Fifteen Jewish families in Guatemala City with nowhere else to go came together to build the Shaar Hashamaim Bnei Anousim (Converso) community. Among the community leaders, without whom Shaar Hashamaim may not have come to be, is Juan Alfredo Gutierrez, and his wife, Liza Salguero...
Noach has always seemed one of the most irrelevant of all the Parshiot in the Torah. There are so many parts of it that are difficult to understand much less justify with our contemporary understanding of the world. Even the basic premise that G!d punishes...
The Shaar Hashamaim community of Guatemala, created as a result of a local initiative, united people of different ages and backgrounds who were dedicated to keeping Jewish traditions but didn't belong to the larger groups or communities represented in the country. Today it consists of...
On October 21 of this year the people of Israel suffered the loss of the renowned Torah scholar and the head of the rabbinical court in Bnei Brak, Rabbi Shmaryahu Yosef Nissim Karelitz, who was among the leading halakhic authorities in the Jewish world. Although...
As all Jews all over the world, Shavei Israel's communities in different parts of the world celebrated Sukkot and Simchat Torah, ending the cycle of Jewish holidays of the month of Tishrei. As a final part of our review, we're happy to share some pictures...
No one sent us as many wonderful photos of their Sukkot celebrations as did the many Bnei Anousim communities throughout South America! Local communities from Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Venezuela and other countries that shared their beautiful pictures of their sukkahs, meals and festive celebrations and...
Last week the whole Jewish world in Israel and diaspora celebrated Sukkot - one of shalosh regalim, the three Pilgrimage Festivals, - when it's customary to sit in the sukkah, a temporary hut used during the holiday week for sleeping and having festive meals. Shavei...
Here were are again, Breishit. It’s a beginning, it may be the beginning, but of what? What’s the hardest part of being Jewish? It’s not eating Kosher, it’s not the month of Tishrei, it’s not even the antisemitism. The hardest part is that our days...
The recent innovation in the life of the Belmonte community not only made this Yom Kippur special - it is going to improve the quality of Jewish life for all upcoming Shabbats of this new Jewish year. Now the local Bnei Anousim (descendants of forced...
Today, Bnei Menashe community leaders gathered in Shavei Israel's Jerusalem offices for a special inaugural meeting of the Bnei Menashe Advisory Committee. The committee united more than a dozen men and women from different Bnei Menashe communities all over Israel and was established to exchange...
