DOCSLIB.ORG

The Lost Identity of the Sephardim in the Land of Israel and the State of Israel

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Lost Identity of the Sephardim in the Land of Israel and the State of Israel The Lost Identity Of The Sephardim 289 Chapter 6 The Lost Identity of the Sephardim in The Land of Israel and the State of Israel Language is the man. Turkish proverb quoted by Moşe [Moshe] Grosman in his article entitled: “Komo se yama loke avlamos,” El Amaneser, 4, 27 July 2008 ⸪ The Weekly Hed Ha-Mizraḥ and its Readers In previous chapters of this work, we dealt with the history of the Sephardi community in Jerusalem and paid attention to the dramatic change that its sons and daughters underwent with the modernization processes that operat- ed in their city of birth as they did in the entire Ottoman Empire. This sweep- ing process of modernization was accelerated by the advent of the British Mandate over Palestine\Eretz Ysrael – The Land of Israel – (1917/1920–1948) and the establishment of leadership institutions of the Zionist Yishuv in The Land of Israel and in the Diaspora: Ha-Va⁠ʾad Ha-Leʾumi [the National Commit- tee] – the executive arm of the Elected Assembly of the Yishuv in The Land of Israel in 1920–1948; and the Jewish Agency: the administrative and representa- tive body of the World Zionist Organization – which operated throughout the Jewish world. We examined and found how the Sephardim turned from the dominant group in the Old Yishuv in Jerusalem to a minority group, and how they lost the position of leadership they had held until close to the end of the nineteenth century, in effect experiencing a process of immigration even though they did not leave their birthplace. In the current chapter*, I wish to discuss the reaction of the Sephardim in The Land of Israel to the Holocaust that struck their Jewish Spanish speaking brothers in the Balkans and especially in Salonika, that was known as a “city and mother in Israel” and as “Jerusalem of the Balkans” – which had been the capital of Ladino culture since the Expulsion from Spain (1492) and where the overwhelming majority of the Jewish population had been annihilated in the * The initial version of this chapter first appeared in the annual El Ladinar, 5 (2009): 19–66. The chapter below is printed with the permission of the editor of El Ladinar. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004279582_008 290 Chapter 6 Holocaust. In my opinion, one must examine the response of the Jewish Span- ish speaking Sephardim in The Land of Israel to the Holocaust and its terrors against the backdrop of their conscious and willing relinquishing of the basis of their socio-cultural identity: their Jewish Spanish language, and adopting or, at least, coming closer to Hebrew as their regular language, over the course of the twentieth century. Our discussion deals with the information that the Sep- hardim – and we must emphasize, Hebrew readers – in The Land of Israel could receive from the pages of the weekly Hed Ha-Mizraḥ, from its founding in 1942 until 1949, right after the establishment of the State of Israel; with the processes of memory and perpetuation, as expressed in memorial books that were published, in Hebrew, by people in Israel coming from Salonika, about twenty years after the end of World War II;1 the testimony survivors gave in the anthology Be-Netivei Sheʾol;2 and on an examination of a sampling from two literary works: poetry3 and prose,4 written in Hebrew by natives of The Land of Israel stemming from Sephardi families.5 1 Saloniki, Ir Va-Em Be-Yisrael [Salonika, City and Mother in Israel] (Various authors, Tel Aviv: Ha-Makhon Le-Ḥeker Yahadut Saloniki, 1967); David A. Recanati (ed.), Zikhron Saloniki [In Memoriam of Salonika: The Greatness and Destruction of The Jerusalem of The Balkans] (Tel Aviv: Ha-Va⁠ʾad Le-Hotza⁠ʾat Sefer Kehilat Saloniki, 1972) [Hebrew]; S. Refael et al. (eds.), Lo Nishkack [We Shall Not Forget] (Tel Aviv: Organization of Greek Extermination Camp Survivors in Israel, The Next Generation Division, 1986–2005) [Hebrew]. 2 S. Refael (editor and interviewer), Be-Netivei Shʾeol [The Roads to Hell: Greek Jews in the Holocaust. Testimonies] (Tel Aviv: Organization of Greek Extermination Camp Survivors in Israel, 1988) [Hebrew]. This collection contains sixty-two survivor testimonies that were published in Hebrew. I have chosen to focus on the testimonies of three of them, who, in time, published their life stories as books: Yaʿakov Handeli (ibid., 182); Jacques Stroumsa (ibid., 378), and Ḥaim Refael (ibid., 467). 