American Sephardic Youth Movement Founded

A Sephardic rabbi, addressing the founding convention of the American Sephardi Youth Movement, has expressed his concern that Sephardic rabbinic authorities are afraid to pronounce their true Halachic positions for fear that Ashkenazi rabbis will label them heretic.

Rabbi S. Robert Ichay of Atlanta’s Congregation Or Veshalom said that the survival of Judaism depends upon Sephardim remaining Sephardim. According to Ichay, there is no Sephardic Reform movement because Sephardic rabbis were never as severe as their Ashkenazi counterparts.

Some 500 young Sephardim from across the country are meeting here to start the youth movement, a division of the American Sephardi Federation. According to convention chairman Raymond Mallel, the delegates are mapping out the restructuring of Sephardic life in this country in order to give it greater relevance and vitality and will be actively involved in stimulating greater recognition for Israel’s Sephardic majority.

In the opening address, Professor Rene Levi of the University of Washington, warned the gathering that neither the Israeli government nor synagogue groups can be depended upon for Jewish survival in America. Levi was critical of young Jews who will support any cause but their own.

Rabbi Ichay also criticized Israel for not adhering diligently to Jewish law as the law of the land. He noted with satisfaction the election of Likud leader Menachem Begin, who, according to Ichay, is the first Israeli leader to have expressed dependence on God. Ichay called for the establishment of an Israeli Peace Corps which would bring 100,000 young Americans to Israel at any given time.