Archive for November, 2008
Who’s Who in the History of Sephardim
Nov 17th
By Shelley Neese, The Jerusalem Connection
Hisdai Ibn Shaprut (915-970 CE) was the first powerful Jewish politician to serve under the Umayyad caliphs in Spain. Hisdai’s career began as the physician for caliph Abd al-Rachman III. Known for his strong command of Latin and Arabic, Hisdai was commissioned to translate a famous medical text from Latin to Arabic that had been given to the caliph as a gift from the Byzantine Empire. After receiving significant recognition for this accomplishment, he was appointed inspector-general of customs and diplomatic advisor to the caliphate in Cordova. Hisdai’s diplomatic skills as a statesman proved extremely successful in negotiations between the Muslim and Christian empires. He even used his position to try, unsuccessfully, to persuade Empress Helena to offer religious liberty to the Jews of the Byzantium. Appointed leader of the Jewish community of Spain, Hisdai was a patron of Jewish learning and devoted much of his influence and finances to supporting Jewish poetry, Hebrew writing, and Talmudic study. He is credited for the revival of Jewish scholarship in Spain and establishing its independence from Babylonia. Hisdai’s deep curiosity about world Jewry prompted him to write to King Joseph of Khazar in search of an explanation of the kingdom’s mass conversion to Judaism two centuries before. His famous correspondence with the King has survived and is the only proof authenticating Khazar’s fascinating story.
Samuel HaLevi (993- 1056), later known as Samuel HaNagid (“the prince”), was the political head of the Jews of Granada in the 11th Century. Before he held the highest position of power of any Jewish notable in medieval Muslim Spain, HaLevi was a petty merchant. He was discovered for his wisdom by the vizier of King Habbus, after being asked by a maidservant to write letters on the vizier’s behalf. He was taken from his merchant job and quickly rose through the notable ranks to the position of vizier and councilor to the King. The King believed that if he did whatever HaLevi advised, God’s blessing would be upon it. When King Habbus died, he was replaced by his son King Badis who also favored HaLevi. In addition to his position as vizier, HaLevi was appointed commander of the King’s armies. Samuel and his son, Joseph, are the only two Jews to ever be given command over a Muslim army. HaLevi lead his army in eighteen years of constant warfare against the Muslim army of Seville. He was killed on the battlefield. In addition to his political and military achievements, HaLevi was a poet and scholar. He used his power to the benefit of Granada’s Jews, giving money to Torah study and the distribution of copies of the Talmud and Mishnah.
Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon (1135-1204), also known as Rambam and Maimonides, is the most famous Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages and one of today’s most widely studied Jewish scholars. He was born in Cordova, Spain but at age thirteen his family was forced to escape to Morocco after the Almohads, a fanatical Muslim sect, conquered Cordova. In Morocco, Maimonides completed his first years of academic training before his family had to once again escape the persecution of Muslim rule. The family went first to Jerusalem and then decided it was not habitable and settled in Egypt. There, Maimonides established an excellent reputation through his medical career. He was appointed personal physician for the Grand Vizier of Egypt and Sultan Saladin. At the same time, he was also widely respected for his Torah knowledge and became the Chief Rabbi of Cairo. Maimonides wrote several hugely important texts in the field of Jewish law and Talmudic study. His most famous works are his commentary on the Mishnah (first commentary of its kind); Mishnah Torah (first systematic written code of Jewish Law); and Sefer HaMitzvot (Book of Commandments). He also wrote a well-known philosophical and theological study, The Guide for the Perplexed. Because of Maimonides’s Aristotelian world-view and emphasis on rationalism and science, he was a controversial figure, both loved and hated by his Jewish contemporaries. Only centuries after his death were his contributions to Jewish scholarship fully appreciated and standardized in Orthodox Judaism.
Moses ben Shem-Tov de Leon (1240-1305) was a Jewish writer in Muslim Spain who first published the Zohar and is most likely the author of the largest portion of the Zohar. The Zohar is a collection of literature offering a mystic’s commentary on the Torah and is considered to be the most important Kabalistic text. Moses claimed the Zohar was written in the second century by the famous Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai and other sages. However, the validity of this claim is highly contested by scholars for three main reasons: the text refers to events that happened after Rabbi ben Yohai’s time; the Zohar is never referenced in the Talmud; and the author of the Zohar shows no knowledge of the land of Israel. Legend also has it that after Moses died, a rich man offered to buy the original Zohar from Moses’ widow but she confessed there was no original because her husband was the author. Little is known of Moses’ personal life except for his love of philosophy and years devoted to the study of Kabala with the mystics of Castile, Spain. Though there were many critics and skeptics of the Zohar initially, within fifty years most of the orthodox Jewish community and Kabalists fully accepted Moses’ claims and glorified the Zohar’s sacredness.
Luis de Santangel (?-1498) was vital to the success of Columbus’s first expedition. Santangel, the son of Jewish converts and treasurer of the Kingdom of Aragon, was very wealthy and had many connections among Spanish notables. He used his influence to arrange for Columbus to have an audience with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. When the King was not forthcoming, Santangel arranged for additional meetings and helped Columbus make his case. After three meetings, Columbus’s proposal was accepted. Part of the agreement was that Santangel would personally sponsor a portion of the first trip and the royal funds would supply the rest. Two other Anusim, Gabriel Sanchez and Isaac Abrabanel, also provided finances for the voyage. Columbus did not forget Santangel’s role and felt personally indebted to him. Columbus’s most famous correspondence reporting his discoveries of the New World was written directly to Santangel. This letter was reprinted and given to the Spanish royalty who were so encouraged to hear of Columbus’s discoveries that they were eager to sponsor subsequent expeditions. One suspected reason for Santangel’s keenness and urgency in sponsoring Columbus and providing him with additional boats is because he wanted to assist his fellow Jews in fleeing Spain.
Benvenida Abrabanel (1490-1560) is memorialized as a woman of valor for the life she dedicated to helping oppressed Jews and giving to Jewish causes. Benvenida and her family fled the Spanish Inquisition in 1492 and moved to Naples. She married her first cousin, Samuel Abrabanel, and together they had six children. Samuel was the head of the Jewish community in Naples and a wealthy businessman. Benvenida was a private tutor for the Spanish viceroy’s daughter, Leonora. Leonora married the Duke of Tuscany but even as a Duchess she maintained her close friendship with Benvenida. Despite this relationship and Leonora’s efforts, Samuel and Benvenida were not immune to the decree in 1541 for the expulsion of all Jews from southern Italy and they were forced to move to Northern Italy. After Samuel’s death, Benvenida took over his large business. Through her connections in Tuscany, she was granted special privileges for commercial use of Tuscany’s port. Under her direction, the business did extremely well. Benvenida used her money to help poor and oppressed Jews and also sponsor Jewish education and scholarship. Benvenida is credited for single handedly buying the freedom of more than a thousand Jews imprisoned by the Spanish Inquisition.
