Preface and Apology
This collection began with the simple goal to write a lesson plan – as the required project for the "Education" course from the IISHJ – on Gracia Mendes, the great 16th century Sephardic hero about whom I had recently read a biographical sketch.
Alas, "simple" became "simplistic" as I began to read not just about Gracia Mendes but also about the history of the Iberian Jews. Both the heights of their culture and the depth of their suffering were news to me and, I quickly discovered, to most other American Jews with whom I spoke. It was in fact even news to me that the Spanish Inquisition and its evil architect Torquemada were specifically directed against Jews — or, more precisely, against those Spanish and later Portuguese Jews who had converted to Christianity under the extraordinary pressures that were applied to them. I’m pretty sure that this was not part of the curriculum when I took history.
I believe it is appropriate to be somewhat angered at the way that Sephardim and their history and culture have been push so far to the background by the dominant Jewish culture in the United States. This is understandable, even though the earliest American Jews (as well as the earliest Jews in the Americas) were Sephardim, given the huge immigration of Jews from Europe during the 19th century and 20th centuries. But there are Sephardim among us, and most of us don’t recognize this or know what it means. Even in Secular Humanistic Judaism, where we put great energy into welcoming and accepting differences, we make little effort to redress this institutional ignorance.
Which is not to say
that we make no effort. An excellent course on Sephardic Jewry is
taught by the Institute, for example, and the great Sephardic
thinkers like Maimonides and Spinoza are certainly not ignored. (Nor
do I mean to accuse other Jewish organizations of willful or
negligent disregard: there are both scholarly works and
children’s books published by such organizations as the JPS and
the UAHC.)
Still, I believe that our children and fellow adults would welcome learning more about the marvelous history of the Sephardim, about how their culture today in North America is undergoing a rebirth, and about the changing roles and status of the Sephardim in Israel.
Alas, I could not do all of that in this collection. What I have attempted to do is to include some snapshots of what I learned, which itself is much less that there is to be learned. I have chosen to package these snapshots as "resources" rather than as a connected narrative. There are timelines, summaries, maps, references, source documents, recipes, and even some lesson plans — each could be the subject of a book, let alone a paper. My hope is that an educator or community Leader can find some material in here that will be immediately useful in a lesson or a service or an Adult Education program, and will then be motivated to follow that subject or a related one in more detail.
We who are the remnant of the captive Israelites are dwelling peacefully in the land [of Spain] … The land is rich, abounding in rivers, springs and aqueducts, a land of corn, oil and wine, of fruits and all manner of delicacies. It has pleasure gardens and orchards, fruitful trees of every kind, including the leaves of the tree upon which the silk work feeds … There are also found among us mountains covered by crocus and with veins of silver, gold. Copper, iron, tin, lead, sulphur, porphyry, marble and crystal.
Hasdai Ibn Shaprut (c. 915 — c. 970)