SEPHARAD PDF, EPUB, EBOOK

Antonio Munoz Molina,Prof Margaret Sayers Peden | 385 pages | 04 Aug 2008 | HARVEST BOOKS | 9780156034746 | English | United States Sepharad Definition and Meaning - Bible Dictionary

Its descriptions of the narrator's state of mind, and of Madrid itself where I have done my fair share of wandering are so authentic and moving that I had the feeling of: "I could have written this. Why didn't I? I lived in Madrid around the time this was written late 90s to early 's , and his description of the seamy characters who populated this area is spot on. It was a scary and fascinating place back then, and though it has changed mostly for the better, the fact that it will never be the same again adds an aura of nostalgia and melancholy to this clearly drafted chapter. And of course, the final chapter "Sepharad", largely set in New York, which mentions the Spanish-Jewish cemetery on W11th St, and features a visit to the Hispanic Society on Wth Street, an impressive and nearly deserted treasure-house of Spanish art in an unlikely neighborhood. New York is my lifelong home, and Madrid is my second home and Molina describes them both so clearly and authentically that I immediately trust all of his other descriptions. Some of the other chapters that touch on Kafka, Primo Levi, and various European Jews of the 20th Century I found interesting, but less engaging. Obviously these chapters are based more on the author's reading than on his personal experience. But Molina is making an admirable attempt to weave the history of Spain which can sometimes feel like an island unto itself into the broader history of Europe, and to integrate the important and tragic role Jews have played in both of those histories. Again, I wouldn't call it a novel, and it doesn't even read as fiction for the most part. But I loved it, and think it's a great and unique work. I tried. If I had a shelf for, is-it-just-me-or-does-the-emperor-have-no-clothes, this would be on it. It got great reviews from all the snobby publications, and I simply couldn't make heads or tails of it. I didn't get any sense of a novel, and I never quite learned who the narrator narrators? It felt like each chapter was meant to be its own short story, but within each of those, several different tales were being told in an almost stream-of-consciousness way. One minute we're Catholic I tried. Maybe I should have given this more of a chance, but I had trouble giving it even the 50 pages I feel I owe any given book before deciding to discard it. An absolutely remarkable book; this is not so much of a novel as a collection of narratives from diverse times and backgrounds. The theme, such as it is, is about death, injustice, prejudice, sorrow and happiness. This book requires readers to be alert and fully engaged. It took me a while to get used to the style, particularly that sometimes in the middle of a paragraph the person speaking changes. For example, wife begins the conversation and then the husband's perspective takes over. The dial An absolutely remarkable book; this is not so much of a novel as a collection of narratives from diverse times and backgrounds. The dialogue is almost prose. Here's an example: "Bits and pieces of you are left behind in other lives, rooms you lived in that others now occupy, photographs or keepsakes or books that belonged to you and now someone you don't know is touching and looking at, letters still in existence when the person who wrote them and the person who received them and kept them for a long, long time are dead. Far from you, scenes from your life are relived, and in them you're a fiction, a secondary character in a book, a passerby in the film or novel of another persons life. From a literary point of view, was shooting oneself or killing oneself slowly with alcohol a form of heroism? I watched the hopeless drunks in the dark taverns of the side streets with both admiration and disgust, for each hid a terrible truth whose price was self- destruction. This is certainly an arresting and intriguing book, though its billing as 'a novel' is misleading. Rather, it is a loosely-themed collection of sketches, essays and stories. The author writes very beautifully, though I must confess that his habit of obscuring the identity and gender of the narrator was a little disconcerting. Perhaps that is intentional, as one theme running through the 17 chapters is that of uncertainty and dispossesion. This is essentially a book about the lives of the disappe This is certainly an arresting and intriguing book, though its billing as 'a novel' is misleading. This is essentially a book about the lives of the disappeared. Some of the tales refer to well known historic figures such as Kafka or Primo Levi, while others concern less well known people such as Jean Amery or Grete Buber-Neumann, wife of the s German Communist leader Hans Neumann. Other pieces centre on the author's own life from his past or his present. The sensation is one of transience and impermanence. The lives of those others are in transit, from or to incarceration or persecution, typically alone in the world and often filled with tragic outcomes for either themselves or their loved ones. The fear of a totalitarian society is conveyed, as you may enter a cafe to sit and drink coffee and read the newspaper - only to leave on the run newly aware of the latest decree marking you as a pariah Molina's writing is tender and very moving. The chapters of Sheherazade, America, You are.. Suddenly, for me the book made complete sense. Only 4 stars as I found the first third of it slightly befogging Finished it, but very slowly. Sepharad is a great and complex novel that should be read in sittings of no more than an hour. The narrative rolls seamlessly from person to person, place to place, time to time, so that the shifts are barely perceptible, and each time I became aware of another shift, I had to go back through the pages to discover how that had happened and wonder when I had left behind an imaginary character and encountered a historical one. It is a tapestry of interwoven vignettes Finished it, but very slowly. It is a tapestry of interwoven vignettes about flight, capture, death and escape, over time, that reflect a collective memory of human anguish and suffering and longing for home. Intensely lyrical, brilliant writing. Oddly, I think this is a better book than my experience of it might indicate. It's beautifully written covering most of the 20th century with a mix of history, memoir, story of experiencing the holocaust and of ageing, mainly, from multiple perspectives. But I just kept getting lost and confused sometimes I couldn't tell who was speaking or what time period I was in or he'd mention someone from a previous chapter and I vaguely remembered them. So glad i picked this back up to read. It's enthralling in the best possible way. Special recommendation thanks for youknowwhoyouare :. What exactly is this book? One might call it a memoir, but that would be selling it far too short and I don't know enough of his life to be able to say how much is biographical and how much invention. It is in some ways a book of historical essays of literary figures, but is far from that. You could also think of it as a history of the Jewish diaspora of a certain era, mostly before and during the Second World War. But none of this would do it justice. The title refers to the Iberian Peninsula, from which the Sephardic Jews derive both their name and cultural heritage. They do not deny their heritage, but are not in their own minds people of another nation or no nation. Nonetheless, throughout history, Jews have been categorized and vilified as a separate race, the protests of those being labeled having no bearing on the bigotry. Or, as another puts it more succinctly, "It was anti-Semitism that made me a Jew. Everything changes us, creates us anew, yet we cling to the shifting sand of our identities as if they were permanent structures. This frustrates and saddens us; our expectation of what is possible, that the ethereal will become tangible, that what slips through our hands will some day stay. In the end, though, this is a book about language, the beautiful flow of description and narration that delights and informs, filling us with joy and sorrow, the intentional, meticulous writing of a great author at the height of his powers, sharing with us the most intimate explorations of our souls, our failures, our pleasures sex inevitably plays a large role , our pain, and our demise and dissolution into dust, into memory, and eventually into not even that, the inevitable human vanishing act that is the fate of us all. We can rail against any of this, all of it, the brief and precious light we shed, but we cannot escape it, or ourselves. A note on translation: I do not read Spanish, so cannot speak to the poetry of this book in the original, but am filled with gratitude for the lyricism captured by Margaret Sayers Peden here. View 1 comment. Put simply, the holocaust acted not only as a heinous genocide, but also as a divider. In the horror of a fascist- occupied Europe, Sephardi Jews dispersed