Beatrice Mendes (1510-1569), also known by her Jewish name Gracia Nasi, was a remarkable business woman and the most famous Jewish woman of her time. Though Gracia’s family was forcefully converted to Christianity by the Portuguese King, they remained very devoted to Judaism. At age eighteen, she married a very wealthy Spanish Jewish banker, Francisco Mendes, but after only eight years of marriage, she was widowed. Along with her brother-n-law, Gracia inherited the Mendes family fortune and took over her late husband’s large enterprise. At enormous risk to herself, she used her fortune and connections to help Jews escaping the Inquisition. She was identified by the Inquisition and labeled as a heretic and Judaizer. Imprisoned three times, she and her family escaped to Europe but the Inquisition followed them, eager to convict Gracia and confiscate her wealth. In 1553, Gracia finally reached Turkey where she was no longer persecuted. In Constantinople, Gracia began running a secret underground railroad to help Jews trying to escape from Portugal and Spain. She also secured the approval of the Ottoman sultan to buy the city of Tiberias for Jewish resettlement, but for various diplomatic reasons the deal fell through. In 1555, after Pope Paul IV determined to violently rid all the papal states of Judaizing Christians, Gracia used her power to try and organize all Jewish merchants to boycott the port of Ancona, Italy. After gaining approval from the sultan, the plan was opposed by prominent rabbis who feared taking dramatic actions that would upset the Papacy and Christian kings. Gracia’s belief in the power of Jewish solidarity in fighting oppression was ahead of her time.
Sara Copio Sullam (1588-1641) was an intellectual icon in 17th century Venice, famous for her poems and literary and theological essays. In Sara’s lifetime, all Jews in Venice were required to live in segregated living areas, ghettos. Although they were bound by curfew, the ghettos had a vibrant cultural and social life significantly enhanced by the regular gatherings Sara hosted in her salon. Daughter to wealthy Sephardic parents, Sara was fluent in Hebrew, French, Spanish, and Latin and she was a talented musician, singer, and song writer. She was well-studied in Greek philosophy and Jewish texts and theology. Referred to as “La Bella Ebrea”—the Hebrew Beauty—Sara is rumored to have had many proposals by Christian men trying to convert her. One such man was the Catholic poet Ansaldo Seba who she had intense correspondence with for four years. Despite her high regard for Ansaldo, Sara remained dedicated to her Jewish faith. At some point, the Catholic clergy Bonifaccio accused Sara in an open letter of not believing in the immortality of the human soul. In response, Sara wrote her famous Manifesto which is a very articulate and intellectual rebuttal of his accusations and proof of her belief in immortality. After the wide distribution of her Manifesto, no one dared to make any religious accusations against her again.
Francisca Nunez de Carvajal (1540-1596) and her children are the most well known victims of the Mexican Inquisition. Francisca was born in Spain and at age twelve she married Francisco Rodriguez de Matos. She had nine children, all born in Spain, and was the sister of the famous conquistador and Governor of the New Kingdom of Leon, Luis de Carvajal. When Luis received a land contract for colonization in the New World, the Rodriguez family was invited to join him. Under Carvajal’s governorship, the majority of colonists in the New Kingdom of Leon were Anusim. The Spanish government had tried to prohibit Anusim from entering the New World but Luis de Carvajal was able to hide the identity of most of them in their registration. Once they were settled in Leon and somewhat distanced from the Inquisition, they began practicing Judaism as a community. Francisca and her children were bold in their encouragement of Anusim to remain faithful to Judaism and observe the Law of Moses. The Rodriguez family wrote Hebrew prayers, held Jewish services in their home, studied the Hebrew bible, circumcised family members, and celebrated the Jewish holidays. Eventually their network was discovered by the Mexican Inquisition and many were arrested and tried in auto-da-fes. Francisca and her children were subjected to regular torture but they remained courageous. Once enough evidence was put before the Inquisition, they were determined guilty of Judaizing. However, all the family members refused to deny their Jewish faith, preferring to die as martyrs. Francisca was burned at the stake in Mexico City along with three of her daughters—Isabel, Leonor, and Catalina—and one of her sons—Luis. Francisca’s husband had died prior to the auto-da-fes and two of her other children—Miguel and Marianna—were burned at the stake a few years after Francisca’s death. In just five years, the Inquisition had nearly wiped out the entire family.
Don Juan de Onate (1550-1626), remembered as the “Last Conquistador,” was the founder of the city of Santa Fe and the first Governor and Captain-General of the new province of New Mexico. Onate was born in Mexico to a very wealthy and prominent family and married the granddaughter of Spanish Conquistador Hernando Cortes. Studies of Onate’s maternal ancestry have shown that he was a descendant of Sephardim from Spain who had converted to Catholicism. In 1595, he was granted permission from King Philip II of Spain to lead a colonization and exploration expedition in the northern Rio Grande Valley and El Nuevo Mexico (New Mexico). Part of his mission was to find a shorter route to New Mexico, which became known as the Camino Real, but this made the journey very long and difficult. A caravan of 400 men, half of whom brought their families, and 7,000 livestock went with him. It is suspected that many of the colonists who joined the caravans were not on the official audits because they were Anusim escaping the Inquisition. After eight months of traveling in difficult conditions with little food and water, Onate officially established the province of New Mexico.
Manasseh Ben Israel (1604-1657) is known as the founder of the modern Jewish community of England. His parents were Portuguese Anusim. While Manasseh was still an infant, his father was accused by an auto-da-fe and the family fled to Amsterdam. After receiving years of rabbinical training, Manasseh became rabbi to the congregation of Neveh Shalom in Amsterdam where he developed a widespread reputation as a grand orator. To supplement his family’s income, he started Holland’s first Hebrew press. He wrote several books directed to Christian audiences to help them understand Judaism. His master work, El Conciliador, deals with the difficult passages of the Old Testament and explains the Jewish method of addressing the apparent inconsistencies. Protestant theologians were particularly interested in Manasseh’s messianic views. Manasseh believed that before Jews could restore Jerusalem, they had to occupy every part of the world. With this line of thinking, he labored to attain permission for Jews to be readmitted into England, where they had been barred from living since 1290. English lawmakers recognized that there was nothing in English law preventing Jewish resettlement but Manasseh died before receiving formal permission. However, in his lifetime he was in close communication with Oliver Cromwell who gave informal permission for Jews to return and a large grant for financial assistance.
