All Episodes
Ex: Dedicated in loving memory of Joe Dweck A"H by his children and grandchildren
Ex: Dedicated for the Refuah Shelema of Haim ben Mazal by Sam & Eva Salem and Family
Received
Thank you — your sponsorship inquiry has been sent. Please allow up to 48 hours for someone to contact you regarding payment options. A copy has also been sent to your email.
Thank You
Thank you for submitting your question. The team will receive a copy of it and add it to our list of ongoing potential topics to address in the future. A copy has also been sent to your email.
Our Teachers
Known to many as "Joey Docs," Joseph has spent several decades alongside his father at the family business, Doc's Pharmacy on Kings Highway. But ask around the world of Sephardic scholarship, and he's known by another name entirely: a leading authority on the history, heritage, traditions, and music of the Egyptian and Syrian communities, whose insight is sought after by researchers and historians and whose words have been quoted in numerous books and articles.
That expertise runs deep. A passionate collector of rare and important books of teshubot and siddurim, Joseph has built a particular fascination with how minhagim develop and evolve across Sephardic communities — knowledge he's put to work as a member of the editorial board for several prayer books widely used among Syrian & Egyptian communities in both America and Israel, and through his contributions to the Sephardic Archives, Sephardic Heritage Museum and the Sephardic Heritage Foundation. He is also one of the founding members and secretary of the Historical Society of Jews from Egypt, an organization that has brought international attention to the plight of Jews from Arab countries.
For nearly 20 years, Joseph served as Hazzan at Sephardic Synagogue, and today sits on the Executive Board of Congregation Ahaba Ve Ahva. Teaching, in fact, runs through nearly everything he does — since its inception, he has been a teacher at Minhag of the Week, an initiative of the Sephardic Community Alliance devoted to passing down the community's customs, alongside many other classes available across various online platforms.
Joseph is happily married to his wife Naomi, and together they have four wonderful children and several grandchildren.
Contact Joseph
Mr. Morris Arking has been teaching in the Sephardic community of Brooklyn, NY for over 20 years. He is a student of Hakham Shimon Alouf and he has taught perashah, halakhah and minhagim in community synagogues such as Beth Torah, Bnei Yosef and Ave N. Sephardic Congregation. He has recordings of his daily halakha at Bnei Yosef which can be found on his website, BirkatHaTorah.com.
He is known for his deep appreciation of Syrian minhagim and is often consulted by Rabbis, community members and friends from around the world regarding Syrian minhagim. He has written many articles over the years which eventually will be posted on BirkatHaTorah.com.
Since 2019, he has been recording videos for Minhag of the Week, an initiative by the Sephardic Community Alliance to teach the community about their customs.
He resides in Brooklyn, NY with his wife, children and grandchildren, where he works in business supply sales.
Contact Morris
Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Mr. Joey Harari has always been deeply involved in synagogue life- it's been his passion throughout. In the 1980s he served as president of Ahaba ve Ahva, and in the 1990s he helped build and run Bnei Yitzhak. In 1999, he and his wife Kady made Aliyah to Israel, where he served as Gabbai at the famous Ades Synagogue. After close to 25 years in Jerusalem, he moved to Ra'anana, where he currently serves as president of Aram Soba Ra'anana.
For over twenty years he is teaching at Yeshivat Eretz Hatzvi, and has also taught in the past at Yeshivat Moreshet Yerushalayim. Most recently, he recorded videos on the prayer customs of the Aleppo community as part of the SCA Minhag of the Week series.
Contact JoeyAbout Minhag of the Week
Every community has traditions that define it. Some are written in books, but many are passed from generation to generation- learned by watching parents, grandparents, rabbis and elders. The idea behind Minhag of the Week was simple: preserve the cherished customs of the Sephardic community before they are lost to time. At a Sephardic Community Alliance (SCA) Board Meeting in the spring of 2018, board member Mr. Jesse M. Sutton proposed creating a series dedicated to documenting and teaching our community's minhagim. Throughout that summer, the concept evolved, and by the fall of 2018, the SCA assembled a diverse focus group representing different ages, backgrounds and interests. Their feedback helped shape the format, pacing and content, ensuring the series would be engaging and meaningful to the widest possible audience. On May 30, 2019, Minhag of the Week officially launched.
At the center of the project are three extraordinary community members: Mr. Joseph Mosseri, Mr. Morris Arking and Mr. Joey Harari. Widely respected throughout the community for their passion, scholarship and deep knowledge of our community's minhagim and hazzanut, the three have volunteered their time, completely free of charge since the very first episode. Every week, they dedicate countless hours to researching sources, preparing each presentation and recording new episodes- all motivated by a shared desire to preserve our heritage and pass it on to future generations. Their unwavering commitment has transformed what began as a simple idea into one of the most comprehensive digital collections of authentic Sephardic customs available anywhere.
Although Minhag of the Week was originally created for the Syrian Sephardic community of New York and New Jersey, its impact quickly extended far beyond our local neighborhoods. Today, the series is watched by audiences throughout Israel, Panama, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, England and other Sephardic communities around the world. We regularly receive messages from viewers expressing how meaningful the project has been to them, along with requests to translate episodes into additional languages so even more communities can benefit. It is truly remarkable that families in Brooklyn, students in Jerusalem and communities in Panama City can all be learning the very same minhagim together- strengthening the shared traditions that have united Sephardic Jews across the world for generations.
For several years, Minhag of the Week was distributed primarily through YouTube, Instagram and social media, where it grew to more than 300 episodes and hundreds of thousands of views. In the summer of 2026, we took the next major step by launching MinhagOfTheWeek.com. The website transforms this ever-growing library into a fully searchable resource, featuring complete episode transcriptions, powerful search tools, topic categories and many other resources that make it easier than ever to find exactly what you're looking for. Whether you're researching a specific custom, preparing for a holiday, settling a question from the Shabbat table or simply exploring the rich traditions of Sephardic Judaism, our hope is that Minhag of the Week will continue serving as a trusted resource for generations to come.
Minhag of the Week has always been- and will always remain- a free resource for the community. Every episode, every transcription and every new feature has been made possible through the dedication of volunteers and supporters who believe that preserving our traditions is a responsibility we all share. If Minhag of the Week has enriched your understanding of our heritage or helped strengthen your family's connection to our community's customs, we invite you to partner with us. Your support will help us continue producing new episodes, expanding the website and ensuring that these treasured minhagim remain accessible to Jews around the world for generations to come.