How Sephardi Settlers Brought a New Cultural Energy to Europe's Cities

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How Sephardi Settlers Brought a New Cultural Energy to Europe's Cities HISTORY of an expanding Castilian state while also responding to the challenges posed by their proselytising Christian overlords. Toledan Jews played unique roles in the Castilian translation movements that transmitted the scientific heritage of classical antiquity and the Arabs to the West. At the same time, they melded Islamic and Gothic motifs in fresco and manuscript illuminations. Ashkenazi and Sephardi halachic traditions conversed with one another in Toledo’s sprawling Jewish quarter. Sephardi civilisation was a rich tapestry of many threads at the end of the 15th century. But in 1492, when the expulsions occurred, this did not mark the end of the Sephardi Jews: it ushered in a new chapter in the history of the Jews of Spain and their far-flung descendants. As the Jews sought to re-establish Sepharad on foreign soils in the 16th and 17th centuries, they adapted to new lands and cultures while seeking meaning in the tragedy that had befallen them. In 16th-century Safed in particular, the exiles of Iberia sought to explain their Clockwise from far left: Emanuel de Witte’s interior of SEPHARDI RENAISSANCE trauma of expulsion. This inconspicuous the Portuguese Synagogue, Amsterdam (1680); Jacob town in the Galilee emerged as the centre of van Ruisdael’s The Jewish Cemetery (1655); Scuola a mystical tradition that transformed Jewish Levantina, Venice thinking throughout the dispersion. While mysticism was capturing the hearts of the refugees in Safed, the The volume also introduces several of How Sephardi settlers brought a new Sephardim were simultaneously engaged the main players of their day. We encounter in founding Hebrew printing presses, courtier Hasdai Ibn Shaprut in Cordoba, establishing new forms of community and who launched a Hebrew renaissance in cultural energy to Europe’s cities sharing some of the cultural delights of the city; treasurer Samuel Halevi Abulafia, Venice in defiance of their confinement in whose private synagogue constitutes a the newly established ghetto. Sephardim national monument in present-day Toledo, Between the 10th and 17th centuries, Sephardi immigrants contributed richly to life in Europe’s urban established a new ‘Jerusalem of the Balkans’, and the charismatic messianic pretender hubs. Jane S Gerber, author of a new book on the subject, describes this fruitful moment in history particularly in Salonica and Istanbul, as David Reubeni, whose career electrified the SEPHARDI RENAISSANCE the Ottoman Empire reached its apex, Sephardi Jews in the Mediterranean basin. he Muslim conquest of Spain in The expulsion of the Jews in 1492 ended the Salonica, Toledo and Venice. With the characterised by a host of rabbinic thinkers, or prohibited Jewish landholding. One The rabbi and musician Leon de Modena 711 inaugurated a new chapter presence of open Judaism on the Iberian exception of Safed and Salonica, all these thousands of skilled artisans and craftsmen, by-product of Jewish urban concentration, founded a music academy in the ghetto T in European and Islamic history. Peninsula (Portugal’s forced conversion cities were cosmopolitan centres of fleeting and a network of Jewish communal especially in imperial or royal capitals, was of Venice; his rabbinic compatriot Simha Medieval Spain – known as al-Andalus and expulsion followed in 1497). Among empires with diverse populations. These institutions. Istanbul’s Sephardim their experience of sustained exposure to Luzatto defended the right of Jews to live in (Arabic) and Sepharad (Hebrew) – was those who remained, many were loath cities provided special stimuli and produced simultaneously preserved and embellished diverse cultures. Since their settlements Venice. There was also the businesswoman also home to one of the largest and to relinquish their former faith; others new forms of Sephardi identity at a critical their pre-expulsion Spanish spoken often enjoyed great longevity, Jewish and political powerhouse Dona Gracia most dynamic Jewish communities, the attempted to make their peace with their moment in the lives of the Jews – often language with the vocabularies of Jewish population density was typically located in who advocated a boycott of the Italian port Sephardim. Jews resided in Spain for over new religious status but were constantly coinciding with decades of creativity in tradition and Balkan peoples, creating a the ancient town centres, near the cathedral of Ancona in retribution for the burning a millennium. They lived under Christians reminded of their origins by racist laws the host cultures. Some of the cities were new civilisation in Ladino that eventually or bishop’s residence or in the main of over two dozen Jews in the city by the (from the 4th century to 711, and from the of ‘purity of blood’. Notwithstanding the under Muslim rule, others under Christian. united their far-flung diaspora culturally. commercial area. Jews could also be found Inquisition. 