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A Treasury of Sephardic Laws and Customs

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  • Subtitle:  The Ritual Practices of Syrian, Moroccan, Judeo-Spanish, and Spanish and Portuguese Jews of North America
  • Author:  Rabbi Herbert C. Dobrinsky
  • Publisher:  Yeshiva University Press, 1986 – 520 pp.
  • LOC Permalink:  http://lccn.loc.gov/86005539
  • Availability:  out of print, but used copies are affordable

Review

This book grew out of Rabbi Dobrinsky's doctoral dissertation, which sought to document the particular customs of four groups of non-Ashkenazic Jews who had settled in North America.  During the research for the project in the 1970s, Rabbi Dobrinsky personally interviewed the rabbis, hazanim and other professional and lay leaders of these communities in the New York area, so that the final product is informed by a wealth of inside information in addition to traditional sources.

Each of the sections takes a theme – such as family life, or the observance of holidays – and lists the pertinent customs and ritual practices for that theme for each of the four communities in sequence.  Thus, while only 25% of the total text is about Western Sephardim, readers can develop a much richer sense of how Eastern and Western Sephardic practices compare with one another.  Both the first and second editions contain some factual errors that do not allow the book to serve as the final word in any given instance, but it remains a useful, wide-ranging text that is accessible to English speakers.

Contents

Early childhood
Bar Mizvah
Engagement and marriage
Divorce and halizah
Death, burial, mourning, and memorials
Symbols of the covenant
Dietary laws
Family life
Communal life and Israel
Synagogue practices, prayers, and blessings
Shabbat
Pesah, Lag LaOmer
Yom Haazmaut, Shabuot
Tisha BeAb
    3
  30
  39
  65
  69
113
123
130
143
163
223
253
285
295
Rosh Hodesh
Rosh Hashanah
Yom Kippur
Sukkot, Shemini Hag Haazeret, Simhat Torah
Hanukkah
Tu BiShebat and Shabbat Shira
Purim
Appendices
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Index
Further reading
308
315
333
350
369
376
381
391
409
469
457
499
511
519