Sephardim: characteristics and history of this group of Jews

Castile and Aragon had very large Jewish communities, until in 1492, under the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, a violent religious cleansing was carried out, expelling all those who believed in Yahweh.

These Jews were wandering through various countries in Europe, Africa and Asia, without forgetting where they came from, conserving medieval Castilian as a vehicle of communication and yearning for the Iberian Peninsula, its Sepharad.

These are the Sephardim, a Hebrew people that continues to exist today, with an extensive diaspora throughout the world. and of which we are going to speak next, seeing its history, language and culture.

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Who are the Sephardim?

The Sephardim, also called Sephardim, Sephardim or Sephardim (from Hebrew ספרדים, "Sefaraddim", literally 'the Jews of Sepharad') They are the descendants of the Jews who lived in the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon until their expulsion in 1492 by the Catholic Monarchs

. The word "Sephardic" comes from "Sefarad", a biblical term with which the Hebrews referred to the Iberian Peninsula.

Although today the Sephardim live in many countries, especially France, Argentina, the United States, Canada and, above all, in Israel, they do not forget their Spanish past, having applied to receive Spanish nationality as compensation for centuries of religious persecution lived. This Sephardic diaspora has at least two million members, being able to be found, in addition to the mentioned countries, in many Latin American countries, North Africa and Turkey.

When they lived in the Iberian Peninsula this town developed important and prosperous communities in most of the cities of the Crown of Castilla, highlighting communities such as Ávila, Burgos, León, Segovia, Soria, Tudela, Toledo, Vitoria, Córdoba, Granada, Jaén, Málaga and Calahorra. There were also in the Crown of Aragon, finding communities or "calls" in cities such as Girona, Barcelona, ​​Tarragona, Palma, Valencia and Zaragoza, and in Portugal, in cities like Lisbon, Évora and Beja and an important community in the region of Trás-os-Montes.

History of this group of Jews

Although we cannot consider them Sephardic, There is evidence of a Jewish presence in the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands in Classical Antiquity, given that archaeological remains of Semitic trousseau have been found in Ibiza and various corners of Iberia. Although it could be remains imported by the Punics, it could be a very primitive Hebrew community in Spain.

Visigoths and Al-Andalus

The Jewish community, not yet properly speaking Sephardic, grew over the centuries. After the fall of Rome and the creation of Christian kingdoms throughout Europe, the Visigothic kingdom was founded in Iberia, which ended up adopting Catholicism as its faith during the reign of Recaredo (587 AD). c.). It is at this time that the first great persecution, isolation and rejection of the Jews in the peninsula occurred, who had formed the first Jewish quarters and aljamas in Spanish territory.

Given the difficult conditions in which the Jews found themselves during the Visigothic kingdom of Toledo, When this state collapsed before the Muslim invasion, the Hebrews saw the new rulers as a liberating force.. Jews and Muslims had good relations at the time, as their two religions were considered worthy of of the same conditions when dealing with the foundation of their doctrines books, the Talmud and the Koran respectively.

From the year 711 the Jewish quarters are increasing throughout the peninsula. The victory of the Muslim conqueror Táriq ibn Ziyad translates into an improvement in the living conditions of the Jews, since there is a better environment for coexistence in the Iberian Peninsula. Muslims tolerate the presence of these people, as long as they pay the dhimmi, a tax imposed on Jews and Christians so that they could continue living in Muslim territories.

During the centuries of Andalusian splendor, the Iberian Jewish community was the largest, most organized and culturally advanced. Many Jews from other parts of Europe and Arab territories moved to Al-Andalus, integrating into the existing community and greatly enriching it. these jews learned the Arabic language and held government posts or engaged in business and financial activities.

One of the reasons why they were so well received and adapted so well in Muslim territories was the fact that they were engaged in professions that dealt with economic aspects. In Islam it was forbidden to engage in financial activities, while among Christians these were considered impious. So the Jews, who had no qualms about dedicating themselves to them, occupied this sector acting as treasurers, tax collectors, lenders and money changers, eventually amassing fortunes.

Despite the relative tolerance of the Islamic culture of the time, the Jews were not spared from various ethnic cleansing, perpetrated both by the muladí population and by the Arab rulers. Several were carried out during the Almoravid domination and, above all, during the Almohad. Among the great massacres, the Granada Massacre of 1066 stands out. This caused the flight of numerous Jewish families towards newly conquered Christian territories, mainly the Kingdom of Toledo.

The expulsion of the Jews

In 1492 the Catholic Monarchs promulgated the expulsion of the Jews in the crowns of Castile and Aragon. The exiles settled in nearby Navarre, still semi-independent, and Portugal.