throughout the world. In other words, each chapter in this tome provides an unconnected look at the life of the Sephardi. Whether depicted during the war, in its aftermath, or in current times, each chapter poetically narrates the story of this broken community. The past shifts and reforms, and mirrors are unpredictable. With stories detailing the holocaust, Russian communists, and interactions between Jews and Nazi sympathizers after the war, Sapharad explores the depths of hatred, violence, and war. Molina explores many true stories in the book including the love letters of Franz Kafka and many personal interviews with the Sephardi. You would have to read them one by one, aloud, as if reciting a strict and impossible prayer, to understand that not one of these names can be reduced to a number in an atrocious statistic. Each had a life unlike any other, just as each face, each voice was unique, and the horror of each death was unrepeatable even though it happened amid so many millions of similar deaths. For those looking for a story, Sepharad will leave them disappointed. But, the people of Sepharad have a long and complicated history worth documenting. In the wake of the holocaust, the Sephardi diaspora have many unique stories, and yet, remain connected through cultural lineage. While I am glad to have read this book, I am unsure if I am able to recommend it. Sepharad is an imporant and challenging book. It is among the best books I have read this year. Having read the GR synopsis and other reader's reviews which I found interesting and enlightening, I don't have much to add except my recommendation to encounter this story. Beautifully written, echoes of Proust. A collection of short stories, each one to be savoured on its own. Life's too short to read boring books. Stories of the displaced and thoughts about that. A masterpiece, like most all of his novels. More than a novel, it is a collection of short stories with a "tenuous thread" connecting them. I highly recommend this book, and there is an English translation by Margaret Sayers Peden that I am sure is fantastic Sepharad. The theme, as I can best sum it up, is Diaspora. He weaves together stories of unknown citizens with those of famous authors who were affected by some of the traumatic events that occurred in 20th century Europe. The issue that I had with the book was its lack of structure. It is presented somewhat as a of stream-of-consciousness. Sometimes I would get 10 or 20 pages into a chapter and realize I had no idea what the point of the story was, who the characters were or what was happening. It keeps running through the same scenarios and problems over and over again. A glittering work that is, admittedly, very difficult to slog through. I know the fluid shifting between voices has a literary purpose, but I still can't help wondering if it reads better in Spanish, where the feminine and masculine pronouns are easier to see. In a way it unified an apparently discordant set of stories-- certain images and phrases return and, when I was lucky, immediately contextualize the relative time and place of whatever chapter I was reading. But there are such luminous pas A glittering work that is, admittedly, very difficult to slog through. But there are such luminous passages and quiet insights. I'm glad I didn't give up on this book. It is terrifying, as other readers have noted, but I didn't find it so bleak as some. I found it compassionate and very Because any of these things could have happened to us, because "the next right thing" is always what determines the larger arc of a characters story, is integral, cannot be separated from any other next thing. Because we have no control and our lives fit together just the same, a delicately woven cloth of disparates. Because there's no other or simpler or more concise way to fully explain how one gets from that point to this. I loved this book, all one and a half months of it, even if I had to read at least half its pages thrice through before figuring out where I was. I loved it. Somewhere, right this minute, someone is telling something very personal about me, something he witnessed years ago but that I probably "Without your knowledge, other people usurp stories or fragments from your life, episodes you think you've kept in a sealed chamber of your memory and yet are told by people you may not even know, people who have heard them and repeat them, modify them, adapt them according to their whim or how carefully they listened, or for certain comic or slanderous effect. Somewhere, right this minute, someone is telling something very personal about me, something he witnessed years ago but that I probably don't even remember, and since I don't remember I assume it doesn't exist for anyone, erased from the world as completely as from my mind. Bits and pieces of you are left behind in other lives, rooms you lived in that others now occupy, photographs or keepsakes or books that belonged to you and now someone you don't know is touching and looking at, letters still in existence when the person who wrote them adn the person who received them and kept them for a long, long time are dead. Far from you, scenes from your life are relived, and in them you're a fiction, a secondary character in a book, a passerby in the film or novel of another person's life. What happens is that you grow lighter, you shed your obligations and your past, just as you reduce everything you possess to the few items you need for your l "The great night of Europe is shot through with long, sinister trains, with convoys of cattle and freight cars with boarded up windows moving very slowly toward barren, wintry, snow- or mud-covered expanses encircled by barbed wire and guard towers. What happens is that you grow lighter, you shed your obligations and your past, just as you reduce everything you possess to the few items you need for your luggage. The most burdensome aspect of our identity is based on what others know or think about us. They look at us and we know that they known, and in silence they force us to be what they expect us to be, to act according to certain habits our previous behavior has established, or according to suspicions that we aren't aware we have awakened. To the person you meet on a train in a foreign country, you are a stranger who exists only in the present. By the end of the book, his writing had left "musical embers" to quote from MM in me. I clearly knew his voice: soft but clear and when I heard him inter-viewed on a podcast months later he sounded confident, thoughtful and gentle; very much like I had expected. This masterpiece is translated superbly by the brilliant Margaret Sayers Peden. Sepharad was a major influence that I used for inspiration and reference in my recent travelogue "Slow Travels in Unsung Spain" which is currently being translated into German. I'm one hundred pages into this and it is not easy. But his idea of travel appeals to me, and the images from the train and glimpses of life are compelling. Not a traditional novel, more like short stories and stream-of-consciousness, but whose? This is a book club selection; I need some questions to focus on because I am not sure what I am looking for. It is thought-provoking and the characters convey the feeling of loss and absurdity brought on by totalitarian regimes quite well. It leaves the I'm one hundred pages into this and it is not easy. It leaves the reader feeling unsettled as well. Gave it up. Didn't exactly move seamlessly from character to character. Haunting, beautiful, and melancholy. A tour de force that tells the stories of all those who live out of Haunting, beautiful, and melancholy. A tour de force that tells the stories of all those who live out of place and time. I just started reading this book. I loved reading the writer's musings about travel and what travel teaches us. The comments about travel and especially train travel resonated deeply with me. I was filled with longing for the city of Madrid after reading only a few pages. I think the writing style is what most appeals to me. It is not difficult for me to read the Spanish, although the stories skip around at random, a lot like how my brain works. One of the best novels I have ever read. See how many words from the week of Oct 12—18, you get right! Example sentences from the Web for Sephardim Her words were warmly received by the Speaker of the Knesset, a politician from Shas, the Sephardic ultra-Orthodox party. The King of Schnorrers Israel Zangwill. History of the Jews, Vol. Do You Know This Word? Sepharad - Easton's Bible Dictionary - Bible Gateway

