Last month, JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa, released a groundbreaking study, Sephardic & Mizrahi Jews in the United States: Identities, Experiences, and Communities. We were taken with the depth and breadth of this work and wanted to get some insight into the organization and the effort to make this report a reality. We interviewed JIMENA’s executive director, Sarah Levin, for some insight.
Berman Archive: You’re the founding executive director of JIMENA. Could you tell us a bit about the organization—how it started and why its work and voice are needed today?
Sarah Levin: JIMENA was founded in 2002, in the months following the September 11th terror attacks, by former Jewish refugees from Egypt and Libya as a grassroots storytelling initiative. For many years, JIMENA functioned solely as a volunteer speakers bureau, with former Jewish refugees sharing their personal stories with high school and college students across the United States.
In 2008, our Libyan-born co-founder Gina Bublil-Waldman became the first person to testify on behalf of Jewish refugees from North Africa and the Middle East before the UN Human Rights Council. Soon after JIMENA received its 501c3 status and became an independent nonprofit organization. I joined as the first executive director and have since worked to grow and expand the organization’s scope and impact.
Public understanding of the Middle East, and often Jewish understanding as well, remains overly flat and simplistic. There is very limited awareness of the diverse and nuanced experiences of Indigenous minority communities from the region. JIMENA exists to fill this critical gap. One cannot fully understand Israel, the broader Middle East, or the Jewish people without acknowledging the heritage and contemporary histories of Jews from the region.
JIMENA recently released a groundbreaking study, Sephardic & Mizrahi Jews in the United States: Identities, Experiences, and Communities. How has it been received?
The responses to the study have been overwhelmingly positive, and we are eager to see how the findings and recommendations are adopted across the field of Jewish communal life. There is significant interest in the data and broad appreciation for the contribution it makes. Several Sephardic communities, for example, the Turkish community in Seattle, have expressed interest in developing their own qualitative portraits to be included in future iterations of this project. It is important to emphasize that all Sephardic Jewish Americans are represented in the demographic report and included in the quantitative component of the research.
Our goal is for Sephardic inclusion to be understood not as an obligation to remedy exclusion, but as a recognition of the tremendous cultural strengths and contributions Sephardic Jews bring to the broader Jewish community.
The release of the report was really unusual; instead of a single, mammoth project, you released a number of smaller, more focused reports. How did you decide to share the research in this way?
The body of research produced is extensive. While a comprehensive report that incorporates all of the findings is available, we chose to release a series of smaller, more focused reports to ensure the material would be more accessible and digestible for readers. We want people to easily access the components of the research that they are most interested in.
What are the concrete changes you hope this research will effect?
From the outset, we stressed the importance of including concrete, actionable recommendations in the study developed by the researchers together with Sephardic practitioners. Research only has real impact when it sparks changes in thinking, attitudes, behaviors, programs, and policies across the community.
The recommendations are designed not only to provide practical steps that Jewish institutions can adopt, but also to encourage a paradigm shift in how Jewish diversity and inclusion are approached. Our goal is for Sephardic inclusion to be understood not as an obligation to remedy exclusion, but as a recognition of the tremendous cultural strengths and contributions Sephardic Jews bring to the broader Jewish community. In this sense, the recommendations should be seen as an opportunity to enrich and strengthen Jewish communal life, rather than as a corrective measure.
Were there any findings that really surprised you?
There are several data points that warrant close attention and I think are very surprising for many individuals. For example, 27% of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews are economically vulnerable, a reality that cannot be overlooked. I was also struck by the fact that Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews tend to be significantly younger than Ashkenazi Jews, which presents an incredible opportunity for engagement and leadership development across the Jewish community.
What new questions emerged for you?
The key questions that emerged for me are less about the research reports and more about how, and to what extent, the findings and recommendations will be integrated into future Jewish scholarship, demographic studies, and communal initiatives. The real measure of success will be whether this work informs Jewish education, social services, advocacy, and broader community planning.
At the same time, the study’s four qualitative portraits only begin to scratch the surface. There is tremendous value in expanding this approach to include additional populations such as college-age Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews and Israeli-American Sephardic Jews. Developing these portraits would not only deepen our understanding of intra-Sephardic diversity but also provide actionable insights for institutions seeking to engage and support these communities. This presents a clear opportunity for further research.
What do you wish Ashkenazi Jews knew about Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in the US?
It is difficult to answer this question because there is so much to say. My hope is that Ashkenazi Jews can internalize some of the more recent history of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in North Africa and the Middle East, particularly the experiences of ethnic cleansing, financial dispossession, and exile that so many endured, however uncomfortable and unpleasant this history makes us feel. Without an understanding of this history, it is hard to fully grasp what some of the current data in the study reflects and to honor the lived experiences of many Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in our communities whose personal histories have long been dismissed and ignored.
Beyond that history, I also hope Ashkenazi Jews can learn from Sephardic hashkafot, or worldviews, which I believe offer a powerful blueprint for American Jews navigating the current moment. The Sephardic emphasis on communal harmony, the balance between universalism and particularism, and cultural confidence are elements of Sephardic philosophy and experience that could greatly strengthen and enrich Jewish communal life today.
Sephardi Jews have a very long history in the US. What is an item from any archive that speaks to the experience of Sephardi Jews? Mizrahi Jews?
There are many archives and historical collections that can help us better understand the experiences of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, and the most relevant sources depend on a person’s specific interests and their motivation for accessing archives. For the average American seeking to learn about Sephardic and Mizrahi contemporary history, the JDC Archives are particularly accessible and contain a wealth of useful documents. In addition, my colleague Ty Alhadeff has done tremendous work developing the Sephardic archives at the University of Washington in Seattle, which provide a rich account of the city’s Turkish Sephardic community.
Sarah Levin is the executive director of JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa. She leads national advocacy, education, and community engagement initiatives to advance recognition of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jewish heritage and rights. She is based in San Francisco, CA.
