Sepharadi Jews, also known as Sephardic Jews or Sepharadim, and sometimes referred to by modern scholars as Hispanic Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population who coalesced in the Iberian Peninsula. The term Sepharadim, derived from Hebrew Sefarad, also refers to the Mizrahi Jews of Western Asia and North Africa. Although the millennia-long established latter groups do not have ancestry from the Jewish communities of Iberia, the majority of them were influenced by the Sephardi style of liturgy, law, and customs from the influence of the Andalusian schools and Maimonides; many Iberian Jewish exiles later sought refuge in those pre-existing Jewish communities over the course of the last few centuries, resulting in their integration with those communities.
Sephardic music is an umbrella term used to refer to the music of the Sephardic Jewish community. Sephardic Jews have a diverse repertoire the origins of which center primarily around the Mediterranean basin. In the secular tradition, material is usually sung in dialects of Judeo-Spanish, though other languages including Hebrew, Turkish, Greek, and other local languages of the Sephardic diaspora are widely used. Sephardim maintain geographically unique liturgical and para-liturgical traditions.
Roberto Carlos Braga is a Brazilian singer-songwriter, also known as King of Latin Music or simply The King.
Daniela Mercury is a Brazilian singer, songwriter, dancer, producer, actress and television host. In her solo career, Mercury has sold over 20 million records worldwide and had 24 Top 10 singles in the country, with 14 of them reached No. 1. Winner of a Latin Grammy for her album Balé Mulato – Ao Vivo, she also received six Brazilian Music Award, an APCA award, three Multishow Brazilian Music Awards and two awards at VMB: Best Music Video and Photography.
Spanish and Portuguese Jews, also called Western Sephardim, Iberian Jews, or Peninsular Jews, are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardic Jews who are largely descended from Jews who lived as New Christians in the Iberian Peninsula during the immediate generations following the forced expulsion of unconverted Jews from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1497.
Ignez Magdalena Aranha de Lima Barroso was a Brazilian sertanejo singer, guitarist, actress, TV presenter, librarian, folklorist and teacher.
Elizabeth Santos Leal de Carvalho, known professionally as Beth Carvalho, was a Brazilian samba singer, guitarist, cavaquinist and composer.
The history of the Jews in Brazil begins during the settlement of Europeans in the new world. Although only baptized Christians were subject to the Inquisition, Jews started settling in Brazil when the Inquisition reached Portugal, in the 16th century. They arrived in Brazil during the period of Dutch rule, setting up in Recife the first synagogue in the Americas, the Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue, as early as 1636. Most of those Jews were Sephardic Jews who had fled the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal to the religious freedom of the Netherlands.
Sephardic Jewish cuisine is an assortment of cooking traditions that developed among the Sephardi Jews.
Badi Assad is a Brazilian singer, composer and guitarist in the jazz and worldbeat genres.
Fafá de Belém, born Maria de Fátima Palha de Figueiredo in Belém do Pará on August 9, 1956, is a Brazilian singer considered one of the great female singers of MPB. She took her stage name from the city of her birth and in addition to a successful recording career that spans over three decades, it is fair to say that she has been one of the great sex symbols of Brazilian pop music. Her husky mezzo-soprano voice is known for its extensive emotional range, from tender ballads, to sensual love songs, to Portuguese fados all the way to energetic sambas and lambadas.
Bezerra is a Portuguese surname of Hebrew ancestry, popular among the Sephardi Jewish settlers in Northern Portugal. The name translates to 'heifer'. The first members of this family have origins in Ponte de Lima, the oldest Portuguese village, and can be traced back to the century XII.
Adio Kerida: Goodbye my Dear Love is a 2002 documentary by American anthropologist Ruth Behar that follows her trip to Cuba, which her family left when she was four. She searches for memories from her past and investigates the dwindling Sephardic Jewish community that remains, estimated at less than 800 in 2011.
The Quaternaglia Guitar Quartet (QGQ) is a classical guitar ensemble from São Paulo, Brazil, founded in 1992. The Quartet has become a reference both for its artistic excellence and for its contributions to the expansion of the guitar quartet repertoire. Quaternaglia has developed a canon of original pieces and arrangements with the collaboration of a variety of composers such as Egberto Gismonti, Leo Brouwer, Javier Farías, Sérgio Molina, Almeida Prado, Sergio Assad, João Luiz, Paulo Bellinati and Marco Pereira Quaternaglia’s current members are Sidney Molina, Thiago Abdalla, Fabio Ramazzina and Chrystian Dozza.
Hebe Maria Monteiro de Camargo Ravagnani was a Brazilian television host, singer and actress. She is considered the "Queen of Brazilian Television". She died at her home on 29 September 2012. Her net worth was over US$360 million.
Mônica Salmaso is a música popular brasileira (MPB) singer.
Ruth Machado Lousada Rocha, most known as Ruth Rocha is a Brazilian writer of children's books. Together with Lygia Bojunga, Ana Maria Machado and Eva Furnari she is one of the leading exponents of the new wave of Brazilian children's literature. Rocha graduated in Political Sociology at the University of São Paulo and postgraduated in Educational Orientation in the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo. She became a member of the Paulista Academy of Arts since October 25, 2007, occupying the chair 38.
Sephardic Bnei Anusim is a modern term which is used to define the contemporary Christian descendants of an estimated quarter of a million 15th-century Sephardi Jews who were coerced or forced to convert to Catholicism during the 14th and 15th century in Spain and Portugal. The vast majority of conversos remained in Spain and Portugal, and their descendants, who number in the millions, live in both of these countries. The small minority of conversos who did emigrate normally chose to emigrate to destinations where Sephardic communities already existed, particularly to the Ottoman Empire and North Africa, but also to more tolerant cities in Europe, where many of them immediately reverted to Judaism. Although a few of them traveled to Latin America with colonial expeditions, doing so was particularly difficult, since only those Spaniards who could certify that they had no recent Muslim or Jewish ancestry were allowed to travel to the New World. But the constant flow of Spanish emigration to Latin America until well into the 20th century resulted in many Latin Americans having Converso ancestry, in the same way that many modern Spaniards do.
Maria Ruth dos Santos Escobar, known professionally as Ruth Escobar was a Portuguese-born Brazilian film and television actress, businesswoman, and politician. A prominent icon in Brazilian theater, Escobar was one of the country's leading cultural producers and activists for the arts.
Judith Rita Cohen is a Canadian ethnomusicologist, music educator, and performer. Her research interests include Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) songs; medieval and traditional music from the Balkans, Portugal, French Canada, and Yiddish; pan-European balladry; and songs from Crypto-Jewish regions in Portugal. She has received numerous research and travel grants to do fieldwork in Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Israel, Turkey, Greece, France, Belgium, Canada, and the United States, and has published many journal articles, papers, and book chapters. She plays a variety of medieval musical instruments, and sings and performs as part of her lectures and in concerts and solo recitals. She is also the editor of the Alan Lomax Spanish collection maintained by the Association for Cultural Equity.