3 A. Perez, Siniza i fumo. Siklo de poemas dedikado a la memoria de Saloniko, Edision bilingue (Jerusalem: “Sefarad” Publishing, 1986) [Ladino and Hebrew]. 4 S. Refael, Golgotha, Holocaust monodrama, Sh. Refael, G. Yefet-Atar, V. Atar, First per- formed at the Tzavta Theater, Tel Aviv, 2003. English version performed in New York, 2008 [Ladino and Hebrew]. 5 In the course of the current discussion I concentrated on Hebrew-language publications. My colleague Shmuel Refael has already discussed poetry in Ladino written by Jewish Spanish speakers. See S. Refael, Un grito en el silencio: La poesía judeoespañola sobre el Holocausto en lengua sefardí: Estudio y Antología (Barcelona: Tirocinio, 2008), in which the author makes himself the mouthpiece for the scream of the Jewish Spanish speaking Sephardim who were annihilated in the Holocaust, in the face of the silence and the lack of a sense of sympathy for suffering brethren, which was their lot and which Sephardi Holocaust survivors encountered in The Land of Israel and in the State of Israel. Similar notions were expressed by the Turkey born Selim Salti, founder and president of the .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Hebrew Revolution and the Revolution of the Hebrew Language Between the 1880S and the 1930S
    The Hebrew Revolution and the Revolution of the Hebrew Language between the 1880s and the 1930s Judith Winther Copenhagen The new Hebrew culture which began to crys- Eliezer Ben Yehudah was born in 1858, tallize in the land of Israel from the end of the Ben Gurion in 1886, and Berl Kazenelson in last century, is a successful event of "cultural 1887. planning". During a relatively short period of As a man who was not active in the so- time a little group of"culture planners" succee- cialist Jewish movement Ben Yehudah's dedi- ded in creating a system which in a significant cation to Hebrew is probably comprehensible. way was adapted to the requested Zionist ide- But why should a prominent socialist like Berl ology. The fact that the means by which the Kazenelson stick to the spoken Hebrew langu- "cultural planning" was realized implicated a age? A man, who prior to his immigration to heroic presentation of the happenings that led Palestine was an anti-Zionist, ridiculed Hebrew to a pathetical view of the development. It and was an enthusiastic devotee of Yiddish? presented the new historical ocurrences in Pa- The explanation is to be found in the vi- lestine as a renaissance and not as a continu- tal necessity which was felt by the pioneers ation of Jewish history, as a break and not as of the second Aliyah to achieve at all costs a continuity of the past. break from the past, from the large world of the The decision to create a political and a Russian revolutionary movements, from Rus- Hebrew cultural renaissance was laid down by sian culture, and Jewish Russian culture.
    [Show full text]
  • Apples from the Desert”: Form and Content
    Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol.4, No.6 Publication Date: March 25, 2017 DoI:10.14738/assrj.46.2908. Kizel, T. (2017). Image of the Religious Jewish Woman in Savyon Liebrecht’s Story “Apples from the Desert”: Form and Content. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 4(6) 60-72 Image of the Religious Jewish Woman in Savyon Liebrecht’s Story “Apples from the Desert”: Form and Content Dr. Thaier Kizel Head of the Department of Hebrew Language and Hebrew Literature Arab Academic College of Education, Haif INTRODUCTION Divine missions have always been associated with men. Men were entrusted by God to worship Him and women were men’s helpers in the dissemination of the message, although usually their role was restricted to hearth and home. In modern times women began to share men’s roles in every aspect of life, in religion, in politics and in society. In fact, women in some cases have pushed men out of some of the latter’s former roles in life. The afore-mentioned facts are also applicable to Judaism, whose founding prophet Moses was a man. Jewish women obeyed the ritual law because of the men. However, as just noted, their role was purely domestic. However, they began to rebel in every domain, including that of religion, even after they immigrated to Israel. The Jewish religion played an important role in defining the place of women in every aspect of Jewish life, whether in politics, society, religion or any other. Their role at first was marginal, in fact practically non-existent, at the birth of modern Hebrew literature and the emergence of the Zionist movement.
