Iberian Jewish Heritage in Europe

Having already visited several sites associated with Jewish history in the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, South Caucasus, and Europe, I decided to embark on a journey to the Andalusia and Castile regions of Spain to learn more about the heritage of Iberian Jews. Hispania, al-Andalus, and Sefarad were the names given to the Iberian Peninsula by Christians, Muslims, and Jews, respectively. About Iberian Jew Don Isaac Abrabanel, born in Lisbon, Portugal, Professor Jane S. Gerber has written, “In the last months of frantic negotiations to rescue his community, Abrabanel was offered the choice of remaining in Spain, retaining his riches, and gaining further honours—if he converted. He chose instead to lead his people into exile with dignity.

El Transito Synagogue in Toledo Spain. Image Credit: Arunansh B. Goswami.

For centuries thereafter, his far-flung progeny in Turkey, Italy, Holland, Palestine, the American Northwest, and even Poland, from the humblest tailors to world-renowned musicians, have repeated the expression, Basta mi nombre que es Abrabanel (It is enough that I am named Abrabanel).” (Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience, Simon & Schuster, 1994) 

Author of this article in the Jewish Quarter in Toledo Spain. Image Credit: Arunansh B. Goswami.

My last journey to enhance my knowledge about Jewish history was in Poland. What I have observed during my journeys is the phenomenal diversity within the Jewish community and its history of struggle against oppression and expulsion by ruling powers. Jews, like Indians and Armenians, have a large and influential diaspora and, like the latter two, have substantially excelled in commerce. About Maimonides, tradition says: ‘From Moses to Moses, there was no other Moses’ (Mi Moshe ad Moshe lo gam ke – Moshe). After having already visited the alley in the Al Fustat area of Cairo in Egypt where Maimonides lived, I decided to visit the place in Cordoba’s Juderia where it is believed he was born and his statue has been installed. 

Author of this article at the site believed to be the birthplace of Jewish philosopher Maimonides. Image Credits: Arunansh B. Goswami.

After visiting the Plaza Maimonides, I went to see the synagogue in Cordoba and learnt more about Sephardic Jews in the museum located in an old Sephardic Jewish house, “Casa de Sefard,” near it. Jews in Andalusia spoke Judeo-Spanish, a Hispanic language (in its origins) with a very strong basis in 15th-century Castilian (and also on Portuguese, Catalan, and Aragonese). During the Diaspora centuries, this language has been influenced by Hebrew and Arabic mainly, but also by Turkish, Italian, Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, and, finally, French.

Casa de Sefarad in Cordoba. Image Credit: Arunansh B. Goswami.

This language, Judeo-Spanish, never had a linguistically unified set of rules. A monumental record of cultural mixing, unique and exceptional. Sephardic Jews have had their own cuisine too, the classic example of Sephardic cooking is ‘eggs cooked for hours, or overnight, until the yolks are creamy and buttery, and the whites take on a light brown colour (…) They are eaten on the Sabbath, or Shabbat, at births, at deaths; at the end of Yom Kippur, at Pesah, and at all the important moments during the Sephardim’s journey through life.

Juderia in Seville Spain. Image Credit: Arunansh B. Goswami.

The egg in its shell symbolizes procreation and continuity of Jewish life (…) The eggs are cooked in many traditional ways (boiled in a saucepan, slowly baked in the ashes of a dying fire or stewed in the Saturday pot with other ingredients, or on top of the lid) [Reference: RODEN, Claudia – The Book of Jewish Cooking Barcelona, Zendrena Zariquiey, 2004 – (p.95)] Descriptions of the lives of Iberian Jews like Francisco Maldonado Da Silva, Bienvenida Abravanel, Isabel (Rebeca) Correa, Uriel da Costa, Antonio Gomez Enriquez, and Yehudi ibn Sesat can be found in this museum along with several religious and secular artifacts of Jews from Cordoba.

Author of this article in Granada where lived Talmudic scholar Samuel HaNagid. Image Credit: Arunansh B. Goswami.

In order to make the readers aware of the history of Iberian Jews, I am including the description of the lives of two of the aforementioned Jews in this article, Francisco Maldonado Da Silva and Isabel (Rebeca) Correa. According to the information provided in the “Casa de Sefard,” the former was born in Tucuman (Argentina). He was the son of a Sephardic Judeo-convert doctor. The Inquisition executed his father and brother. He departed to Lima (Peru) and then to Concepcion (Chile), becoming the first doctor in the city. Francisco discovered his Jewish origin at the age of 18 (something that his father had always concealed from him). He was a strong advocate of freedom of conscience.

Granada Spain. Image Credit: Arunansh B. Goswami.