Rabbi Isaac Aboab de Fonseca (1605-1693) was the first congregational rabbi in the New World. Born in Portugal, he fled as a child with his family to France and then to Amsterdam. In Amsterdam, he received his rabbinical training and became an important spiritual leader. In 1642, Aboab left Amsterdam and moved to Recife, Brazil at the request of Recife’s newly organized 5,000 member Jewish community. Aboab was asked to serve as rabbi for Kahal Kodesh Zur Israel, the first public synagogue in the New World. Under Dutch rule in Recife, Jews were allowed to practice their faith openly and free from persecution. However, in 1646, the Portuguese besieged northeastern Brazil, trying to reconquer the land from the Dutch and destroy the protection Jews enjoyed there. For nine years, the Jews joined their Dutch comrades in fighting off the Portuguese. Risking his own life by staying, Aboab bravely led his community during this time of terrible suffering. In 1654, the Dutch were forced to surrender and all Jews had to leave. With many other Jews from Recife, Aboab returned to Amsterdam. He continued serving as a rabbi in Amsterdam for fifty more years.
Gershom Mendes Seixas (1745-1816) was the first native-born Jewish clergy in the United States. Seixas was born in New York after his father, a Portuguese Jewish convert, was accused of Judaizing and forced to flee. At age twenty-three, Seixas became the spiritual leader for New York City’s synagogue, Congregation Shearith Israel. At the time, there were no available rabbis in North America so Seixas fulfilled his community’s needs by performing all the same functions of an official rabbi even though he was not ordained. During the American Revolution, Seixas was a strong advocate for American Independence and opponent of British occupation. He called upon his congregants to pray for the country’s leaders and bless the revolution. While the British occupied New York, he closed down his synagogue as a sign of protest to British rule and to protect his congregants who had become outspoken in their opposition to the Crown. Seixas had good relationships with Protestant leaders and was well-respected for his charity and patriotism by the entire New York community. He was the only non-Protestant member of Colombia University’s board of trustees and he was honored as one of the twelve clergymen present at George Washington’s inauguration.
Francis Salvador (1747-1776) was the first Jew to be killed in the American Revolution. He was born in England and grew up in London’s Sephardic community. While he enjoyed a wealthy lifestyle in his early adult years, the family fortune was lost after several large investments collapsed. Salvador immigrated to America in 1773 to try and relieve his family’s financial burden. He acquired a large amount of land from his uncle and established himself as a planter. Just a year after his arrival in South Carolina, the tension between England and the American colonies reached a climax. Salvador, already a true patriot, became wholly involved in America’s struggle with the British. As an elected representative for the South Carolina General Assembly, Salvador was the only Jew to serve in a colonial legislature. Also a delegate for South Carolina’s Provincial Congress, he actively opposed the royal government and played an important role in uniting the colonists’ fight for independence. While the British were readying to attack the South Carolina colonies, local British authorities induced the Cherokees to attack the border settlements in order to create a diversion. Salvador was the first to learn of the planned massacre and rode on horseback twenty-eight miles to report the news to Major Williamson. He then joined the militia’s defense of the settlements but before the Cherokees could be defeated, Salvador was shot, scalped, and killed.
Moses Montefiore (1784- 1885) was a famous Jewish philanthropist and statesmen who made it his life’s work to protect the world’s oppressed Jews and relieve their suffering. Born into an Orthodox Sephardic family in England, Montefiore’s first career was in the London Stock Exchange. He made enough money as a broker for the Rothschilds that he was able to retire at age forty and begin his charitable and communal work. Montefiore was given many civil honors, such as his appointment as “sheriff” of London and his being “knighted” by Queen Victoria. A devoutly religious Jew, he was also appointed trustee and community leader of the Sephardic congregations in London. Among his many accomplishments, he convinced his friend, the Sultan of Egypt, to secure the release of Jews in Damascus who had been falsely accused of blood libel. He also persuaded two Turkish sultans to establish a decree which protected the rights of Jews in the Ottoman Empire and offered Jews certain privileges. Although his work extended globally to all parts of Europe and the Middle East, his primary efforts were with the poor and devastated Jewish communities of Jerusalem under Ottoman rule. In his seven trips to the land of Israel, he set up hospitals, schools, water systems, and synagogues and built apartments and farms. He commissioned a census of Jerusalem and he relieved the Old City’s overpopulation by founding the first Jewish neighborhood outside the Old City walls. Montefiore died at the ripe age of 101, leaving a lasting legacy as one of the world’s most beloved Jews.
Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870-1938) served as a Supreme Court Justice for the United States for eight years. Born in New York, Cardozo’s ancestry traced back to the early Sephardic immigrants of the 18th century. His father had been a New York Supreme Court Justice but was forced to resign after being presented with various charges of corruption. After his father’s death, Cardozo attended Columbia University Law School and went on to practice law and became a distinguished New York jurist. He served on the New York Supreme Court for just a few months before being appointed by the Governor to the New York Court of Appeals. A prolific writer, he authored four volumes on the philosophy of law. Cardozo was nominated by President Hoover in 1932 to fill the seat of Oliver Wendell Holmes in the United States Supreme Court. His nomination was unanimously approved by the Senate. Immediately after Cardozo took the bench, Franklin D. Roosevelt began ushering in his new deal, much of which was subject to constitutional challenge and brought heated controversies to the court. Cardozo’s judicial style was seen as progressive and creative. However, his advocacy for judicial lawmaking was limited because he believed that in a democratic government, the court should defer social change to the legislative and executive branches.
Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) is one of the first well-known Jewish American authors. She was a patriotic poet, a defender of immigrant rights, a voice against anti-Semitism, and an early Zionist. Lazarus was one of seven children in a wealthy New York family that traced its roots back to the first Spanish and Portuguese settlers in North America. She connected her poetry to her Sephardic heritage and often wrote about early Spanish Jewry. Although Lazarus considered herself a secular Jew, she was by her own words “an enthusiast for the rights of Jews and their civil equality.” Horrified by the pogroms in Russia, she was an advocate for the establishment of a Jewish nation in Eretz Israel years before Theodore Herzl even began speaking of Zionism. For Lazarus, immigration to Israel of all Jews in Eastern Europe was the only solution for persecuted Jews to find true freedom. Lazarus believed Jews in America enjoyed special privileges but that they were still vulnerable to cycles of anti-Semitism. Little is known about Lazarus’s private life other than the fact she never married and developed a friendship and mentor relationship with Ralph Waldo Emerson. Her later years of poetry were marked by a stronger display of Jewish themes. One of her most famous poems, “The New Colossus,” is engraved on a plaque in the Statue of Liberty with her famous lines “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free.”