    [Show full text]
  • The Hebrew Language Council from 1904 to 1914*
    Bulletin of the SOAS, 73, 1 (2010), 45–64. © School of Oriental and African Studies, 2010. doi:10.1017/S0041977X09990346 Revisiting the language factor in Zionism: The Hebrew Language Council from 1904 to 1914* İlker Aytürk Bilkent University, Turkey [email protected] Abstract The role of language and linguistic-philological studies in the nationalist movements of the nineteenth century received much attention. The aim of this article is to focus on the language factor in Zionism and the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language in the Yishuv between 1904 and 1914. Founded in 1904, the Hebrew Language Council was expected to enhance the process of revival and, from the very beginning, an unmistakably nationalist attitude to its subject matter marked the Council’s agenda. However, the authority of the Council to make binding decisions on lin- guistic matters was contested by a number of other Zionist institutions, a development which ruined the prestige and effectiveness of the Council. The controversy resulted less from a turf war or quarrels over scarce resources than a deeper question of which institution represented the “true” Hebraic spirit. The World Zionist Organization’s decision to de- align from cultural matters, including the revival of Hebrew, worsened the conditions under which the Council operated. From a comparative per- spective, thus, the Hebrew case provides an unusual case of linguistic nationalism, which should be of interest to students of both nationalism and sociolinguistics. The majority of the scholars in the field of nationalism studies today agree on the modernity of nations and believe nations to be “constructs”, “artefacts” or “ima- gined communities”, invented by a host of nationalist ideologues since the late eighteenth century.
    [Show full text]
  • Tangled Roots
    TANGLED ROOTS BJS Program in Judaic Studies Brown University Box 1826 Providence, RI 02912 BROWN JUDAIC STUDIES Edited by Mary Gluck David C. Jacobson Saul M. Olyan Rachel Rojanski Michael L. Satlow Adam Teller Number 365 TANGLED ROOTS BJSby Israel Bartal TANGLED ROOTS THE EMERGENCE OF ISRAELI CULTURE Israel Bartal BJS Brown Judaic Studies Providence, Rhode Island © 2020 Brown University. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by means of any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed in writing to the Rights and Permissions Office, Program in Judaic Studies, Brown University, Box 1826, Providence, RI 02912, USA. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Barṭal, Yiśra’el, author. Title: Tangled roots : the emergence of Israeli culture / Israel Bartal. Other titles: Brown Judaic studies ; no. 365. Description: Providence, Rhode Island : Brown University, 2020. | Series: Brown Judaic studies; 365 | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: "In this new book Israel Bartal traces the history of modern Hebrew culture prior to the emergence of political Zionism. Bartal examines how traditional and modernist ideals and Western and non-European cultures merged in an unprecedented encounter between an ancient land (Israel) and a multigenerational people (the Jews). As this new Hebrew culture was taking shape, the memory of the recent European past played a highly influential role in shaping the image of the New Hebrew, that mythological hero who was meant to supplant the East European exilic Jew"—Provided by publisher.
