith, by grace, by the Spirit, by the blood of Jesus, or by law, by self-effort, self-righteousness, whatever's good in your own sight, two different ways to live. And one of them leads to life, and one of them leads to death." "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law," [it says], "By becoming a curse for us." What does that mean? He stood in our place, in our place, He became a curse. Notice that word, "He became a curse." What's so significant of that is, just as Christ became a curse, we can become righteous, actually righteous. Jesus was actually cursed for us. How was that? Well, he died on the cross, on a tree. And the Scripture says very plainly, "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." Do you think that Saul of Tarsus was troubled by that verse when he's trying to consider the Messiahship, the Messianic credentials of Jesus? "How could it be? It doesn't make any sense. The Messiah, Son of David, hanging on a Roman cross, his blood shed. How could it be, that this one clearly cursed by God, could be the same one who spoke to me on the road to Damascus?" I picture this, Paul puzzling it through, blinded by that light, waiting for Ananias to come lay hands on him, waiting to get baptized, praying, saying, "God, answer this for me. I don't understand. Jesus was cursed, right?" "Yes." "He was hung on a tree?" "Yes." "He's cursed, and yet, clearly, He is the Son of God, glorious, radiant, resurrected. How?" He became a curse for me. I deserve to die. He took my place. He's a substitute for me. He became a curse, so I am now free. I'm redeemed from the curse of the law, because Christ became a curse for me. V. The Implication: You Can Be Blessed, Not Cursed! And the implication, you also, therefore, as a son or daughter of Abraham, can be blessed and not cursed. Verse 14, "He redeemed us, in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith, we might receive the promise of the Spirit." Now, we're going to talk more about the spiritual life in weeks to come, God willing, but this promise of the Spirit, the very way we began chapter 3, "The Spirit poured out on us, who are sons and daughters, not just of Abraham, but of Almighty God," VI. Application What application can we take from this? Well, a number of things. First and foremost, I want you to look back at the eternality and unity of God's saving plan, and rejoice in it. God didn't throw this saving plan together at the last minute. He's been planning to save you before the world began. Secondly, see the immeasurable value of being a child of Abraham. He is heir of the world, if you are named in his will, you get everything. You get to be an heir of the new heaven and new Earth. Have you been grafted into that Jewish olive tree and are you now receiving life-giving sap through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Thirdly, understand that this blessing only comes to those who have faith like Abraham. Only to those who have faith like Abraham, those are the only true sons and daughters of Abraham. Fourth, understand that this faith is plainly faith in Christ Jesus. Can I make an appeal to you? Trust in Christ. You've come in here today, you're hearing the Gospel, you may never hear it this plainly again. I'm pleading with you, believe in Jesus now, for the forgiveness of your sins. And now, if I can ask all of you, evaluate your lives now. Are you walking in the footsteps of the faith that Abraham had? John Piper uses an illustration here, and I want to close with this illustration, of an orchestra hall, and the music of the symphony is the Glory of God. And everybody here knows that faith is the pre-condition for entering that hall, and enjoying the music, but some people, we fear, look on saving faith like a ticket to enter the orchestra hall, and listen to the music someday, and if you've got that ticket, you've trusted in Jesus, you can stick that ticket in your pocket, and live however you want, and when the time comes, you can hand over that ticket, and enter the orchestra's hall, and listen to the music, which is the Glory of God. That is a faulty view of saving faith. Instead, saving faith is like an ear for the music, that you're given as a gift. It's not a ticket to get in. It's an ear for the music that you start to hear in your life and you start to love that music. And you love the music of the Glory of God, and you start to order your life, so you can hear more and more of it, and someday, you get to hear it completely with clear ears, forever and ever. Are you walking in the footsteps of the faith, that our father Abraham had, the Glory of God, fellowship with God, yearning for the things of God? Rejoice and be glad, if that's true of you, because you also, like Abraham, are an heir of the world. Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for the deep, rich, full truths in Galatians 3:6-14, more than we can fathom in 20 sermons or more. And Father, I thank you that we have become adopted sons and daughters of Abraham, and stand to receive, with Abraham, the inheritance of eternity with God, and citizenship in the New Jerusalem, and a piece of the new heaven, and new Earth. I pray that you would draw to faith any who hear this message, that they would trust and walk in the footsteps of the faith, that our father Abraham had, while he was still uncircumcised. In Jesus' name, Amen.