Alice Davis Menken (1870-1936) dedicated her life to helping less fortunate Jewish women and youth in New York. She mobilized the Sephardic women of Congregation Shearith Israel to form the Shearith Israel Sisterhood in 1896. Menken was the president of the Sisterhood for over thirty years. Under her leadership, the Sisterhood developed a program to help New York’s poor Jewish immigrants in the Lower East Side. The women made sure the immigrants could access healthcare and had enough food, heat, and clothing. In the early 1900s, the majority of these new immigrants were from Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Having a strong connection to her own Sephardic faith and practices, Menken took measures to encourage the survival of their Sephardic culture and use of Ladino. She taught classes in Sephardic ritual and gave them print materials on American history that had been translated into Ladino. Menken also founded the Jewish Board of Guardians to help Jewish women and youth on parole or probation. Many of these delinquents were Jewish immigrants who were homeless or had engaged in prostitution and substance abuse. Menken’s work through the Jewish Board of Guardians provided counseling, finances, and shelter to assist in their recovery and rehabilitation after being released from prison. In her years of social activism, Menken had a permanent presence in New York courts and reformatory institutions. Menken’s tireless efforts to better the plight of suffering Jewish women and youth are attributed to her unrelenting optimism, belief in humanity, and strong Jewish faith.
Arthur Barros Basto (1887-1961) was a captain in the Portuguese army and descendant of Anusim. After learning of his Jewish ancestry from his grandfather, he enthusiastically returned to normative Judaism and began organizing the Jewish community of Portugal. In this process, many Anusim revealed to him their secret identities and Jewish practices. Inspired by this revelation, Basto traveled throughout Northern Portugal discovering thirty-four hidden communities of Anusim. Basto considered it his “work of redemption” to bring all the Anusim back into the fold of Judaism. As a soldier of the Portuguese revolution, he believed Portuguese Jews had new religious freedom in the country to openly express their Hebraic heritage. He established schools, a Jewish newsletter, and a synagogue to offer Jewish education and Hebrew instruction. His optimism proved to be premature, however, as anti-Semitism rose throughout Europe. Portuguese dictator Salazar and his regime did not appreciate Basto’s attempts to spark a Jewish revival. False and unspecified accusations of moral depravity were brought against him and he was stripped of his rank and dismissed from the army. Known as the “Portuguese Dreyfus,” Basto died without his name being cleared.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (1920) is the former Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel and the current spiritual leader of the Shas political party, the orthodox Sephardic party in Israel. Born in Baghdad in 1920, Rabbi Yosef moved to Jerusalem with his family at the age of four. After years of service on Israeli rabbinical courts and before becoming Israel’s Chief Sephardic Rabbi in 1973, he served as the Deputy Chief Rabbi of Egypt and the Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Tel Aviv-Jaffa. Known for his expertise in Talmudic scholarship, he has written prolifically since the age of eighteen on questions pertaining to Jewish Law (halakha). Due to the genius of his scholarship and heavy political influence, Yosef is revered as one of the current most important figures for religious Sephardim.
Moshe Katsav (1945) is the current President of Israel. Born in Iran in 1945, he and his family immigrated to Israel in 1951. Katsav’s early years were spent in the difficult conditions of a transitional camp set up by the state of Israel in the 1950s to absorb the large influx of poor Sephardim. The camp later became a development town known as Kiryat Malachi. At age 24, Katsav was elected mayor of Kiryat Malachi, becoming Israel’s youngest mayor. A Likud party member, he was elected as Member of Knesset in 1977. In Katsav’s long Knesset career, he held various important Ministerial positions before being appointed as Deputy Prime Minister in the government of Benjamin Netanyahu from 1996-1999. In the election for President of Israel, he defeated Shimon Peres by six Knesset votes. Israel’s eight president, he is the first President of Israel from the Likud party and the first to serve a seven year term.
Shelley Neese is Managing Editor of The Jerusalem Connection.
Defining Moments in 3,000 Years of Sephardic History
Nov 17th
By Shelley Neese, The Jerusalem Connection
Each year on the Ninth of Av, Jews fast and mourn in remembrance of the many tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people. Reciting the Lamentations of Jeremiah, Jews weep for the loss of the first and second temple, destroyed on the same day of the Hebrew calendar, the Ninth of Av, over six hundred years apart. Jews on this day lament the death and destruction suffered by the Diaspora in their years of separation from Jerusalem. Central to the horrors remembered is the forced expulsion of all Jews from Spain in 1492 on the Ninth of Av. The sustained memory of the Spanish Inquisition and the grief it has engendered through the centuries reflects the enormity of this event in all of Jewish history.
In Spain’s Golden Age, Sephardic Jewry, the world’s largest Jewish community, was a beacon of progress and prosperity. However, racism, religious bigotry, and a thirst for power paved the way for the genocidal course Spain eventually chose. But just as the Western Wall defiantly stands today as a last vestige of the Holy Temple, the survival of Sephardic Jewry, after centuries of persecution, bears testimony to the indestructibility of the Jewish people.
Early Jewish pioneers and settlers in Spain971 BC: With the succession of King Solomon, the united kingdoms of Judah and Israel experience enormous growth in power and riches. King Solomon extends his business ventures across the Mediterranean Sea to Tarshish, the west coast of modern day Spain. According to the scriptures (I Kings 10:22 and II Chronicles 9:21), every three years King Solomon and Phoenician King Hiram bring ships in from Tarshish “carrying gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.” Due to this expanded trade relationship, many historians assume Jewish merchants began arriving to Tarshish on King Solomon’s boats or with Phoenician merchants from Sidon and Tyre. This being the case, Jews are likely the first pioneers and settlers in Spain during the area’s earliest period of civilization.
722 BC: Shortly after Assyria conquers the ten northern tribes of the kingdom of Israel and takes them away into captivity, records tell of a large influx of people who move to the Iberian Peninsula. According to legends, these people have Hebrew-like names and are of Hebrew descent.