Sephared -- the location of some exiles The people of Saparda, called by the Persians Sparda, have been with good reason identified with the Sepharad of the prophet Obadiah ver. The Latin father Jerome regarded it as an Assyrian word, meaning "boundary," and interpreted the sentence, "which is in Sepharad ," by "who are scattered abroad Sepharad , Sephar'ad. Multi-Version Concordance Sephar'ad 1 Occurrence. See RSV. Edom are quite intelligible. As to Sepharad Obadiah there is considerable difference of opinion. Schrader and some others Why didn't I? I lived in Madrid around the time this was written late 90s to early 's , and his description of the seamy characters who populated this area is spot on. It was a scary and fascinating place back then, and though it has changed mostly for the better, the fact that it will never be the same again adds an aura of nostalgia and melancholy to this clearly drafted chapter. And of course, the final chapter "Sepharad", largely set in New York, which mentions the Spanish-Jewish cemetery on W11th St, and features a visit to the Hispanic Society on Wth Street, an impressive and nearly deserted treasure-house of Spanish art in an unlikely neighborhood. New York is my lifelong home, and Madrid is my second home and Molina describes them both so clearly and authentically that I immediately trust all of his other descriptions. Some of the other chapters that touch on Kafka, Primo Levi, and various European Jews of the 20th Century I found interesting, but less engaging. Obviously these chapters are based more on the author's reading than on his personal experience. But Molina is making an admirable attempt to weave the history of Spain which can sometimes feel like an island unto itself into the broader history of Europe, and to integrate the important and tragic role Jews have played in both of those histories. Again, I wouldn't call it a novel, and it doesn't even read as fiction for the most part. But I loved it, and think it's a great and unique work. I tried. If I had a shelf for, is-it-just-me-or-does-the-emperor-have-no-clothes, this would be on it. It got great reviews from all the snobby publications, and I simply couldn't make heads or tails of it. I didn't get any sense of a novel, and I never quite learned who the narrator narrators? It felt like each chapter was meant to be its own short story, but within each of those, several different tales were being told in an almost stream-of- consciousness way. One minute we're Catholic I tried. Maybe I should have given this more of a chance, but I had trouble giving it even the 50 pages I feel I owe any given book before deciding to discard it. An absolutely remarkable book; this is not so much of a novel as a collection of narratives from diverse times and backgrounds. The theme, such as it is, is about death, injustice, prejudice, sorrow and happiness. This book requires readers to be alert and fully engaged. It took me a while to get used to the style, particularly that sometimes in the middle of a paragraph the person speaking changes. For example, wife begins the conversation and then the husband's perspective takes over. The dial An absolutely remarkable book; this is not so much of a novel as a collection of narratives from diverse times and backgrounds. The dialogue is almost prose. Here's an example: "Bits and pieces of you are left behind in other lives, rooms you lived in that others now occupy, photographs or keepsakes or books that belonged to you and now someone you don't know is touching and looking at, letters still in existence when the person who wrote them and the person who received them and kept them for a long, long time are dead. Far from you, scenes from your life are relived, and in them you're a fiction, a secondary character in a book, a passerby in the film or novel of another persons life. From a literary point of view, was shooting oneself or killing oneself slowly with alcohol a form of heroism? I watched the hopeless drunks in the dark taverns of the side streets with both admiration and disgust, for each hid a terrible truth whose price was self-destruction. This is certainly an arresting and intriguing book, though its billing as 'a novel' is misleading. Rather, it is a loosely-themed collection of sketches, essays and stories. The author writes very beautifully, though I must confess that his habit of obscuring the identity and gender of the narrator was a little disconcerting. Perhaps that is intentional, as one theme running through the 17 chapters is that of uncertainty and dispossesion. This is essentially a book about the lives of the disappe This is certainly an arresting and intriguing book, though its billing as 'a novel' is misleading. This is essentially a book about the lives of the disappeared. Some of the tales refer to well known historic figures such as Kafka or Primo Levi, while others concern less well known people such as Jean Amery or Grete Buber-Neumann, wife of the s German Communist leader Hans Neumann. Other pieces centre on the author's own life from his past or his present. The sensation is one of transience and impermanence. The lives of those others are in transit, from or to incarceration or persecution, typically alone in the world and often filled with tragic outcomes for either themselves or their loved ones. The fear of a totalitarian society is conveyed, as you may enter a cafe to sit and drink coffee and read the newspaper - only to leave on the run newly aware of the latest decree marking you as a pariah Molina's writing is tender and very moving. The chapters of Sheherazade, America, You are.. Suddenly, for me the book made complete sense. Only 4 stars as I found the first third of it slightly befogging Finished it, but very slowly. Sepharad is a great and complex novel that should be read in sittings of no more than an hour. The narrative rolls seamlessly from person to person, place to place, time to time, so that the shifts are barely perceptible, and each time I became aware of another shift, I had to go back through the pages to discover how that had happened and wonder when I had left behind an imaginary character and encountered a historical one. It is a tapestry of interwoven vignettes Finished it, but very slowly. It is a tapestry of interwoven vignettes about flight, capture, death and escape, over time, that reflect a collective memory of human anguish and suffering and longing for home. Intensely lyrical, brilliant writing. Oddly, I think this is a better book than my experience of it might indicate. It's beautifully written covering most of the 20th century with a mix of history, memoir, story of experiencing the holocaust and of ageing, mainly, from multiple perspectives. But I just kept getting lost and confused sometimes I couldn't tell who was speaking or what time period I was in or he'd mention someone from a previous chapter and I vaguely remembered them. So glad i picked this back up to read. It's enthralling in the best possible way. Special recommendation thanks for youknowwhoyouare :. What exactly is this book? One might call it a memoir, but that would be selling it far too short and I don't know enough of his life to be able to say how much is biographical and how much invention. It is in some ways a book of historical essays of literary figures, but is far from that. You could also think of it as a history of the Jewish diaspora of a certain era, mostly before and during the Second World War. But none of this would do it justice. The title refers to the Iberian Peninsula, from which the Sephardic Jews derive both their name and cultural heritage. They do not deny their heritage, but are not in their own minds people of another nation or no nation. Nonetheless, throughout history, Jews have been categorized and vilified as a separate race, the protests of those being labeled having no bearing on the bigotry. Or, as another puts it more succinctly, "It was anti-Semitism that made me a Jew. Everything changes us, creates us anew, yet we cling to the shifting sand of our identities as if they were permanent structures. This frustrates and saddens us; our expectation of what is possible, that the ethereal will become tangible, that what slips through our hands will some day stay. In the end, though, this is a book about language, the beautiful flow of description and narration that delights and informs, filling us with joy and sorrow, the intentional, meticulous writing of a great author at the height of his powers, sharing with us the most intimate explorations of our souls, our failures, our pleasures sex inevitably plays a large role , our pain, and our demise and dissolution into dust, into memory, and eventually into not even that, the inevitable human vanishing act that is the fate of us all. We can rail against any of this, all of it, the brief and precious light we shed, but we cannot escape it, or ourselves. A note on translation: I do not read Spanish, so cannot speak to the poetry of this book in the original, but am filled with gratitude for the lyricism captured by Margaret Sayers Peden here. View 1 comment. Put simply, the holocaust acted not only as a heinous genocide, but also as a divider. In the horror of a fascist-occupied Europe, Sephardi Jews dispersed throughout the world. In other words, each chapter in this tome provides an unconnected look at the life of the Sephardi. Whether depicted during the war, in its aftermath, or in current times, each chapter poetically narrates the story of this broken community. The past shifts and reforms, and mirrors are unpredictable. With stories detailing the holocaust, Russian communists, and interactions between Jews