"The Group"
:::sigh::: "Sephardic" Jewish refers to the area where they or their ancestors come from. The other main group is Ashkenazic. Neither group is a group of people who go to Aruba, who you are painting with a wide brush. There is a group of Sephardi who are organized by a specific Rabbi who go every year. I have no idea if they are from the same synaguage or not.
Sephardi generally come from Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, and the Spanish speaking areas of Mexico, Central and south America (although some South American Jewish people are decendents of Ashkenazi). Ashkenazi come from Europe (except as above) and eastern Rurope.
I am Ashkenazi. End of history lesson.
Fern
Fern you are the first person on this board who has any idea of what you are talking about when referring to "The Group". Again as others have said trying to identify a group in order to "out" them is not what anyone on this board should be concerned about. Several people on this board are painting a wide brush in a disparaging and sometimes nasty manner and chastising and entire group when this is a very small faction within the sephardic community.
As Fern states and I will enlighten everyone even further Sepahardic jews come from all of the areas that Fern mentioned plus Northern Africa (ie Ethiopia and Morroco) Middle Eastern countries such as Syria, Egypt, or Iran and many spanish speaking countries. As you can see this is a wide and diverse group of people and I for one take offense to outing "sephardic Jews, orthodox jews and jews in general" etc etc as these threads have degenerated to and I am glad that the powers that be at TUG have eliminated most of these threads.
So getting back on point most private Hebrew schools are closed in NY and NJ during January. The week in question always starts on the third Thursday in January and that is why it is usually week 3 but can be week 4 depending on what your check in day is. Check in days at Surf Club start Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday ( I am not sure if they have a Monday Check in day). I own at the Ocean Club and their check in days are Friday-Monday.
As you can see the week that "the group" is there falls within that timeframe every year and although that will almost always coincide with ML King day or NY Regents neither, has anything to do with when the group is there.
Let's be sure we are talking of a small group relative to the entire Sephardic community and they almost all own two Platinum weeks at either the Surf Club or the Ocean club. They are also mostly part of a few extended sephardic families of Syrian origin and come every year. If you don't want to be there in the future it should be pretty easy for everyone to now figure out the dates. Most of my friends are appalled by the behavior that is exhibited by
some within this group of about 200 people but to condemn all who practice a common religion or come from one of the sephardic regions mentioned should not be part of any discussion on this or any other board.
