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Rav Ouziel viewed the division of the Jewish people into “Ashkenazim” and “Sephardim” as an historical accident born of the Diaspora and thus “alien to the essence of the Jewish people.”
Since no Jew is essentially Ashkenazi or Sephardi, Rav Ouziel did not ultimately view the Sephardi tradition in ethnic terms. He believed, rather, that the many-sided Sephardi tradition of “Talmudic scholarship, practical Halakhic decision-making, philosophical inquiry, poetic creativity, Torah interpretation and mystical speculation,” constitutes “an intellectual-spiritual framework” that is fitting for “the entire Jewish people.”
Rav Ouziel’s expansive understanding of Jewish unity and the Jewish tradition reflects a classic form of Sephardi Judaism that has practically disappeared from the contemporary Jewish scene.
With a view towards revitalizing Rav Ouziel’s position, essential as it is to promoting the future flourishing of the Jewish people, Sephardi Ideas Monthly proudly presents Rabbi Bouskila’s essay, “To Unite, Not to Divide: Rav Ouziel’s Big Sephardic Ideas.”
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