    [Show full text]
  • {PDF} Life After Ruin the Struggles Over Israels Depopulated Arab
    LIFE AFTER RUIN THE STRUGGLES OVER ISRAELS DEPOPULATED ARAB SPACES 1ST EDITION PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Noam Leshem | 9781107149472 | | | | | Life after Ruin The Struggles over Israels Depopulated Arab Spaces 1st edition PDF Book Israel only made limited ground gains until the launch of Operation Changing Direction 11 , which lasted for 3 days with disputed results. While the Jewish population had received strict orders requiring them to hold their ground everywhere at all costs, [35] the Arab population was more affected by the general conditions of insecurity to which the country was exposed. This conflict was accompanied by large-scale massacres of both sides. Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. In addition to starting a process of healing the Mizrahi— Ashkenazi divide, Begin's government included Ultra-Orthodox Jews and was instrumental in healing the Zionist—Ultra-Orthodox rift. Main articles: Old Yishuv and Spanish inquisition. Dever, William In May Adolf Eichmann , one of the chief administrators of the Nazi Holocaust, was located in Argentina by the Mossad , later kidnapping him and bringing him to Israel. Expulsions also took place in Italy, affecting survivors of the original expulsion. Simon and Schuster. Chronicle of a territorial dispute". Addington The system remained in place until after Syria had 12, soldiers at the beginning of the War, grouped into three infantry brigades and an armoured force of approximately battalion size. The two main Jewish leaders, Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion , had convinced the Zionist Congress to approve equivocally the Peel recommendations as a basis for more negotiation. One of the Egyptian force's two main columns made its way northwards along the shoreline, through what is today the Gaza Strip and the other column advanced eastwards toward Beersheba.
    [Show full text]
  • Day After Night Dramaturgy Dictionary
    1 Day After Night Dramaturgy Dictionary Compiled by Mikaley Osley 8/30/12 2 Table of Contents Camps/Kibbutz .............................................................................................................................. 3 Historical Context .......................................................................................................................... 9 WWII/Holocaust History ............................................................................................................. 11 Food/Plants .................................................................................................................................. 12 Politics ......................................................................................................................................... 16 Judaism ....................................................................................................................................... 18 Language/Slang/Terms ............................................................................................................... 21 Places/Locations/Journies............................................................................................................. 22 3 Camps/Kibbutz Alonim—A kibbutz in northern Israel, in 1947 the population was 450; an orchard and dairy farm, known for manufacturing flutes Atlit Detainee Camp—A detention camp established by the British Mandate to prevent Jewish refugees from entering into Palestine Auschwitz—The largest of the German concentration camps,
    [Show full text]
  • Wallach-Rethinking-The-Yishuv.Pdf
    This is the version of the article accepted for publication in Journal of Modern Jewish Studies and published online by Taylor & Francis on 3 November 2016. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14725886.2016.1246230 Accepted version downloaded from SOAS Research Online: http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/22699/ RETHINKING THE YISHUV: LATE-OTTOMAN PALESTINE'S JEWISH COMMUNITIES REVISITED Yair Wallach, SOAS University of London This article argues for a significant revision in the understanding of Jews in late- Ottoman Palestine: from a model of a singular community (the yishuv) to a model of multiple communities, embedded within local, regional and global networks. The conceptualization of Palestine‘s Jewry is reappraised, from the Jerusalem School to recent literature. Despite acknowledging their ethnic and linguistic diversity, the historiography has long portrayed Palestine‘s Jews as sui-generis community, a Jewish microcosm united in its unique attachment to the Eretz Israel. It was studied as part of Jewish history, in isolation from its Middle Eastern context. In contrast, recent Relational Studies stressed Jewish connections to the Arab and Ottoman environment in Palestine. The article examines the self-perception of Jewish communities as plural and heterogeneous, through a survey of early Hebrew press. It traces the genealogy of the term yishuv, from an ideological project of revival and colonization in the 1860s, to an imagined pan-Jewish national community after the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. This shift was boosted not only by Zionism and Jewish diaspora influence, but also by Ottomanism. Even then, Jewish communities in Palestine continued to operate separately in a highly fragmented manner well into the British Mandate.