and Nazi sympathizers after the war, Sapharad explores the depths of hatred, violence, and war. Molina explores many true stories in the book including the love letters of Franz Kafka and many personal interviews with the Sephardi. You would have to read them one by one, aloud, as if reciting a strict and impossible prayer, to understand that not one of these names can be reduced to a number in an atrocious statistic. Each had a life unlike any other, just as each face, each voice was unique, and the horror of each death was unrepeatable even though it happened amid so many millions of similar deaths. For those looking for a story, Sepharad will leave them disappointed. But, the people of Sepharad have a long and complicated history worth documenting. In the wake of the holocaust, the Sephardi diaspora have many unique stories, and yet, remain connected through cultural lineage. While I am glad to have read this book, I am unsure if I am able to recommend it. Sepharad is an imporant and challenging book. It is among the best books I have read this year. Having read the GR synopsis and other reader's reviews which I found interesting and enlightening, I don't have much to add except my recommendation to encounter this story. Beautifully written, echoes of Proust. A collection of short stories, each one to be savoured on its own. Life's too short to read boring books. Stories of the displaced and thoughts about that. A masterpiece, like most all of his novels. More than a novel, it is a collection of short stories with a "tenuous thread" connecting them. I highly recommend this book, and there is an English translation by Margaret Sayers Peden that I am sure is fantastic Sepharad. The theme, as I can best sum it up, is Diaspora. He weaves together stories of unknown citizens with those of famous authors who were affected by some of the traumatic events that occurred in 20th century Europe. The issue that I had with the book was its lack of structure. It is presented somewhat as a of stream-of-consciousness. Sometimes I would get 10 or 20 pages into a chapter and realize I had no idea what the point of the story was, who the characters were or what was happening. It keeps running through the same scenarios and problems over and over again. A glittering work that is, admittedly, very difficult to slog through. I know the fluid shifting between voices has a literary purpose, but I still can't help wondering if it reads better in Spanish, where the feminine and masculine pronouns are easier to see. In a way it unified an apparently discordant set of stories-- certain images and phrases return and, when I was lucky, immediately contextualize the relative time and place of whatever chapter I was reading. But there are such luminous pas A glittering work that is, admittedly, very difficult to slog through. But there are such luminous passages and quiet insights. I'm glad I didn't give up on this book. It is terrifying, as other readers have noted, but I didn't find it so bleak as some. I found it compassionate and very Because any of these things could have happened to us, because "the next right thing" is always what determines the larger arc of a characters story, is integral, cannot be separated from any other next thing. Because we have no control and our lives fit together just the same, a delicately woven cloth of disparates. Because there's no other or simpler or more concise way to fully explain how one gets from that point to this. I loved this book, all one and a half months of it, even if I had to read at least half its pages thrice through before figuring out where I was. I loved it. Somewhere, right this minute, someone is telling something very personal about me, something he witnessed years ago but that I probably "Without your knowledge, other people usurp stories or fragments from your life, episodes you think you've kept in a sealed chamber of your memory and yet are told by people you may not even know, people who have heard them and repeat them, modify them, adapt them according to their whim or how carefully they listened, or for certain comic or slanderous effect. Somewhere, right this minute, someone is telling something very personal about me, something he witnessed years ago but that I probably don't even remember, and since I don't remember I assume it doesn't exist for anyone, erased from the world as completely as from my mind. Bits and pieces of you are left behind in other lives, rooms you lived in that others now occupy, photographs or keepsakes or books that belonged to you and now someone you don't know is touching and looking at, letters still in existence when the person who wrote them adn the person who received them and kept them for a long, long time are dead. Far from you, scenes from your life are relived, and in them you're a fiction, a secondary character in a book, a passerby in the film or novel of another person's life. What happens is that you grow lighter, you shed your obligations and your past, just as you reduce everything you possess to the few items you need for your l "The great night of Europe is shot through with long, sinister trains, with convoys of cattle and freight cars with boarded up windows moving very slowly toward barren, wintry, snow- or mud-covered expanses encircled by barbed wire and guard towers. What happens is that you grow lighter, you shed your obligations and your past, just as you reduce everything you possess to the few items you need for your luggage. The most burdensome aspect of our identity is based on what others know or think about us. They look at us and we know that they known, and in silence they force us to be what they expect us to be, to act according to certain habits our previous behavior has established, or according to suspicions that we aren't aware we have awakened. To the person you meet on a train in a foreign country, you are a stranger who exists only in the present. By the end of the book, his writing had left "musical embers" to quote from MM in me. I clearly knew his voice: soft but clear and when I heard him inter-viewed on a podcast months later he sounded confident, thoughtful and gentle; very much like I had expected. This masterpiece is translated superbly by the brilliant Margaret Sayers Peden. Sepharad was a major influence that I used for inspiration and reference in my recent travelogue "Slow Travels in Unsung Spain" which is currently being translated into German. I'm one hundred pages into this and it is not easy. But his idea of travel appeals to me, and the images from the train and glimpses of life are compelling. Not a traditional novel, more like short stories and stream-of-consciousness, but whose? This is a book club selection; I need some questions to focus on because I am not sure what I am looking for. It is thought-provoking and the characters convey the feeling of loss and absurdity brought on by totalitarian regimes quite well. It leaves the I'm one hundred pages into this and it is not easy. It leaves the reader feeling unsettled as well. Gave it up. Didn't exactly move seamlessly from character to character. Haunting, beautiful, and melancholy. A tour de force that tells the stories of all those who live out of Haunting, beautiful, and melancholy. A tour de force that tells the stories of all those who live out of place and time. I just started reading this book. I loved reading the writer's musings about travel and what travel teaches us. The comments about travel and especially train travel resonated deeply with me. I was filled with longing for the city of Madrid after reading only a few pages. I think the writing style is what most appeals to me. It is not difficult for me to read the Spanish, although the stories skip around at random, a lot like how my brain works. One of the best novels I have ever read. The writing is absolutely gorgeous, intelligent, often melancholy, at times erotic, and with a keen sense of history. Sephardi Jews - Wikipedia

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree See Article History. Read More on This Topic. In Muslim Spain, Jews frequently served the government in official capacities and, therefore, not only took an active interest in political Learn More in these related Britannica articles:. In Muslim Spain, Jews frequently served the government in official capacities and, therefore, not only took an active interest in political affairs but engaged in considerable social and intellectual intercourse with influential circles of the Muslim population. Since the support of letters and…. There are two chief rabbis in Israel, one Ashkenazi and one Sephardi. Tension is frequent between the two groups, largely because of their cultural differences and the social and political dominance of the Ashkenazim in Israeli society. None of the source we usually consult dares to try a hand at interpreting this name, and that's because technically, it doesn't mean anything. Who knows? Sepharad meaning Sepharad in Biblical Hebrew. Excerpted from: Abarim Publications' Biblical Dictionary. The King of Schnorrers Israel Zangwill. History of the Jews, Vol. Do You Know This Word?