586– 549 BC: Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar sacks Jerusalem and forces the remaining two southern tribes into exile in Babylon. Many Jews flee to Tarshish during the time of the Babylonian exile but historians debate the exact point the escape to Tarshish took place. The Hebrew exiles could have escaped during the deportation from Jerusalem to Babylon, during the oppressive Babylonian exile, or once the Babylonian exile was over. Most likely, the largest Jewish migration across the Mediteranean happens at the end of Babylonian exile in 549 BC, after the united Media and Persian empires conquer Babylon. The new King Cyrus gives permission for Jews in Babylon to return to Jerusalem. At the time of the mass return to Jerusalem, it is expected some Jewish exiles opted for Tarshish instead of Jerusalem to join the Jewish community and traders already believed to be living there.
135- 409 AD: After the Romans suppress the Jewish revolt in Jerusalem, many Jews flee across the Mediterranean to Spain. For three hundred years the Jewish community in the Roman province of Hispania (Spain) enjoys a period of prosperity in trade and prominence in the sciences and arts.
306 AD: The Council of Elvira, the first Christian council held in Spain, passes an edict prohibiting Christians from marrying or socializing with Jews and from Jews blessing the crops of Christians.
325 AD: Roman Emperor Constantine presides over the Council of Nicea, convened to address theological issues dividing the Christian Church on the nature of the Trinity and Christ’s divinity. After much heated debate, the truth revealed in the scriptures of Jesus’s eternal nature and true divinity is confirmed, Arianism is declared heresy, and the Nicene Creed is formulated. While this is a positive product of the Council, the Council also passes several civil legislations that are at their core anti-Jewish and aimed at completely separating the Christian Church from Judaism.
Differentiating Christian and Jewish holidays and observances is priority. While Christians at this time are still celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus on the Jewish Passover, the Council changes the date of the Gentile Passover to the first day of spring to ensure it will never coincide with the Jewish Passover. Christians have, until this point, observed the Sabbath on the seventh day, Saturday. The Council changes the Christian Sabbath to Sunday. These measures are an intentional blow to Judaism and they are stepping stones for future anti-Jewish legislation and theological conclusions in subsequent councils. Replacement theology and anti-Semitism are created from the birth of the institutional church and persecution of Jews will forever be justified on these evil premises.
Arian Visigoths rule Spain, 409 – 711 AD
409 AD: After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Visigoths—Arian Christians from what is now Western Germany—take over the Iberian Peninsula. In the first two-hundred years of their three-hundred year rule, the Visigoth nobility is tolerant of Jews, primarily because the Jewish population significantly outnumbers the Arian population.
586- 589 AD: Visigoth King Reccared converts from Arianism to Trinitarian Catholicism and declares Christianity as the legalized religion of the state. Reccared tries to fuse the religious doctrines of the Visigoth nobility and Catholic population to produce a more unified Spanish Christian nation. As the Church gains power behind the throne, Reccared is the first Visigoth king to take up an operational anti-Jewish policy.
The Visigoths are known for their obsessive use of legal codes to govern economic, political, and religious life. This affinity for legislation is especially evident in the dozens of detailed anti-Semitic cannons passed at various important councils during Visigoth rule. The laws relating to Jews and Jewish-Christian relations are often overlapping and inconsistent, which suggests the Visigoths were not as effective enforcing the laws as they were creating them.
The first of the cannons against the Jews are a product of the Third Council of Toledo. In an attempt to conserve religious orthodoxy, Jews are forbidden to marry Christian women, hold public office, and own Christian slaves.
612 AD: King Sesbut outlaws Judaism after many of his edicts against the Jews are not enforced. All Jews in the Visigoth kingdom must be baptized within the year or be forcefully exiled. All Jewish children over seven are to be taken from their parents. The majority of Jews refuse to convert and some escape to North Africa. Many who fled choose to return to Spain after King Chintila succeeds Sesbut.
633 AD: At the Fourth Council of Toledo, forced conversions are disapproved. However, Jews who already converted to Christianity—hereafter referred to as Anusim—but have backslidden are given very harsh punishments. Canons pass to take circumcised children from heretical Jewish families and put them in monasteries. If Anusim make contact with unconverted Jews, both parties are punished. Canons prohibit Jews and Anusim from holding public office or owning Christian slaves.
638 AD: At the Sixth Council of Toledo, Spain is declared a Catholic land and therefore only loyal Catholics are allowed to live in Spain. King Chintila ratifies a decision requiring all Anusim to swear an oath—a “Declaration of Faith”—that they will be loyal Christians, rid themselves of all Jewish practices and customs, marry Christians, abstain from kosher foods, and destroy all Jewish materials. All unconverted Jews are to be banished from Spain.
653– 656 AD: At the Eighth Council of Toledo, King Recceswinth issues a new code requiring all unconverted Jews to leave Spain or be baptized. All Anusim must practice standard Catholicism at the risk of severe public punishment. Violators are put on trial and if accused of any misdemeanor, they are to be stoned, burned, or beheaded. At the Ninth Council of Toledo, King Recceswinth elaborates on the ways in which Anusim are to be closely guarded to ensure their abandonment of Jewish customs. For example, all Anusim must be in the presence of a Catholic bishop when celebrating Christian festivals.
Thus far, all anti-Jewish decrees have been enforced with limited success so the aim of the Tenth Council of Toledo is to clamp down on Church leaders who have not been helpful in enforcing the restrictions and monitoring the practices of Anusim.
680– 687 AD: King Erwig abolishes the death penalty for disloyal Anusim but reinforces the laws against “judaizing”—practicing Judaism in secret—by making punishments more severe and frequent. All Jews who have not yet converted are given the option of baptism or exile, but those who choose exile are to be publicly flogged. Also during this time, further restrictions are placed on Anusim to supervise their Christianity. Restrictions are placed on the travel of Anusim and before they are allowed to make a business transaction with a Christian, they must say the Lord’s Prayer and eat pork to prove their sincerity. The Twelfth Council of Toledo decrees the burning of all Jewish books.
693– 694 AD: King Egica at the Sixteenth Council of Toledo passes heavy economic policies to punish Jews. Jewish wealth is confiscated and properties previously owned by Christians must be surrendered by their current Jewish owners. Anusim are required to pay high taxes while un-baptized Jews are prohibited from commerce all-together.
At the Seventeenth Council of Toledo, Egica charges Jews with planning to “exterminate the Christian people and their homeland.” Jews are believed to be plotting with the Moors to undermine the Church and defeat the Visigoth Kingdom. Accordingly, the Jewish religion is completely outlawed. All Jews are reduced to the status of slaves. All Jewish property is confiscated and Jewish children are taken from their homes and given to Christian families or monasteries.