    [Show full text]
  • Rethinking the Yishuv: Late-Ottoman Palestine's Jewish Communities
    Journal of Modern Jewish Studies ISSN: 1472-5886 (Print) 1472-5894 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cmjs20 Rethinking the yishuv: late-Ottoman Palestine’s Jewish communities revisited Yair Wallach To cite this article: Yair Wallach (2016): Rethinking the yishuv: late-Ottoman Palestine’s Jewish communities revisited, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, DOI: 10.1080/14725886.2016.1246230 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14725886.2016.1246230 Published online: 03 Nov 2016. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cmjs20 Download by: [SOAS, University of London] Date: 03 November 2016, At: 08:21 JOURNAL OF MODERN JEWISH STUDIES, 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14725886.2016.1246230 Rethinking the yishuv: late-Ottoman Palestine’s Jewish communities revisited Yair Wallach Department of the Languages and Cultures of the Near and Middle East, SOAS University of London, London, UK ABSTRACT This article argues for a significant revision in the understanding of Jews in late-Ottoman Palestine: from a model of a singular community (the yishuv) to a model of multiple communities, embedded within local, regional and global networks. The conceptualization of Palestine’s Jewry is reappraised, from the Jerusalem School to recent literature. Despite acknowledging their ethnic and linguistic diversity, the historiography has long portrayed Palestine’s Jews as a sui-generis community, a Jewish microcosm united in its unique attachment to Eretz Israel. It was studied as part of Jewish history, in isolation from its Middle Eastern context.
    [Show full text]
  • The Sephardi Community of Jerusalem Before World War I: a Note on a Dominant Community on the Decline
    THE SEPHARDI COMMUNITY OF JERUSALEM BEFORE WORLD WAR I: A NOTE ON A DOMINANT COMMUNITY ON THE DECLINE Akira USUKI* I. Introduction The British mandate for Palestine was legally based upon the Mandate ratified by the League of Nations in 1922, but the Mandate itself originated from the Balfour Declaration in 29 November, 1917. According to the Declaration, "H. M. Government view with favour the establish ment in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people", while the latter part of it stipulates that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine". The mandate for Palestine, however, changed religious status quo in Palestine under the Ottoman rule which was based upon the millet system assuring non-Muslim communities in the Empire of autonomy on the religious and personal matters. Especially Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine) was totally reorganized with the coming of the British mandate, because the new rabbinate of Palestine with two Chief Rabbis of both Sephardim (Spaniards in Hebrew) and Ashkenazim (Germans in Hebrew) was estab- lished(1). Under the Ottoman administration the Sephardi community in Jerusalem was recognized as the sole representative of Yishuv. In spite of its official status recognized by the Sublime Porte, the Sephardi community gradu- ally lost their exclusive religious and administrative hegemony over other Kolels (Jewish communities in Palestine organized upon original places) in Jerusalem during the second half of the 19th century. The declining process of the Sephardi hegemony over other Jewish communites was coincident with the gradual rising of Ashkenazim supported by European consulates, and also of Political and Socialist Zionists after the turn of the last centu- * Associate Professor, University of Saga Vol.
    [Show full text]
  • Nationalism, Zionism, and the Forrnation of a National Narrative
    CHAPTER ONE Nationalism, Zionism, and the Forrnation of a National Narrative Both the impulse which led to the creation of modern spoken Hebreu, and the circumstances which led to its successful establishment, are too unusual to set a general example. -E. J. Hobsbawm, Natlon s and Nationalism since 17 80 Hebrew in the Zionist lmaginary Modern theories of nationalism recognize that the origins and course of Zionism, the national movement of the Jewish people, are unusual if not unique among late-nineteenth-century national movements. Major thinkers have expressed their awareness of this singularity in terms that imply varying degrees of mystification. Ernest Gellner considers the State of Israel, the out- come of Zionism, "the most famous and dramatic case of a successful dias- pora nationalism," noting that "the human transformation involved in the Jewish case went counter to the global trend" (1983, 106-7). Gellner's choice of words such as dramatic and transformation to characterize the de- velopments that culminated in the founding of Israel intimates the scholarly consensus, which notes the peculiarity of the phenomenon without elaborat- ing on what makes it so. Benedict Anderson expresses his perplexity con- cerning Zionism in more striking language: "The significance of the emergence of Zionism and the birth of Israel is that the former marks the reimagining of an ancient religious community as a nation, down there among the other nations-while the latter charts an alchemic change from wandering devotee to local patriot" (1,991,149n. 16) Although it is curious that this enigmatic passage does not address-or 2 What Must Be Forgotten Formation of a National Narratiwe 3 even acknowledge-the causal connection between the two elements, Zion- ties sometimes totally isolated from each other.
