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Statement of purpose - the meaning of being Sephardim.
Dr Albert de Vidas
There has been for many years now, an attempt by the specialists and by the public at large, to dilute the term Sephardim and give it the all inclusive meaning of anyone that is not Ashkenazim.
Such a generalist approach is based on a religious connotation; the talmudic Jews are divided between what is commonly called a Sephardic rite and an Ashkenazic rite. The Sephardic rite is really the original Jewish traditional rite, and was only called Sephardic by the Ashkenazim, in order to differentiate it from their own way of interpreting Judaism.
The purist approach to the Sephardim is based on an historical and cultural premise. One can ask what the Arabic speaking Jews of Yemen, or the Berber speaking Jews of the Atlas mountains, or the Farsi speaking Jews of Iran, or the Jews of Southern India, or the Amharic speaking Jews of Ethiopia, etc. etc..., have in common with our Hispanic culture and civilization? How can they relate to our history, before and after the expulsion?
True, they follow our religions rite, unlike the Ashkenazim; but that does not make them Sephardim. It make them Jewish, of whatever culture they come from, whether we call it Oriental, Afro-Asian, or qualify it with the «original geographical name of their place of birth. It is in this diversity of our Jewish cultural and historical past and present that all Jewish groups can really thrive and develop. And as for us, the Sephardim, in the purist sense of the term, we cannot afford to dilute our heritage, for political or religious reasons, as is commonly done by certain scholars today. We kept our Spanish heritage alive for 500 years after the expulsion, often in difficult circumstances and against all odds. We also kept our Jewish religion alive, preferring to leave Spain rather than compromise our beliefs. Both our culture and our religion are linked in a symbiotic relationship that cannot, and should not be undermined by the generalists trying to dilute the essence of our heritage. We welcome all Jews that would like to follow our religions rite; but that does not mean that we should compromise our history, our culture, our heritage and our language by diluting the meaning of Sephardim. Being a Sephardim is a state of mind; you feel it in your bones. It comes with your birth, with your heritage, with the stories handed down through the generations and told in Ladino.
Nobody else can feel that way, and nobody can rob us of this feeling.
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