Sofie Shefia Stephanie Cohen
Sofie Shefia Stephanie Cohen is a child of the universe, nature, All That Is, born and raised in a large, predominantly Syrian Sefardic community in Brooklyn, New York. Her grandparents came to the United States from Syria, Egypt and Iraq.
She is most at home in New Mexico where she’s lived in Albuquerque for the past almost 50 years, as a facilitator in the healing arts, leaving behind a full scholarship at art school in NYC.
She found Nahalat Shalom in 1986, which felt like another homecoming. After having her adult Bat Mitzvah in 1991, she took her paternal grandmothers Jewish Arabic name and soon after, began lay leading Shabbat services.
It took living in NM for over 30 years before she understood what the word Sefardic meant, and that her ancestors were from Spain, as well as so many in New Mexico with Conversó or Crypto-Jewish roots, hidden for so long.
Subsequently she created a Shabbat evening Sefardic Siddur, adapting prayer songs to Sefardic melodies, and has been lay leading these services at NS in various formats since 2007.
Currently she leads a monthly NS Kabalat Shabbat by zoom, along with Sefardic poetry, facilitated by Hershel Weiss and Hector Contreras, expanding and enriching the Shabbat experience. And zoom has allowed worldwide participation of Sefardic poets and attendees!
In 2014 she made a CD, “First Offering: A Sefardic voice for Healing”, which accompanied a concert she gave at the Society for Crypto-Jewish studies in Dallas, Texas.
Sofie Shefia’s motivation has continually been to uplift, and to facilitate healing.