(PDF) Remembering Sepharad | Reyes Coll-Tellechea -

In Muslim Spain, Jews frequently served the government in official capacities and, therefore, not only took an active interest in political Learn More in these related Britannica articles:. In Muslim Spain, Jews frequently served the government in official capacities and, therefore, not only took an active interest in political affairs but engaged in considerable social and intellectual intercourse with influential circles of the Muslim population. Since the support of letters and…. There are two chief rabbis in Israel, one Ashkenazi and one Sephardi. Tension is frequent between the two groups, largely because of their cultural differences and the social and political dominance of the Ashkenazim in Israeli society. Until recently, it was generally true that…. There are also several small parties that represent primarily Arab constituents. After the election threshold for representation in the Knesset was raised in , the Arab parties and the multiethnic Hadash party ran on a single list in as the Joint…. History at your fingertips. Sign up here to see what happened On This Day , every day in your inbox! Email address. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Notice. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. It seems that by this time the presence of Jews was of greater concern to Catholic authorities than the presence of pagans; Canon 16, which prohibited marriage with Jews, was worded more strongly than canon 15, which prohibited marriage with pagans. Canon 78 threatens those who commit adultery with Jews with ostracism. Canon 48 forbade Jews from blessing Christian crops, and Canon 50 forbade sharing meals with Jews; repeating the command to Hebrew the Bible indicated respect to Gentile. Barbarian invasions brought most of the Iberian Peninsula under Visigothic rule by the early 5th century. Other than in their contempt for Catholics, who reminded them of the Romans, [36] the Visigoths did not generally take much of an interest in the religious creeds within their kingdom. It wasn't until , when Alaric II — published his Breviarium Alaricianum wherein he adopted the laws of the ousted Romans , that a Visigothic king concerned himself with the Jews. The tides turned even more dramatically following the conversion of the Visigothic royal family under Recared from Arianism to Catholicism in In their desire to consolidate the realm under the new religion, the Visigoths adopted an aggressive policy concerning the Jews. As the king and the church acted in a single interest, the situation for the Jews deteriorated. Recared approved the Third Council of Toledo 's move in to forcibly baptize the children of mixed marriages between Jews and Christians. Toledo III also forbade Jews from holding public office, from having intercourse with Christian women, and from performing circumcisions on slaves or Christians. Still, Recared was not entirely successful in his campaigns: not all Visigoth Arians had converted to Catholicism; the unconverted were true allies of the Jews, oppressed like themselves, and Jews received some protection from Arian bishops and the independent Visigothic nobility. While the policies of subsequent Kings Liuva II — , Witteric — , and Gundemar — are unknown to us, Sisebut — embarked on Recared's course with renewed vigor. Soon after upholding the edict of compulsory baptism for children of mixed marriages, Sisebut instituted what was to become a recurring phenomenon in Spanish official policy, in issuing the first edicts against the Jews of expulsion from Spain. Following his decree that the Jews either convert or be expelled, some fled to Gaul and North Africa, while as many as 90, converted. Many of these conversos , as did those of later periods, maintained their Jewish identities in secret. In , the Fourth Council of Toledo , while taking a stance in opposition to compulsory baptism, convened to address the problem of crypto-Judaism. It was decided that, if a professed Christian were determined to be a practicing Jew, his or her children were to be taken away to be raised in monasteries or trusted Christian households. He directed the Sixth Council of Toledo to order that only Catholics could remain in the kingdom, and taking an unusual step further, Chintila excommunicated "in advance" any of his successors who did not act in accordance with his anti-Jewish edicts. Again, many converted while others chose exile. And yet the "problem" continued. The Eighth Council of Toledo in again tackled the issue of Jews within the realm. Further measures at this time included the forbidding of all Jewish rites including circumcision and the observation of the Shabbat , and all converted Jews had to promise to put to death, either by burning or by stoning , any of their brethren known to have relapsed to Judaism. The council was aware that prior efforts had been frustrated by lack of compliance among authorities on the local level: therefore, anyone — including nobles and clergy — found to have aided Jews in the practice of Judaism were to be punished by seizure of one quarter of their property and excommunication. These efforts again proved unsuccessful. The Jewish population remained sufficiently sizable as to prompt Wamba — to issue limited expulsion orders against them, and the reign of Erwig — also seemed vexed by the issue. The Twelfth Council of Toledo again called for forced baptism, and, for those who disobeyed, seizure of property, corporal punishment, exile, and slavery. Jewish children over seven years of age were taken from their parents and similarly dealt with in Erwig also took measures to ensure that Catholic sympathizers would not be inclined to aid Jews in their efforts to subvert the council's rulings. Heavy fines awaited any nobles who acted in favor of the Jews, and members of the clergy who were remiss in enforcement were subject to a number of punishments. Egica — , recognizing the wrongness of forced baptism, relaxed the pressure on the conversos , but kept it up on practicing Jews. Economic hardships included increased taxes and the forced sale, at a fixed price, of all property ever acquired from Christians. This effectively ended all agricultural activity for the Jews of Spain. Furthermore, Jews were not to engage in commerce with the Christians of the kingdom nor conduct business with Christians overseas. As demonstrated, under the Catholic Visigoths, the trend was clearly one of increasing persecutions. The degree of complicity which the Jews had in the Islamic invasion in is uncertain. Yet, openly treated as enemies in the country in which they had resided for generations, it would be no surprise for them to have appealed to the Moors to the south, quite tolerant in comparison to the Visigoths, for aid. In any case, in they were accused of conspiring with the Muslims across the Mediterranean. Declared traitors, the Jews, including baptized ones, found their property confiscated and themselves enslaved. This decree exempted only the converts who dwelt in the mountain passes of Septimania , who were necessary for the kingdom's protection. The Jews of Spain had been utterly embittered and alienated by Catholic rule by the time of the Muslim invasion. To them, the Moors were perceived as, and indeed were, a liberating force. In many conquered towns the garrison was left in the hands of the Jews before the Muslims proceeded further north. Thus was initiated the period that became known as the " Golden Age " for Spanish Jews. The Eastern Roman Empire sent its navy on numerous occasions at the end of the 7th and beginning of the 8th centuries to try and instill uprisings in the Jewish and Christian Roman populations in Spain and Gaul against Visigoth and Frankish rule, which was also aimed at halting the expansion of Muslim Arabs in the Roman world. In , at the Council of Toledo, Jews were condemned to slavery by the Visigoths because of a plot to revolt against them encouraged by the Eastern Roman Empire and Romans still residing in Spain. With the victory of Tariq ibn Ziyad in , the lives of the Sephardim changed dramatically. For the most part, the invasion of the Moors was welcomed by the Jews of Iberia. Both Muslim and Catholic sources tell us that Jews provided valuable aid to the invaders. The Chronicle of Lucas de Tuy records that when the Catholics left Toledo on Sunday before Easter to go to the Church of Saint Leocadia to listen to the divine sermon, the Jews acted treacherously and informed the Saracens. Then they closed the gates of the city before the Catholics and opened them for the Moors. Although in the cases of some towns, the behavior of the Jews may have been conducive to Muslim success, such was of limited impact overall. Assis, pp. In spite of the restrictions