However, this tendency to carry out a religious cleansing spread to the rest of the Iberian kingdoms, causing the Sephardim to go to North Africa and the Italian States. An important community moved to the north of Europe, going to England and Flanders.

However, those who suffered the best luck were those who settled in Ottoman lands, such as the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans.Sultan Bayezid II gave orders that the Sephardim be treated well. This Ottoman leader exclaimed that the Jews were a great source of cultural and economic wealth, and that he could not understand how Ferdinand II of Aragon could be considered a good king making his kingdoms poorer countries.

It is really at this time that the Iberian Jews began to be known as Sephardim, since in their exile they saw Spain as their motherland, the one they longed for and wanted to return to. As Sepharad is originally understood in the Bible as a distant land, the Jews began to use this word to refer to Spain.. They preserved many traditions typical of the Iberian Peninsula, they used medieval Castilian as a vehicle of communication and they remembered their cities of birth.

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Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire

In the Ottoman Empire the Sephardim formed four very large communities, larger than those that had been formed in Spain.: Thessaloniki, Istanbul, Izmir and Safed. Even so, there was a significant population in all the important cities of the Empire, founding communities in Sarajevo, Belgrade, Sofia, Bucharest, Alexandria, Tekirdağ and Bursa.

Very rarely did they mix with the autochthonous population, since they had a higher cultural level than the inhabitants of their new cities of residence. This meant that they kept their culture, traditions and languages ​​practically intact, with very few influences from local cultures. For almost five centuries they continued to speak Judeo-Spanish. This trend was not followed by the Sephardim who went to Holland and England.

His financial skills enabled many to achieve high standards of living and even retain privileged status in the Ottoman courts.. Some of the wealthiest Sephardic families in Istanbul financed the campaigns of the Ottoman army, and many of the members of that city's Jewry gained privileged positions as high-ranking officials range.

There are hundreds of Jewish neighborhoods built by the Sephardim during their stay in the Ottoman Empire. Only in the city of Thessaloniki, present-day Greece, they built all kinds of communities and synagogues that they baptized with names that reminded them of their life in the Crowns of Castile and Aragon and in the Kingdom from Portugal: Kal de Kastiya, Kal Aragon, Otranto, Palma, Siçilia, Kasseres, Kuriat, Albukerk, Evora and kal.

20th century: World Wars and Holocaust

Some 400 years have passed since the Jews were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula, the main country of reception for this people, the Ottoman Empire begins to collapse to make way for nation states like Greece. When the empire was defeated in the First World War, Greece achieved independence and gradually recovered territories historically attributed to the Hellenic country.

The Greek nationalist movement, like any other, had marked overtones of ethnic purity. This ideology ended up developing a strong anti-Semitic movement in the city of Thessaloniki, seeing the Sephardim as polluters of the civilized and prestigious Greek identity. Thus, the Sephardim relived the traumatic memory of seeing how the land in which they lived became a hostile land for their identity.

So these Sephardim they fled to France, due to the French influence exerted by the Universal Israelite Alliance on the educated Sephardim, while others went to the United States. Many of these Jews did not have any nationality, as at birth they were registered as citizens of the Ottoman Empire, a state that ceased to exist in 1923. In some cases, Greece granted passports and guarantees to the Sephardim as citizens of the kingdom, even though they were not closely linked to their new “homeland”.

In Istanbul and Izmir the Jewish quarters did not undergo great changes because when the Ottoman Empire passed to the Republic of Turkey all citizens, whether Muslim, Christian or Jewish, were Turkish citizens protected. The state became secularized, repealing the dhimmi tax on non-Muslim subjects that the caliphate had imposed in previous centuries. The Jews were safe during almost the entire 20th century and it was only when the State of Israel was founded that it began to suffer a gradual disintegration..

After the Second World War, the Sephardic community suffered a dramatic decline. The holocaust is primed with the Jews; the extermination policies implemented by Nazi Germany and its occupied countries make the Sephardic culture almost disappear. Many died, and those who were able to flee ended up mostly in Latin America, especially Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, Paraguay or Chile.

After the end of the conflict and having founded the State of Israel, the Sephardim did not lose hope. The creation of this country implied the founding of a state in which being a Jew was not a crime, in which you could speak Hebrew freely and that you could call your home. For this reason, a large group of Sephardim ended up in this state, seeing that, although it was not Spain, at least it was a safe place. The creation of this state was not without controversy, since giving those lands to the Jews implied taking them away from those who already lived there, the Palestinians.