He never hid his Jewish identity, and because of that, the Inquisition incarcerated him in Lima. Francisco admitted proudly observing Shabat and all the Jewish precepts (this son of a heretic, and a heretic himself, wore a clean white shirt every Saturday’). He was burnt alive during an auto-da-fé celebrated in Lima on 23 January 1639. His figure gave origin to two historical novels: Camisa blanca, by the Chilean author Guillermo Blanco (1989) and La gesta del marrano, by the Argentinian author Marcos Aguinis (1991).

Author of this article in the El Transito Synagogue in Toledo Spain. Image Credit: Arunansh B. Goswami.

Isabel (Rebeca) Correa was born in Lisbon (Portugal). Her Judeo-convert family had left Castile, moving to Portugal. As she was young, she lived in Madrid and married to the Judeo-convert soldier, Nicolas de Oliver y Fullana. They moved to Brussels, then to Antwerp and Amsterdam, where they began to use the names of Rebeca Correa and Daniel Juda. Fully integrated in the Jewish community, she became a famous poet and translator (she had a good command of Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, Latin, and Ancient Greek). In Amsterdam, she was completely integrated into the renowned Academia de los Sitibundos (‘Academy of the Thirsty Ones’), created by another Sephardic Jew in Diaspora, Miguel Daniel Levi de Barrios. In 1693, she published her translation of the work The Faithful Shepherd by the Italian writer Giovanni Battista Guarini. In fact, it was more a whole new literary recreation than a translation. Isabel Rebeca was one of the main authors of the 17th century in Europe.

Author of this article in the Juderia in Seville. Image Credit: Arunansh B. Goswami.

Apart from Cordoba I also visited Iberian Jewish sites in Granada, Seville, Toledo, and Amsterdam in far of Netherlands. In Granada the last Moorish Muslim Emirate in Iberia lived Samuel HaNagid he was a Talmudic scholar, grammarian, philologist, poet, warrior, and statesman who for two decades was the power behind the throne of the caliphate of Granada, according to Jacob Radner Marcus, in his book The Jew in the Medieval World: A Sourcebook, 315-1791 “One of the most famous of the Jewish notables of Moslem Spain was Samuel Ha­Levi, who is also known as Samuel Ha­Nagid. Beginning life as a shopkeeper, Samuel Ha­Levi ultimately became the chief minister at the court of Granada.

Author of this article in the Mosque-Cathedral in Cordoba. Image Credit: Arunansh B. Goswami.

By virtue of this office he became the political head of the Jews in Granada and probably thus received the title Nagid (“Prince”), his name becoming Samuel Ha­Nagid. He served his community as rabbi and did a great deal to further Jewish learning throughout the world.” Toledo in medieval times, was a foremost center of Jewish life and scholarship. Rabbi Moses Ibn Ezra, Rabbi Asher ben Yehiel (the Rosh), and his son, Rabbi Jacob ben Asher, were only three of the many great sages who flourished there. A century before the Expulsion, however, the persecutions of 1391 had virtually destroyed this kehillah according to Rabbi Israel Goldstein, here are located Synagogues El Trasito and Santa Maria La Blanca.

Author of this article standing in front of Huis de Pinto in Amsterdam. Image Credit: Arunansh B. Goswami.

In Amsterdam is located the Portuguese Synagogue and Huis de Pinto; the latter was a former city mansion inhabited by the leading Amsterdam family dynasty of Portuguese-Jewish merchant bankers, which I visited during my journey. In Toledo I visited the 14th-century El Transito synagogue; Hebrew prayers, in marble and gold, are intricately carved on the synagogue’s walls, and Moorish designs representing the mix of Jewish and Arab traditions that coexisted in Spain during the Middle Ages can be seen in this synagogue. According to Jane S. Gerber “After 1492, centuries of wandering muted the separate identity of Spain’s Jewish offspring still further.

Church of Santa Maria La Blanca that used to be a Synagogue in Seville. Image Credit: Arunansh B. Goswami.

The exiles of Jerusalem who were in Sepharad became the exiles of Sepharad in Djerba and Gibraltar, Belgrade and Valona, Cairo and Alexandria, Casablanca and Meknes. Neither the paths of their dispersion nor the process of cultural amalgamation have been predictable or easily comprehended. Especially today, the postwar Jewish world has witnessed remarkable, unpresaged change. Perhaps most extraordinary has been the return of Sephardic and Middle Eastern Jews to the land of Israel. Although that nation is most often associated with its socialist pioneers who came from eastern Europe, a large number of its contemporary leaders, artists, and builders are drawn from the Sephardic masses arriving after 1948.”

Author of this article with Alhambra in the background. Image Credit: Arunansh B. Goswami.

Even though most Iberian Jews have left Spain and Portugal, still visitors to Andalusia and Castile can visit the built heritage left behind by them and read about their painful past. Jews, whether Sephardic, Ashkenazi, or others, have a history of being persecuted; hence it is especially important for them to support other communities who are facing persecution and expulsion from their homelands, like the Armenian also it is important for them to preserve Jewish heritage in different parts of the world where once lived thriving Jewish communities.