placed upon the Jews as dhimmis , life under Muslim rule was one of great opportunity in comparison to that under prior Catholic Visigoths , as testified by the influx of Jews from abroad. To Jews throughout the Catholic and Muslim worlds, Iberia was seen as a land of relative tolerance and opportunity. Following initial Arab-Berber victories, and especially with the establishment of Umayyad dynasty rule by Abd al-Rahman I in , the native Jewish community was joined by Jews from the rest of Europe, as well as from Arab territories from Morocco to Mesopotamia the latter region known as Babylonia in Jewish sources Assis, p. Thus the Sephardim found themselves enriched culturally, intellectually, and religiously by the commingling of diverse Jewish traditions. Contacts with Middle Eastern communities were strengthened and it was during this time that the influence of the Babylonian academies of Sura and Pumbedita was at its greatest. As a result, until the midth century, much of Sephardic scholarship focused on Halakha. Although not as influential, traditions of the Levant, known as Palestine , were also introduced, in an increased interest in Hebrew language and biblical studies Sarna, pp. Arabic culture, of course, also made a lasting impact on Sephardic cultural development. General reevaluation of scripture was prompted by Muslim anti-Jewish polemics and the spread of rationalism , as well as the anti- Rabbanite polemics of Karaite Judaism. In adopting Arabic, as had the Babylonian geonim , the heads of the Talmudic Academies in Babylonia , not only were the cultural and intellectual achievements of Arabic culture opened up to the educated Jew, but much of the scientific and philosophical speculation of Greek culture, which had been best preserved by Arab scholars, were as well. The meticulous regard which the Arabs had for grammar and style also had the effect of stimulating an interest among Jews in philological matters in general Sarna, pp. Arabic came to be the main language of Sephardic science, philosophy, and everyday business. From the second half of the 9th century, most Jewish prose, including many non-halakhic religious works, were in Arabic. The thorough adoption of Arabic greatly facilitated the assimilation of Jews into Arabic culture Dan, p. Although initially the often bloody disputes among Muslim factions generally kept Jews out of the political sphere, the first approximately two centuries which preceded the " Golden Age " were marked by increased activity by Jews in a variety of professions, including medicine, commerce, finance, and agriculture Raphael, p. By the ninth century, some members of the Sephardic community felt confident enough to take part in proselytizing amongst previously Jewish "Catholics". Each man, using such epithets as "wretched compiler", tried to convince the other to return to his former religion, to no avail Katz, pp. The inauguration of the Golden Age is closely identified with the career of his Jewish councillor, Hasdai ibn Shaprut — Originally a court physician, Shaprut's official duties went on to include the supervision of customs and foreign trade. It was in his capacity as dignitary that he corresponded with the kingdom of the Khazars , who had converted to Judaism in the 8th century Assis, pp. It was within this context of cultural patronage that interest in Hebrew studies developed and flourished. In addition to being a poet himself, Hasdai encouraged and supported the work of other Sephardic writers. Subjects covered the spectrum, encompassing religion, nature, music, and politics, as well as pleasure. Hasdai benefitted world Jewry not only indirectly by creating a favorable environment for scholarly pursuits within Iberia, but also by using his influence to intervene on behalf of foreign Jews, as is reflected in his letter to the Byzantine Princess Helena. In it he requested protection for the Jews under Byzantine rule, attesting to the fair treatment of the Christians of al- Andalus , and indicating that such was contingent on the treatment of Jews abroad Assis, p. The intellectual achievements of the Sephardim of al-Andalus influenced the lives of non-Jews as well. Thought by many to have been written by a Christian, this work was admired by Christians and studied in monasteries throughout the Middle Ages Raphael, p. Some Arabic philosophers followed Jewish ones in their ideas though this phenomenon was somewhat hindered in that, although in Arabic, Jewish philosophical works were usually written with Hebrew characters Dan, p. Jews were also active in such fields as astronomy , medicine , logic , and mathematics. In addition to training the mind in logical yet abstract and subtle modes of thought, the study of the natural world, as the direct study of the work of the Creator, was ideally a way to better understand and become closer to God Dan, pp. Al-Andalus also became a major center of Jewish philosophy during Hasdai's time. Following in the tradition of the Talmud and the Midrash , many of the most notable Jewish philosophers were dedicated to the field of ethics although this ethical Jewish rationalism rested on the notion that traditional approaches had not been successful in their treatments of the subject in that they were lacking in rational, scientific arguments Dan, p. In addition to contributions of original work, the Sephardim were active as translators. Greek texts were rendered into Arabic, Arabic into Hebrew, Hebrew and Arabic into Latin, and all combinations of vice versa. In translating the great works of Arabic, Hebrew, and Greek into Latin, Iberian Jews were instrumental in bringing the fields of science and philosophy, which formed much of the basis of Renaissance learning, into the rest of Europe. In its stead arose the independent taifa principalities under the rule of local Arab, Berber, Slavic , or Muladi leaders. Rather than having a stifling effect, the disintegration of the caliphate expanded the opportunities to Jewish and other professionals. The services of Jewish scientists, doctors, traders, poets, and scholars were generally valued by the Christian as well as Muslim rulers of regional centers, especially as recently conquered towns were put back in order Assis, pp. Among the most prominent of Jews to serve as viziers in the Muslim taifas were the ibn Nagrelas or Naghrela. In addition to his roles as policy director and military leader as one of only two Jews to command Muslim armies — the other being his son Joseph , Samuel ibn Nagrela was an accomplished poet, and his introduction to the Talmud is standard today. His son Joseph ibn Naghrela also acted as vizier. He was murdered in the Granada massacre. The Granada massacre of was an Anti- Jewish Pogrom that took place in Granada in when a Muslim mob stormed the Royal Palace where Joseph had sought refuge, then crucified him. After that, the instigators attacked Jewish families, killing approximately 4, Granada Jews. The Golden Age ended before the completion of the Christian Reconquista. The Granada massacre was one of the earliest signs of a decline in the status of Jews, which resulted largely from the penetration and influence of increasingly zealous Islamic sects from North Africa. Following the fall of Toledo to Christians in , the ruler of Seville sought relief from the Almoravides. This ascetic sect abhorred the liberality of the Islamic culture of al-Andalus , including the position of authority that some dhimmis held over Muslims. In addition to battling the Christians, who were gaining ground, the Almoravides implemented numerous reforms to bring al-Andalus more in line with their notion of proper Islam. In spite of large-scale forcible conversions, Sephardic culture was not entirely decimated. Members of Lucena's Jewish community, for example, managed to bribe their way out of conversion. As the spirit of Andalusian Islam was absorbed by the Almoravides, policies concerning Jews were relaxed. The poet Moses ibn Ezra continued to write during this time, and several Jews served as diplomats and physicians to the Almoravides Assis, p. Wars in North Africa with Muslim tribes eventually forced the Almoravides to withdraw their forces from Iberia. As the Christians advanced, Iberian Muslims again appealed to their brethren to the south, this time to those who had displaced the Almoravides in North Africa. The Almohads , who had taken control of much of Islamic Iberia by , far surpassed the Almoravides in fundamentalist outlook, and they treated the dhimmis harshly. Jews and Christians were expelled from Morocco and Islamic Spain. Faced with the choice of either death or conversion, many Jews emigrated. Meanwhile, the Reconquista continued in the north. By the early 12th century, conditions for some Jews in the emerging Christian kingdoms