The Hamsa Flag (Second Edition)

The Hamsa Flag (Second Edition)

by Tom Haviv I first published the Hamsa Flag essay in the inaugural issue of PROTOCOLS in the summer of 2017. Almost two years later, the need for this project, and projects like it, feels even more pressing. On a daily basis, we see our ancestral and cultural...
Mimouna: Sweets and Solidarity

Mimouna: Sweets and Solidarity

This Saturday evening April 27th / 23 Nisan, as Passover comes to an end, the Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) Mizrahi/Sephardi Caucus will host a leftist community Mimouna in Brooklyn, NY. Mimouna is a North African Jewish tradition, in which families...
The Israeli Black Panthers Haggadah

The Israeli Black Panthers Haggadah

Haggadah by Reuven Abergel English translation by Itamar Haritan In 1971, members of the Israeli Black Panthers, a group inspired by the US Black Panther Party and organizing against anti-Mizrahi racism in Israel, created the following Haggadah to share their...
Red Sea: April 2002

Red Sea: April 2002

by Aurora Levins Morales Artwork by Ricardo Levins Morales This Passover, who reclines? Only the dead, their cupped hands filling slowly with the red wine of war. We are not free. The blood on the doorposts does not protect anyone. They say that other country over...
How to make tishpishti

How to make tishpishti

by Danny Bryck 1. Tell everyone that you’re making tishpishti for the Mizrahi/Sephardi Community Seder, ishala. 2. Now you have to make it, because ishala is just a figure of speech in a dying language. 3. Go around to every grocery store in the neighborhood...

I wrote that Rosh Hashanah poem

By Danny Bryck The chill breaks through in earnest It rains The trees hint a few leaves yellowish as if to say, “On the other hand…” My facebook feed fills up with pomegranates My mind makes the same little joke to itself, about what if 5779 could be like 1979...
Black on Black

Black on Black

By Khen Elmaleh First published in Hebrew in Litvin, E.:  The Heart is a Lonely Singer: Mizrachi Music in Israel, exhibition catalogue, 2017, Ashdod Museum of Art, Israel. English Translation by Tom Pessah. Let’s start with some fair disclosure: I did not grow up with...