Moorish Rule of Spain, 711 – 1212 AD
711- 719 AD: Tariq Ibn Ziyad—commander of a 12,000 member Moorish Muslim army—invades Spain and defeats King Rodrigo and his Visigoth army of 60,000. Many North African Jews who had fled persecution from Visigoth rule return to Spain to fight under the command of Ziyad. While the Moors go from city to city in their military conquest of Spain, they utilize their Jewish allies to garrison conquered areas. After eight years of fighting, all the Iberian Peninsula—except for small areas in Northern Spain—falls under the rule of the Caliphate and Islamic Sharia. The harsh rule of the Visigoths is officially over and replaced by a more tolerant, although unpredictable, Moorish rule.
Despite their military power, the Muslims are a minority in this newly conquered land. It is critical for their survival to maintain and solicit Jewish support. Jews are allowed to practice their religion freely and govern themselves, but they are required to pay a special tax, wear identifying clothing, and live in separate communities.
711- 1066 AD: Under Moorish rule, particularly with the Umayyad dynasty, Spain experiences it’s “Golden Age” as a prominent social and cultural capital of the world. Under this new leadership and flourishing environment, many formerly exiled Jews return to Spain and Jews fleeing persecution in Europe come as refugees. Sephardim flourish intellectually, socially, and economically. In trade, Spanish Jews become major importers and exporters of precious goods. In the arts and sciences, Jewish intellectuals study and translate Greek philosophers’ original writings and develop new philosophies incorporating Jewish theology. Hebrew language and grammar are revived. Jewish scholars invent algebra and develop trigonometric theories. Jews also rise to the highest ranks in the public sector, serving and advising the Caliph and Spanish courts.
1066 AD: As Muslim leaders begin to feel threatened by the growing Christian kingdom in Northern Spain, instances of Jewish persecution become more frequent. In Granada, particularly, Muslims are suspicious and jealous of the prominence and power of the Jewish community. On 30 December, Joseph Ha-Nagid—the Jewish commander of the Army of Granada and son of the well-known vizier Samuel Ha-Nagid—is assassinated by Muslim fanatics. In the ensuing riots, the Jewish quarter of Granada is razed and 4,000 of Granada’s Jews are massacred. Many Jews manage to flee to Christian Spain in the North.
1098 AD: While the armies of the First Crusade are conquering Jerusalem, Christian armies in Spain launch their own crusade and reconquer Toledo. Jews in Toledo prosper under Christian rule, while Jews in Muslim Spain suffer from limited freedom and an increasingly volatile environment. By this time period, more Jews live in Spain than all the other European countries combined.
1146- 1156 AD: A fanatical Muslim political party from North Africa—known as the Almohads—conquers Morocco and many Southern cities in Spain. The Almohads impose the fullest restrictions on non-Muslims. Jewish properties are confiscated, wives and children are sold into slavery, and Yeshivas and synagogues are burned down. In Almohad Spain all Jews are forced to convert to Islam or sent into exile.
From the Christian Reconquest of Spain to the Spanish Inquisition, 1212 – 1492 AD
1212 AD: The Pope declares the reconquest of Spain a crusade. King Alfonso VIII of Castile recruits the help of all the Spanish kingdoms and leads a coalition of Christian armies in the great battle of Las Nevas de Tolosa. This decisive victory over the Almohad sultan shatters Almohad power in Spain. The Almohads, already weakened from years of internal discord, begin their retreat. Rapidly, the Christian armies reconquer the rest of central Spain. Granada is the only place on the Iberian Peninsula Muslims continue to rule until 1492.
Though taxes under Christian rule are heavy, the Jews are happy to see an end to the oppressive Almohad dynasty. Spanish Jewry prospers and lives in peace with its Christians neighbors. Jews enjoy a period of religious freedom and protection by the state.
In the 13th century, there are two major contributions to Jewish biblical study. First, Sephardic scholars translate the bible into Spanish. Then, Rabbi Moses de Leon writes and compiles the Zohar, the Book of Splendor. The sacred book of the Zohar is the basis of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, and its teachings spread throughout Spain in the fourteenth and fifteenth century, gaining significant popularity.
1233-1235 AD: The Papacy, now with restored power through the Catholic monarchies in Spain, is concerned about the centuries of fraternizing between Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Pope Gregory IX believes the Spanish monarchs and clergy are not dealing harshly enough with the Jewish and Muslim populations. French troops are thus commissioned to Spain to assist the Spanish reconquest and more severely deal with what are seen as the heretical religious minorities. The Pope also commissions the Archbishop of Tarragona to appoint inquisitors. One of the first decrees to be enforced is the “Jew badge,” a yellow linen patch to be worn by all Jews to distinguish them from Christians.
1265 AD: King Alfonso X of Castile compiles Las Siete Partidas, a code of law which is anti-Jewish in its nature but does establish certain protective measures for Jews, their religion, and property. The laws—which do not technically go into effect until 1348—provide that Jews maintain their religious freedom and are allowed to build synagogues as long as they are limited in size and number. However, the law also stipulates that Jews are not allowed to marry or live with Christians, own Christian slaves, or be in any position of authority over Christians. Christians who convert to Judaism are to be put to death.
1267 AD: Pope Clement IV establishes the Inquisition in Rome, giving permission to Franciscan and Dominican inquisitors to investigate the lives of Anusim and reaffirming the use of torture as part of the investigation.
1348- 1354 AD: The “Black Death” rages in Europe, killing nearly half of the total population. Rumors spread that conspiring Jews from Spain poisoned the wells of Christians to cause the plague. This myth prompts angry mobs all over Europe to massacre thousands of Jews. Spanish Jewry suffers less than Jews in Germany and France but in Toledo 12,000 Jews are killed by angry mobs.
1391 AD: While the peasantry in Spain is overtaxed and overburdened, Jews prove to be an easier scapegoat than the monarchy. Ferrant Martinez, Archdeacon of Ecija, capitalizes on these feelings by roaming the country, stirring up riots, and preaching fiery anti-Semitic sermons, claiming Jews represent the devil among them. Martinez commands clergy of various towns to tear down synagogues and confiscate Jewish property. Looting and terrorizing leads to massacres. In Seville alone, 4,000 Jews are killed. In June and August, a total of 50,000 Jews are killed from seventy communities. It is estimated that after a year of violence, over 100,000 Jews are killed and over 100,000 are baptized by the Church quickly enough to avoid execution. Jews who avoid execution and conversion flee from Spain and establish Sephardic communities throughout Southern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Smaller groups go to Western Europe and Holland.