    [Show full text]
  • Visions for Jewish-Arab Integration and Semitism in the Second Aliyah
    ABSTRACT Title of Thesis: “SONS OF SHEM:” VISIONS FOR JEWISH-ARAB INTEGRATION AND SEMITISM IN THE SECOND ALIYAH (1904-1914) Maytal Mark, Master of Arts, 2021 Thesis directed by: Professor Shay Hazkani Department of History This thesis examines a cohort of Zionist intellectuals based in and around Ottoman Palestine who advocated for Jewish-Arab integration in the Second Aliyah period, or roughly 1904-1914. In studying individuals who came from diverse linguistic, ethnic, and political backgrounds side by side, this thesis argues that their shared language around Semitic identity and their advocacy around the same set of civic goals suggests a shared worldview and a common understanding of the goals of Zionism as a movement. The existence of such a cohort suggests a re-examination of the nature of the Zionist movement as well as a re-evaluation of Sephardi-Ashkenazi relations in this period. In addition, by studying the discourse around Semitic identity as it was adopted and repurposed by members of this cohort, this thesis argues that late nineteenth and early twentieth century racial categories and theories influenced Zionist thought in complex ways, providing both a sense of evidence for the supposed indigeneity of Jews to Palestine as well as a logical basis for future coexistence with Palestinian Arab Muslims. “SONS OF SHEM:” VISIONS FOR JEWISH-ARAB INTEGRATION AND SEMITISM IN THE SECOND ALIYAH (1904-1914) by Maytal Mark Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts 2021 Advisory Committee: Professor Shay Hazkani, Chair Professor Rachel Manekin Professor Peter Wien © Copyright by Maytal Mark 2021 ii For my parents iii Table of Contents Table of Contents ..........................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • The Search for the Lost Tribes
    chapter 4 The Search for the Lost Tribes Kabbalah beyond the Sambatyon By creating a national narrative that integrates elements of Jewish mysticism, Shimon Zvi Horowitz, the co-founder of the Sha’ar haShamayim Yeshiva, sought to reach a wider audience than the majority of Jerusalem’s Sharabian kabbalists. In certain respects, he was indeed successful. A case in point is his efforts to find the Ten Tribes – an idea that is part and parcel of his kabbal- istic approach. Horowitz tried to get Jerusalem’s Sephardic kabbalists on the bandwagon, but came up empty-handed. Moreover, his efforts to turn Sha’ar haShamayim into a center for expeditions of this sort drew mixed results. At any rate, this episode sheds light on Horowitz’s unusual eclectic worldview. In 1908, Shimon Menachem Lazar of Drohobycz (1864–1932), an editor and Hebrew scholar, came out with a thick tome on Ḥidot haHagadot haNiflaot al Dvar Aseret haShvatim vePitronam (The Riddles of the Wonderful Myths on the Ten Tribes and their Solution). The journal HaSchiloah had published an earlier, serial version of this work in installments between 1902 and 1903. At the end of the book’s introduction is a summary of Lazar’s approach to these same myths: And this belief [in the Lost Tribes], which filled the hearts of our nation for some two thousand years, has been suspended in our time, the days of the Jewish Enlightenment, to the point that they have even ceased to think about the Ten Tribes, as though they never existed and were never created.
    [Show full text]