became increasingly favorable. As had happened during the reconstruction of towns following the breakdown of authority under the Umayyads, the services of Jews were employed by the Christian leaders who were increasingly emerging victorious during the later Reconquista. Their knowledge of the language and culture of the enemy, their skills as diplomats and professionals, as well as their desire for relief from intolerable conditions, rendered their services of great value to the Christians during the Reconquista — the very same reasons that they had proved useful to the Arabs in the early stages of the Moslem invasion. The necessity to have conquerors settle in reclaimed territories also outweighed the prejudices of anti-Semitism , at least while the Moslem threat was imminent. Thus, as conditions in Islamic Iberia worsened, immigration to Christian principalities increased Assis, p. The Jews from the Muslim south were not entirely secure in their northward migrations, however. Old prejudices were compounded by newer ones. Suspicions of complicity with the Moslems were alive and well as Jews immigrated from Muslim territories, speaking the Muslim tongue. However, many of the newly arrived Jews of the north prospered during the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. The majority of Latin documentation regarding Jews during this period refers to their landed property, fields, and vineyards Ashtor, pp. In many ways life had come full circle for the Sephardim of al-Andalus. As conditions became more oppressive in the areas under Muslim rule during the 12th and 13th centuries, Jews again looked to an outside culture for relief. Christian leaders of reconquered cities granted them extensive autonomy, and Jewish scholarship recovered and developed as communities grew in size and importance Assis, p. However, the Reconquista Jews never reached the same heights as had those of the Golden Age. Catholic princes, the counts of Castile and the first kings of Leon, treated the Jews as mercilessly as did the Almohades. In their operations against the Moors they did not spare the Jews, destroying their synagogues and killing their teachers and scholars. Only gradually did the rulers come to realize that, surrounded as they were by powerful enemies, they could not afford to turn the Jews against them. Garcia Fernandez , Count of Castile, in the fuero of Castrojeriz , placed the Jews in many respects on an equality with Catholics; and similar measures were adopted by the Council of Leon , presided over by Alfonso V. In Leon, the metropolis of Catholic Spain until the conquest of Toledo, many Jews owned real estate, and engaged in agriculture and viticulture as well as in the handicrafts; and here, as in other towns, they lived on friendly terms with the Catholic population. The Council of Coyanza therefore found it necessary to revive the old-Visigothic law forbidding, under pain of punishment by the Church, Jews and Catholics to live together in the same house, or to eat together. Ferdinand I of Castile set aside a part of the Jewish taxes for the use of the Church, and even the not very religious-minded Alfonso VI gave to the church of Leon the taxes paid by the Jews of Castro. Alfonso VI, the conqueror of Toledo , was tolerant and benevolent in his attitude toward the Jews, for which he won the praise of Pope Alexander II. To estrange the wealthy and industrious Jews from the Moors he offered the former various privileges. In the fuero of Najara Sepulveda, issued and confirmed by him , he not only granted the Jews full equality with the Catholics, but he even accorded them the rights enjoyed by the nobility. To show their gratitude to the king for the rights granted them, the Jews willingly placed themselves at his and the country's service. Alfonso's army contained 40, Jews, who were distinguished from the other combatants by their black-and-yellow turbans; for the sake of this Jewish contingent the Battle of Sagrajas was not begun until after the Sabbath had passed. Alfonso intended to punish the murderers and incendiaries, but died before he could carry out his intention June, After his death the inhabitants of Carrion fell upon the Jews; many were slain, others were imprisoned, and their houses were pillaged. Alfonso VII , who assumed the title of Emperor of Leon, Toledo, and Santiago, curtailed in the beginning of his reign the rights and liberties which his father had granted the Jews. He ordered that neither a Jew nor a convert might exercise legal authority over Catholics, and he held the Jews responsible for the collection of the royal taxes. Soon, however, he became more friendly, confirming the Jews in all their former privileges and even granting them additional ones, by which they were placed on an equality with Catholics. Considerable influence with the king was enjoyed by Judah ben Joseph ibn Ezra Nasi. After the conquest of Calatrava the king placed Judah in command of the fortress, later making him his court chamberlain. Judah ben Joseph stood in such favor with the king that the latter, at his request, not only admitted into Toledo the Jews who had fled from the persecutions of the Almohades, but even assigned many fugitives dwellings in Flascala near Toledo , Fromista, Carrion, Palencia, and other places, where new congregations were soon established. Jews fought in both armies, and after the declaration of peace they were placed in charge of the fortresses. When the king was defeated at the battle of Alarcos by the Almohades under Yusuf Abu Ya'kub al-Mansur, the defeat was attributed to the king's love-affair with Fermosa, and she and her relatives were murdered in Toledo by the nobility. After the victory at Alarcos the emir Mohammed al-Nasir ravaged Castile with a powerful army and threatened to overrun the whole of Catholic Spain. The Archbishop of Toledo called to crusade to aid Alfonso. In this war against the Moors the king was greatly aided by the wealthy Jews of Toledo, especially by his "almoxarife mayor", the learned and generous Nasi Joseph ben Solomon ibn Shoshan Al-Hajib ibn Amar. The Crusaders were hailed with joy in Toledo, but this joy was soon changed to sorrow, as far as the Jews were concerned. The Crusaders began the "holy war" in Toledo by robbing and killing the Jews, and if the knights had not checked them with armed forces all the Jews in Toledo would have been slain. When, after the sanguinary battle of Las Navas de Tolosa , Alfonso victoriously entered Toledo, the Jews went to meet him in triumphal procession. Shortly before his death Oct. The clergy's endeavors directed against the Jews became more and more pronounced. The Spanish Jews of both sexes, like the Jews of France, were compelled to distinguish themselves from Catholics by wearing a yellow badge on their clothing; this order was issued to keep them from associating with Catholics, although the reason given was that it was ordered for their own safety. The papal bull issued by Pope Innocent IV in April , to the effect that Jews might not build a new synagogue without special permission, also made it illegal for Jews to proselytize, under pain of death and confiscation of property. They might not associate with the Catholics, live under the same roof with them, eat and drink with them, or use the same bath; neither might a Catholic partake of wine which had been prepared by a Jew. The Jews might not employ Catholic nurses or servants, and Catholics might use only medicinal remedies which had been prepared by competent Catholic apothecaries. The Jews were forbidden to appear in public on Good Friday. They owned real estate, and they cultivated their land with their own hands; they filled public offices, and on account of their industry they became wealthy while their knowledge and ability won them respect and influence. But this prosperity roused the jealousy of the people and provoked the hatred of the clergy; the Jews had to suffer much through these causes. The Jews were vassals of the king, the same as Christian commoners. There were about Jewish communities in Catholic Spain around , with somewhere around half a million or more Jews, [ citation needed ] mostly in Castille. Even though the Spanish Jews engaged in many branches of human endeavor—agriculture, viticulture, industry, commerce, and the various handicrafts—it was the money business that procured to some of them their wealth and influence. Kings and prelates, noblemen and farmers, all needed money and could obtain it only from the Jews, to whom they paid from 20 to 25 per cent interest. This business, which, in a manner, the Jews were forced to pursue [ citation needed ] in order to pay the many taxes imposed upon them as well as to raise the compulsory loans demanded of them by the kings, [ citation needed ] led to their