Sephardim today

Currently, the Sephardic community resides mostly in the State of Israel, with a notable presence in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem.. They have their own representation in the Knesset (Israeli parliament) and even a rabbi who acts as a leader among the Sephardim, Yitzhak Yosef (since 2013). The Shas Sephardic religious party is one of the main political forces in the State of Israel.

Relations between Spain and the Sephardic community have been strengthening, in an attempt to amend the persecutions that they experienced during the 15th century. Since 1982, Spain has established the recognition of the nationality of the Sephardim, as long as they demonstrate that they have a clear link with the country.

Sephardim, Ashkenazi and Mizrahim

During the 19th century, the term "Sephardic" was used to designate all Jews who were not of Ashkenazi origin. (of German, Central European or Russian origin). Thus, in this classification not only the descendants of the Jews of the Peninsula were included Iberian, but also included those of Arab origin, from Persia, Georgia, Armenia, Yemen and even India.

These non-Iberian Jews had little in common with true Sephardim, beyond pronouncing Hebrew similarly and having some rites very different from Ashkenazi Jews.

However, once the State of Israel was founded, it was decided to create a new classification to refer to Jews who did not come from the Iberian Peninsula or Central and Slavic Europe, calling them "mizrahim". In this way, the term "Sephardic" referred only to the human group formerly linked to the Iberian Peninsula, with a language that is mostly Judeo-Spanish and with racial traits typical of Europe Mediterranean.

The Judeo-Spanish

The language of the Sephardim is Judeo-Spanish, also called Ladino or Djudezmo. (his autoglottonym ג'ודיאו-איספאניול transcribed as “djudeo-spanyol”). This language is a mixture between medieval Castilian, which the Jews spoke when they were expelled from Spain, and terms from from Hebrew, although it is also possible to have a wide vocabulary from other languages: Arabic, Turkish, Greek, Italian and French. This is because, after their expulsion, the Sephardim ended up in many countries and became impregnated with their cultures.

Although it is recognized as a separate language from Spanish, this classification is somewhat controversial. In essence, it is medieval Castilian written more or less phonetically, and can be used to represent it. both the Latin alphabet and the alphabet, that is, the alphabet proper to the Hebrew language, and Cyrillic (alphabet Slavic). Some consider it a dialect of modern Spanish and, in fact, the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language has a section dedicated to its study and promotion.

Currently, this language contains a fairly small community, something that is not surprising considering into account what has been the history of the Jews in general and the Sephardim in particular during the century xx. Despite the fact that there have been publications written in this language for several decades, both in Latin alphabet and in alphabet, the body that regulates it, the Nasionala Academy of Ladino in Israel, has only been in existence for two years, having been founded in 2018.

Despite the fact that a large number of Judeo-Spanish speakers were lost during the Holocaust, today some continue to survive, striving to ensure that this language is not lost. The Sephardic diaspora, both in Israel and in the rest of the world, promotes scientific and cultural activities in this language. There are publications in this language such as "Aki Yerushalayim" fully printed in Judeo-Spanish, which contains articles of interest to the Sephardic community. In Spain there is a magazine with a similar trend, "Sefarad", published by the Benito Arias Montano Institute.

Next we will see a few examples of this language, Judeo-Spanish.

• "The friend who doesn't help and the kuçiyo who doesn't cut, that they get stoned doesn't matter much" (the friend who doesn't help and the knife that doesn't cut, that they get lost doesn't matter much E.
• "Whoever eats and sweats does not have a kalyentura" (whoever eats and sweats does not have a fever)
• "The fish is in the sea and they have already made a bazaar" (the fish is in the sea and they have already made a bazaar)
• "Fyero ke gives the glass, cool glass! Glass that hits the glass, cool glass!" (Iron that hits glass, woe to glass! Glass that strikes iron, woe to glass!)

Bibliographic references:

• Ashtor, Eliyahu (1979) The Jews of Moslem Spain, Vol. 2, Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America.
• Assis, Yom Tov (1988) The Jews of Spain: From Settlement to Expulsion, Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem| The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Baer, ​​Yitzhak (1966). A History of the Jews of Christian Spain. 2 vols. Jewish Publication Society of America.
• Bowers, W. Q. (1975) Jewish Communities in Spain in the Time of Paul the Apostle in Journal of Theological Studies Vol. 26 Part 2, 395–402
• Carasso, Lucienne (2014). Growing Up Jewish in Alexandria: The Story of a Sephardic Family's Exodus from Egypt. New York. ISBN 1500446351.
• Dan, Joseph, (1992) The Epic of a Millennium: Judeo-Spanish Culture's Confrontation. Judaism Vol. 41, no. 2