1413-1415 AD: In an effort to compel the remaining Jews in Spain to convert to Christianity, there are forced religious debates to determine whether Jesus was the true Messiah. The debates—known as the Disputation of Tortosa—are held between Jews and a converted Jew and aid to the Pope Boniface XIII, Jeronimo de la Santa Fe. As a result of these debates and increased persecution, thousands of Jews convert to Christianity. Most Jews in the government, justice system, and financial administration are primarily secular and therefore quick to be baptized so they can maintain their appointed prestigious positions. In addition to the conversions, there are also many interfaith marriages during this period between wealthy Anusim and Christian nobility. The marriages are convenient since Anusim are in need of social status while the Christians lacked the wealth they need to match their social positions.
1449 AD: With thousands of new Jewish converts in Spain, tensions arise between old and new Christians. Part of this animosity towards Anusim derives from the fact that many are known to still be practicing Judaism in secret. There is also significant jealousy towards the Anusim because they are now able to use their status as Christians to move up the ranks in Spanish society. Discrimination of Anusim officially takes on racial tones when the City Council of Toledo passes the “purity of blood” statutes. These statues use family histories to try and distinguish Christians of “pure stock” from Christians with Jewish ancestry. The statutes prohibit impure Christians from holding any public or private office where they may “exercise power over old Christians.”
1479 AD: The marriage of Ferdinand V of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile unite the two Spanish kingdoms. As Queen Isabella establishes order and centralizes authority in a relatively short period of time, the united Spanish kingdom becomes one of the more powerful states in Europe. Maintaining royal political power and unity is a priority to the monarchy but the threat of a popular uprising looms large. Given the large scale animosity felt towards Anusim, establishing an inquisition is one option for satisfying the masses.
1481- 1492 AD: The Queen becomes convinced by her confessor, Friar Thomas de Torquemada, that heretical Jews pose a threat to the kingdom’s unity. As a result, the Queen orders a papal inquisition in Seville and appoints Torquemada as the Inquisitor-General. As Torquemada displays a ruthless determination in rooting out the heretics, the Inquisition quickly spreads throughout Spain. The inquisitors seek out, investigate, torture, and often kill Anusim who are found guilty of practicing Judaism in secret. While the Inquisition initially investigates the piety of only those accused of heresy, it quickly becomes a racial exercise, targeting all Anusim just for being of Jewish descent. Even Jewish converts of nobility or social stature are not immune to the Inquisition. The Inquisition relies on informers and their suspicions. Once a heretic is identified, torture is used to procure confessions, even forced and false ones. Heretics are then given a public trial of humiliation, auto-da-fe, to determine their sentence. 13,000 are found guilty of judaizing—2,000 of whom are burned at the stake while the rest are whipped, imprisoned, or enslaved. The wealth and property of the Anusim is confiscated and divided between the Inquisition, the Church, and the Queen. After a long and expensive war to recapture Granada from the Muslims, the monarchy’s coffers are in bad need of this increase in their funds.
1492 AD: On 31 March, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella sign a certificate of expulsion, the Alhambra Decree, which orders all Jews left in Spain to either convert to Christianity or leave the country within four months. While tens of thousands of Jews are quickly baptized, around 100,000 flee to Portugal, and another 100,000 flee to modern-day Italy, Holland, North Africa, Turkey, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, the Balkans and the new colonies. They are forced to leave behind all of their valuable possessions.
1492- 1497 AD: Around half of the Jews escaping Spain flee to Portugal. The Portuguese King John II allows the entry of these Jewish refugees on the condition that they will pay a heavy tax and if they do not leave within a year they will become slaves to the King. After the year deadline passes, very few Jews have the means to leave Portugal and are forced into slavery.
This arrangement does not last long before King Manuel comes to power and cancels the slavery status of Jews. Instead, Manuel decides to capitalize on the Jews’ skills and wealth as free people. While Jews must continue to abide by certain discriminatory legislations, they use their relative freedom to flourish economically and attain high positions as counselors and ministers.
However, Manuel soon bows to the pressure of the Catholic Kings and his future wife, Princess Isabel, to rid Portugal of Jews. He issues an edict for the forceful conversion of all Sephardim in Portugal and the placement of all Jewish children in the custody of the Church. In response, thousands of Sephardim try to leave Portugal, but Manuel outlaws emigration because he does not want to lose the assets Jews have afforded his kingdom. In one specific incident, he tricks thousands of Sephardim to go to the port of Lisbon with the promise that ships are arriving to take them to their chosen destinations. While they are waiting for embarkation, they are caught by surprise and 20,000 are carried off to churches to be forcibly baptized. After burning Hebrew books and destroying synagogues, the King decrees that for twenty years there are to be no inquiries or investigations of the practices of these new converts. With this understanding, clandestine Judaism thrives in Portugal for the next three decades.
Sephardim in the New World
1492- 1502 AD: Two days before the deadline for the Spanish expulsion, Columbus sails to the New World. Columbus’s four voyages are funded by three wealthy Anusim: Sanchez, Santangel, and Abranbanel. Many historians believe there is sufficient evidence Columbus was of Jewish descent and the sense of urgency in his voyages was because many of Columbus’s passengers were fleeing Jews. The total number of Anusim who sail to the New World in these voyages is unknown but estimates are high and continue to grow. Hoping to start a new life and live in freedom and autonomy, many Jews flee to the New World because an inquisition in the colonies has not yet been established and many parts of Europe are closed to Jews. Technically, several decrees barred the entry of Jews into the colonies but through bribery, secrecy, and forged documents, thousands manage to secure a place on the boats. Sephardim settle in colonies that are now modern day Cuba, Mexico, the Caribbean, South America, and the Southwestern part of the U.S.
1506 AD: During Passover, anti-Semitic riots break out in Lisbon, Portugal. Over three thousand Anusim are massacred. At this time, Anusim are still protected by law in Portugal and their persecution or murder is illegal. Upon hearing the news of the Lisbon massacre, King Manual is furious and orders the execution of forty-five of the ringleaders, including two monks. For the next twenty years, Portuguese Anusim live free from routine persecutions or local hostilities but they are more careful in hiding their Jewish practices.
1531- 1540 AD: Pope Clement VII authorizes an inquisition tribunal in Portugal. The Anusim of Portugal knew for three years about the coming Inquisition but King John III prohibited their emigration. The first auto-da-fe in Portugal took place in Lisbon in 1540. Thereafter, thousands of Anusim convicted of heresy are robbed, imprisoned, tortured, or burned at the stake. Many Anusim manage to flee Portugal, escaping to Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the New World—all places where there are existing Sephardic communities.
