A chance to learn

A chance to learn

In the summer of 1903 the Spanish Senator Angel Pulido was on a voyage traveling aboard a ship from Belgrade.
He happened to meet several Sefardic Jews who were conversing in Judeo-Spanish. This meeting changed his life.
The senator was amazed to discover from his new acquaintances that hundred of thousands of Jews – scattered throughout Turkey, the Balkans, and North Africa – had maintained a Hispanic language, culture and character for centuries.
They sang medieval Spanish songs, used medieval Spanish proverbs, spoke in archaic pronunciations and used archaic Spanish words. In short, here was a group of people – whose ancestors had been expelled from Spain in 1492 – who continued to live as Spanish Jews. Pulido wrote a book in which he referred to the Sephardim as espanoles sin patria, Spaniards without a country.

Pulido began extensive correspondence with Sefardic intellectuals throughout the diaspora and helped spur interest in Sephardim among his fellow Spaniards. He wanted Spain to reclaim its exiled children. Spanish scholars turned their attention to the study of the Sefardic experience.
To a certain extent the spanish attitude toward Sefardim was characerized by a nationalistic romanticism. Sefardim were seen as long-lost kingsfolk who had been faithful to the land that had cast them out. Feeding this romanticism were some Sefardim who were pleased to have been rediscovered by Spain; they told stories of how Sefardim have shed tears of longing and of love for Spain throughout the generations.
Spaniards and sephardim have shed tears of longing and of love for Spain throughout the generations. Spaniards and Sephardim waxed nostalgic about the Golden Age of Jews in medieval Spain.

During the period when Pulido and his countrymen were enthusiastically reclaiming Sefardim for Spain, my grand-parents were migrating from Turkey and Rhodes to Seattle, Washington. My maternal grandfather told how he and several other Sephardim had gone to an Ashkenazic synagogue in Seattle to connect with the existing Jewish community.
Instead of being welcomed, though, these young men had their Jewishness questioned. After all, their names did not seem Jewish: Angel, Romey, Alhadeff, Policar. They did not speak Yiddish nor had they ever heard of gefilte fish. Even when the Sefardim showed their prayer shawls and tefilim, the doubts were not eliminated. It took a while for Ashkenazim to recognize their Judeo-Spanish-speaking neighbors as coreligionists. In the eyes of Spaniards, the Sefardim were a wonderful people, the remnant of the great Jewish community of medieval Spain.
In the eyes of many Ashkenazim who came into contacts with them for the first time, the Sefardim were strange, exotic, not Jewish in the same ways that Ashkenazim were. Indeed, they were sometimes thought to be turks, Greeks, Italian or Arabs. Both groups did not understand Sefardim for who they really were. The Spaniards romanticized them into a living repository of medieval Spanish culture. The Ashkenazim exoticized them. Both tendencies have persisted in various forms to this day.

When thinking of Sefardim some people tend to imagine idealized elegant aristocrats in the tradition of Judah Halevi, Moses Maimonides, Isaac Abravanel. They see sefardim as noble heirs of medieval Spanish Jewry. On the other hand some think of them as Eastern Jews, as axotic types; they may even have some disdain or cultural bias against them since they lived in backward Muslim lands.
One can understand the confusion. Five hundred years after the expulsion from Spain, sefardim do have Spanish cultural characteristics. At the same time, since they have lived for centuries in the Ottoman Empire, the Middle East and North Africa, they also have cultural characteristics developed in those lands. In short, Sefardim are heirs to medieval Spanish Jewry and they are Turkish and Moroccan Jews as well. To understand them requires and acceptance of both aspects.
The various observances in 1992 reflects the complexity of the Sefardic experience. Understandably, Spain is eager to emphasize the romanticized imagine of the great age of Jews in preexpulsion Spain. Sepharad 92 is sponsoring and coordinating worldwide events and exihitions highlighting the achievements and glories of Spanish Jewry.
The Quincentennial Foundation of Istanbul is doing the same to highlight Sefardic life in the Ottoman Empire after all, it welcomed a large number of exiles in 1492 and maintained its hospitality to Sephardim for the past 500 years. All this beside the many other Jewish organizations devoting programming to learning about Sefardim – there are special conferences, tours, teaching curricula as well as myriad exhibits. This is exciting. Perhaps there is now a chance that many will take the trouble to learn more about the Sefardic experience, to overcome stereotypes and cliches.
Most people have little or no real understanding of Sefardic history and culture; now they will have the stimulus to learn more. They will be able to better understand the nature of Jewish life in Muslim lands; the approaches of Sefardic thinkers to modernity; the Sefardic blend of respect for tradition and individual autonomy. Instead of thinking of Sefardim merely as repositories of folklore, they will come to appreciate their contributions to Jewish spiritual life, philosophy, literature and modern society.

But it must always be remembered that 1492 was a tragic year for the Jewish people. After five centuries the scars from the catastrophe of the expulsion from Spain are still evident. This somber anniversary is certainly no occasion for celebration.
While Spain might prefer to focus on the discoveries of Columbus or on the Golden Age of Sefardic Jewry, the Jewish people should not flinch from calling the world’s attention to the horrors that befel our ancestors in 1492.
Every mass culture explosion has advantages wing, this is to the good. Five hundred years ago, my ancestors were victims of cruel fanaticism.
Abravanel the leading Jewish figure of the period, describes his people:
From the rising of the sun to its setting, from north to south, there was never such a chosen people (as the Jews of Spain) in beauty and pleasantness;
and afterward, there will never be another such people. God was with them, the children of Judea and Jerusalem, many people, a people filled with the blessing of God upright people, revering the Lord. I am the man who saw this people in its glory, in its beauty, in its pleasantness”.

The expulsion radically altered the history of Sefardim – and the rest of the Jewish people. Many were lost by death or forced conversion to Catholicism. The remnant to Israel which left Spain struggled valiantly and heroically to reestablish their communities in the various lands which received them.
The past five centuries have witnessed major transformations in Sefardic life – but through it all the Sefardim are still here to tell their story in this commemorative year it is impossible to forget the unmitigated horrors to which our people were subjected by their oppressors.
But it is equally impossible to forget the dramatic courage and deep faith of the exiles who kept their traditions alive and flourishing during these past five centuries. A few month ago the peace conference between Israel and its Arab enemies was called to order – in Spain.
It is a fitting twist of history that the anniversary of the expulsion is witness to Spain hosting this conference; it is poetic justice that the once persecutor of our people can become an instrument for bringing real peace to the Jewish state.
As American spend this year exploring Columbus’s voyage to the Western Hemisphere and its consequences, Jews are also embarking on a voyage. They will be discovering through lectures, tours, exhibits, videos, books and music neither a quaint cultural anomaly nor a, exotic Jewish species – but the singular historic, literary and philosophical contributions of the Sefardic diaspora.

Marc D. Angel is a rabbi of Congregatiion Shearith Israel,
the historic Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of New York, and president of the rabbinacal Council of America.
His most recent book is “Voices in Exile: a Study in Sephardic Intellectual History” (Ktav).
He also prepared the study guide “Sephardic Voices 1492-1992” for the National Hadassah Jewish Education Department.