being employed in special positions, as "almonries", bailiffs, tax collectors. The Jews of Spain formed in themselves a separate political body. They lived almost solely in the Juderias, various enactments being issued from time to time preventing them from living elsewhere. From the time of the Moors they had had their own administration. At the head of the aljamas in Castile stood the "rab de la corte", or "rab mayor" court, or chief, rabbi , also called "juez mayor" chief justice , who was the principal mediator between the state and the aljamas. These court rabbis were men who had rendered services to the state, as, for example, David ibn Yah. They were appointed by the kings, no regard being paid to the rabbinical qualifications or religious inclination of those chosen. In the beginning of the fourteenth century the position of Jews became precarious throughout Spain as antisemitism increased. Many Jews emigrated from Castile and from Aragon. In , 5, Jews were killed in Navarre following the preaching of a mendicant friar. Peter of Castile , the son and successor of Alfonso XI, was relatively favorably disposed toward the Jews, who under him reached the zenith of their influence - often exemplified by the success of his treasurer, Samuel ha-Levi. For this reason the king was called "the heretic" and often "the cruel". Peter, whose education had been neglected, was not quite sixteen years of age when he ascended the throne From the commencement of his reign he so surrounded himself with Jews that his enemies in derision spoke of his court as "a Jewish court". Following the succession of John I of Castile , conditions for Jews seem to have improved somewhat. Everywhere the Jews remained loyal to King Peter, in whose army they fought bravely; the king showed his good-will toward them on all occasions, and when he called the King of Granada to his assistance he especially requested the latter to protect the Jews. Nevertheless they suffered greatly. Villadiego whose Jewish community numbered many scholars , Aguilar , and many other towns were totally destroyed. The inhabitants of Valladolid , who paid homage to his half brother Henry, robbed the Jews, destroyed their houses and synagogues, and tore their Torah scrolls to pieces. The suffering, according to a contemporary writer, Samuel Zarza of Palencia had reached its culminating point, especially in Toledo, which was being besieged by Henry, and in which no less than 8, persons died through famine and the hardships of war. A few weeks before his death he reproached his physician and astrologer Abraham ibn Zarzal for not having told the truth in prophesying good fortune for him. Prolonged warfare had devastated the land; the people had become accustomed to lawlessness, and the Jews had been reduced to poverty. But in spite of his aversion for the Jews, Henry did not dispense with their services. He employed wealthy Jews—Samuel Abravanel and others— as financial councilors and tax-collectors. His contador mayor , or chief tax-collector, was Joseph Pichon of Seville. The clergy, whose power became greater and greater under the reign of the fratricide, stirred the anti-Jewish prejudices of the masses into clamorous assertion at the Cortes of Toro in It was demanded that the Jews should be kept far from the palaces of the grandees, should not be allowed to hold public office, should live apart from the Catholics, should not wear costly garments nor ride on mules, should wear the badge, and should not be allowed to bear Catholic names. The king granted the two last-named demands, as well as a request made by the Cortes of Burgos that the Jews should neither carry arms nor sell weapons; but he did not prevent them from holding religious disputations, nor did he deny them the exercise of criminal jurisprudence. The latter prerogative was not taken from them until the reign of John I, Henry's son and successor; he withdrew it because certain Jews, on the king's coronation-day, by withholding the name of the accused, had obtained his permission to inflict the death-penalty on Joseph Pichon, who stood high in the royal favor; the accusation brought against Pichon included "harboring evil designs, informing, and treason. Whoever caused the conversion to Judaism of a Moor or of any one confessing another faith, or performed the rite of circumcision upon him, became a slave and the property of the treasury. Against his desire, John was obliged to issue an order prohibiting the employment of Jews as financial agents or tax-farmers to the king, queen, infantes, or grandees. To this was added the resolution adopted by the Council of Palencia ordering the complete separation of Jews and Catholics and the prevention of any association between them. A revolt broke out in Seville in Of the three large synagogues existing in the city two were transformed into churches. Before the authorities could come to the aid of the defenseless people, every one of them — children, young women, old men — had been ruthlessly slain; corpses lay in heaps in the streets, in the houses, and in the wrecked synagogues. A horrible butchery took place in Toledo on June Among the many martyrs were the descendants of the famous Toledan rabbi Asher ben Jehiel. Most of the Castilian communities suffered from the persecution; nor were the Jews of Aragon, Catalonia, or Majorca spared. On July 9, an outbreak occurred in Valencia. More than persons were killed, and most of the Jews of that city were baptized by the friar Vicente Ferrer, whose presence in the city was probably not accidental. The only community remaining in the former kingdom of Valencia was that of Murviedro. On Aug. Three days later, on Saturday, August 5, a riot began in Barcelona. On the first day, Jews were killed, while several hundred found refuge in the new fort; on the following day the mob invaded the Juderia and began pillaging. The authorities did all in their power to protect the Jews, but the mob attacked them and freed those of its leaders who had been imprisoned. The riot raged in Barcelona until Aug. On the last-named day began the attack upon the Juderia in Girona ; several Jews were robbed and killed; many sought safety in flight and a few in baptism. Several responses bearing on the widespread persecution of Iberian Jewry between the years and can be found in contemporary Jewish sources, such as in the Responsa of Isaac ben Sheshet — , [55] and in the seminal writing of Gedaliah ibn Yahya ben Joseph , Shalshelet haQabbalah written ca. According to Don Hasdai Crescas, persecution against Jews began in earnest in Seville in , on the 1st day of the lunar month Tammuz June. The year forms a turning-point in the history of the Spanish Jews. The persecution was the immediate forerunner of the Inquisition, which, ninety years later, was introduced as a means of watching heresy and converted Jews. After the bloody excesses of the popular hatred of the Jews continued unabated. The Cortes of Madrid and that of Valladolid mainly busied themselves with complaints against the Jews, so that Henry III found it necessary to prohibit the latter from practising usury and to limit the commercial intercourse between Jews and Catholics; he also reduced by one-half the claims held by Jewish creditors against Catholics. Indeed, the feeble and suffering king, the son of Leonora, who hated the Jews so deeply that she even refused to accept their money, showed no feelings of friendship toward them. The object of this law was to reduce the Jews to poverty and to further humiliate them. They were prohibited from practising medicine, surgery, or chemistry pharmacy and from dealing in bread, wine, flour, meat, etc. They might not engage in handicrafts or trades of any kind, nor might they fill public offices, or act as money-brokers or agents. They were not allowed to hire Catholic servants, farmhands, lamplighters, or gravediggers; nor might they eat, drink, or bathe with Catholics, or hold intimate conversation have sexual relations with them, or visit them, or give them presents. The Jews were allowed no self-jurisdiction whatever, nor might they, without royal permission, levy taxes for communal purposes; they might not assume the title of "Don", carry arms, or trim beard or hair.

https://files8.webydo.com/9585818/UploadedFiles/722E15D5-0C29-9FA4-DFF7-52D4618E6DED.pdf https://static.s123-cdn-static.com/uploads/4643907/normal_601f007229d8e.pdf https://files8.webydo.com/9590853/UploadedFiles/6238D87A-837F-9416-DF30-713134CFF5FB.pdf https://files8.webydo.com/9593346/UploadedFiles/1F5B2535-DB89-7A4B-3CB1-AB9206908046.pdf https://uploads.strikinglycdn.com/files/3b8238e0-4b35-4ea0-8230-13c27823836f/ponyherz-05-anni-rettet-das-fohlen-943.pdf https://files8.webydo.com/9589444/UploadedFiles/BDDB6163-8B43-52A4-2E44-053E4032E508.pdf