12th century until 1492) and under Muslims, bitter finale of Jewish life on Iberian soil, Neither faith had a monopoly on tolerance Meanwhile, the remarkable Portuguese residing within the city walls or near the What ingredients account for the enjoying generations of creative interaction Sephardi Jews continued or oppression of their Jews. Jews in Amsterdam established a Jewish edge of rivers or other sources of water since resilience of Sephardi identity? Their with their neighbours. to nurture memories of a “Rabbi and Some places played a community where none had existed. they were frequently tanners and dyers. geographical mobility and far-flung Medieval Spain is noteworthy as the ‘golden age’ of Jewish life, particular role in shaping Its members lacked all prior normative The ghettoisation of Sephardi Jews trade networks were buttressed by their sole place in Europe where Jews, Muslims transporting their pride musician Leon Sephardi civilisation. Jewish experiences in Portugal yet erected occurred only in late medieval times in multilingualism, commercial acumen and and Christians lived side-by-side for almost and pedigree to their lands de Modena Cordoba witnessed the a community from scratch that served as a North African Jewry and Italy. No formal familial ties. Their historical journey was 800 years. This coexistence (convivencia) or of dispersion. Whether in founded a music birth of the dazzling model for the pioneering Jewries of England ghettos existed in Salonica or Istanbul and marked by enormous pride in their Jewish commingling of diverse peoples and faiths Iberia or in their diaspora Umayyad Caliphate and the Atlantic world. they were rejected by the Dutch burghers as well as Hispanic roots that melded into produced a dynamic and distinctive culture, communities in Italy, North academy in the of Cordoba and the There was no single prototype of as a condition for Jewish settlement in a rich and distinctive Jewish civilisation. including art, architecture, music, poetry, Africa, the Ottoman Empire ghetto of Venice” emergence of a new type a Sephardi settlement. Patterns of Amsterdam. The exiles of Spain usually The volume concludes in 17th-century philosophy and science, as well as biblical or the Caribbean, Sephardi of Sephardi leadership inhabitance, living arrangements and types departed en masse from their towns and Amsterdam as the Sephardi Jews began to studies, Hebrew philology and rabbinics. Jews drew sustenance from their former endowed with a sense of its aristocratic of dwelling all depended upon the whims of villages and tended to settle together in tentatively confront issues of identity that But towards the end of the 15th century accomplishments, romanticising their long lineage. Revolutionary developments in rulers as well as the local cultures. All Jews urban enclaves. Sephardim in Safed, would eventually engage Ashkenazim and Jews also endured unprecedented waves of sojourn on Spanish soil. Hebrew poetry occurred in the western in premodern times were guided by their Salonica and Istanbul organised synagogues Sephardim as they entered modernity. n oppression and forced conversion and they My book, Cities of Splendour, explores Caliphate as courtier-rabbis explored need to live in proximity to their houses of in their new homes, named for the cities were often the objects of discrimination the interactions of the Sephardim with their classical and Arabic civilisation alongside worship with access to a set of communal and kingdoms of Spain, Portugal or Italy Cities of Splendour in the Shaping of Sephardi and harsh Inquisitorial tribunals. Forced neighbours and heritage in seven cities their rabbinic heritage. and educational institutions. Jews probably (congregations were named after Catalonia, History by Jane S Gerber, Littman Library, 2020, conversions in the 15th century led to the beginning in 10th-century Cordoba and In 11th-century Toledo the Sephardim would have cultivated the land in greater Castile, Saragosa, Siracusa, Lisbon and £34.95. Jane S Gerber is professor emerita of phenomenon of crypto-Judaism. Forcibly culminating in 17th-century Amsterdam. established firm roots in the capital of a numbers had they been permitted to do so. Apulia among others). These geographical history and founder and director of the Institute converted Jews were neither totally Jewish It encounters Sephardim in Amsterdam, militant, expansionist Christian Spain. But discriminatory laws in both Islamic and distinctions blurred over time but not for Sephardic Studies at the Graduate Centre of nor totally Catholic and faced a harsh fate. Cordoba, Istanbul, Safed in Galilee, They seized the economic opportunities CURIEL AND ROBERTA IMAGES; USA/BRIDGEMAN OF ARTS, DETROIT INSTITUTE AMSTERDAM; OF THE RIJKSMUSEUM, COURTESY 1989), © GRAZIANO ARICI. REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION (NEW YORK, THE VENETIAN GHETTO BERNARD COOPERMAN, Christian lands either strongly discouraged before a great deal of intra-ethnic friction. the City University of New York. 50 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK APRIL 2020 APRIL 2020 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 51.
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