1571 AD: After the Inquisitions, Jewish refugees from Spain and Portugal move in large numbers to cities in Mexico such as Oaxaca, Vera Cruz, Guadalajara, and Mexico City. According to chronicles from the period, the combination of Jews and Anusim far outnumber true Catholics. Free from the Inquisition, many of these Anusim circumcise their children, eat kosher, and even build synagogues.
By 1531, Catholic Franciscans in Mexico are fed up and write to the Spanish Monarch complaining the Anusim are taking over the lands of the New World. Though local Franciscan inquisitors have already been conducting auto-da-fes in Mexico for forty years, in 1571, Pope Philip II orders the establishment of a formal inquisition tribunal in Mexico and Peru—the first tribunals in the New World.
During the entire colonial period of Mexico, approximately 1,500 Anusim are convicted of heresy. Punishments include confiscation of property, lashes or public beatings, a lifetime of wearing a “holy sac,” or execution. Inquisition records show that out of those Anusim found guilty of heresy, approximately 110 were executed. Although these numbers do not include those victims who died in prison or from torture, they are very small in comparison to the thousands massacred and burned at the stake by the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions.
1579- 1596 AD: Spain grants Luis de Carvajal, a Spanish Conquistador and son of Jewish converts, a very large land tract which covers a major portion of northern Mexico, South Texas, and New Mexico. This is the only land grant given by Spain where the recipient does not have to prove a pure Christian blood line. Carvajal and two hundred Sephardic families settle the land and establish villages in Northern Mexico, which are today the sites of Monterrey and Monclova. When the Inquisition indicts the Carvajal family and friends for practicing Judaism, Luis de Carvajal refuses to denounce them. Five of the Carvajal family members are tortured and burned at the stake in Mexico City’s main plaza. Luis de Carvajal is put in prison and dies within the year.
1580 AD: La Santa Catalina, a ship sailing from Portugal, drops off many Sephardim at the Island of Ocoa—today the Island of Santa Domingo.
1600s AD: In Amsterdam, a protestant country immune from the Inquisition, Sephardim thrive and grow in number and influence.
1602 AD: Don Juan de Onate leads a group, largely of Jewish descent, across the Rio Grande River and through El Paso, Texas. In order to escape detection from the Mexican Inquisition, these Anusim settle the interior of the New World, including present day Texas, Colorado, Arizona, and California. Under Onate’s governorship, they become the founders of the modern state of New Mexico and the city of Santa Fe.
1625 AD: Over a hundred years since its establishment and after decades of inactivity, the Inquisition in the Canary Islands remobilizes. Denunciations by informants reveal a large and rich, although secretive, Jewish community dating back to the Spanish Inquisition. By and large, the Inquisition in the Canaries during the 17th and 18th centuries is unsuccessful in finding and convicting Anusim because the general public is not very supportive and ignored the Inquisition’s edicts.
1630 AD: For the last two hundred years, thousands of Anusim have settled in the Spanish-Portuguese colony of Brazil. In those first two centuries, Anusim suffered socially from the Inquisition but prospered economically from sugar plantations and exporting wood to Europe. In 1630, the Dutch defeat the Portuguese and take over northeastern Brazil. In Dutch Brazil, the Jewish community thrives, practicing Judaism openly and building synagogues. More Jews from Holland migrate to Brazil, making the Jewish population the largest group of European colonists.
After a nine year siege, in 1654, the Portuguese armies overtake all of Brazil. As a condition for surrender, the Dutch governor of Brazil insists that the Portuguese not slaughter the Jews. Instead, they are forced to leave along with their Dutch comrades. While some Anusim stay, most move to Holland, the Rio Grande, and the Caribbean Islands.
1642 AD: The discovery of a secret synagogue in Mexico City reignites the Mexican Inquisition. Thomas de Trevino de Sobremonte, a practicing Jew and highly respected leader of the Jewish community, refuses to convert and is burned at the stake.
1655 AD: With the Portuguese takeover of Brazil, two dozen Jews leave Recife, Brazil and migrate to New Amsterdam (New York). There, they establish the first organized Jewish congregation in the United States. While they were always free to practice their faith privately, it takes thirty years before they receive official permission to publicly and officially practice Judaism. This accomplishment is owed to their unrelenting struggle to establish religious freedom for themselves in their new land. In 1730, the congregation consecrates the first synagogue in the United States, Congregation Shearith Israel.
1658 AD: Sephardim escaping the Inquisition in the Caribbean Islands move to Newport, Rhode Island. Over the next century, until the American Revolution, their population swells as they develop a practicing Jewish community of the Sephardic tradition. In 1763, they dedicate the Touro Synagogue, the oldest surviving synagogue in the United States.
End of Inquisition in Europe and the Americas and the Rise of Anti-Semitism in Muslim Lands
1670 AD: Jews in Morocco suffer greatly under the tyranny of Moulay Rashid. Intent on terrorizing the Jews, Rashid publicly burns Jewish officials, expels others, imposes outrageous non-Muslim taxes, and destroys synagogues.
1773 AD: Portugal’s King Joseph I establishes a royal decree abolishing discrimination between old and new Christians based on “purity of blood.”
1790 AD: After the accession to the Moroccan throne of Jew-hater Moulay Yazid, a terrible pogrom breaks out in Tetouan and spreads to several other Moroccan cities. Jewish men, women, and children are stripped in public, dragged through the streets by horses, beaten, thrown in prison, and often killed. Those that survive the massacres either convert to Islam or pay enormous bribes to the monarchy.
1807 AD: Under the leadership of Napoleon, France invades Portugal. 20,000 Portuguese identify themselves to the French as Jews.
1821 AD: The Mexican Inquisition is abolished with the independence of Mexico. Fifty years later, an edict of religious tolerance is issued allowing Jews to become Mexican citizens.
1822 AD: Brazil gains independence from Portugal. Escaping persecution and economic hardship, many Moroccan Jews migrate to Brazil and settle along the Amazon River.
1834 AD: Inquisition tribunals of Spain finally disappear completely.
1839 AD: Mobs attack the Jewish community in Mashhad, Iran and burn down synagogues. The remaining Iranian Jewish community converts to save their lives but continues practicing Judaism in secret.
1870 AD: After forty years of French colonization in Algeria, Algeria’s Jews are granted French citizenship and largely adapt the French language and culture. A significant Jewish presence in Algeria dates back to the Roman period. Many Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition went to Algeria to join the already established Jewish community. In Ottoman Algiers, Jews lived with a relative degree of social autonomy, prospered economically, and were able to maintain their religious orthodoxy.
1917 AD: Samuel Schwartz, a Jewish engineer in Portugal on business, discovers a community of Anusim in Belmonte. Traveling throughout Northern Portugal, Schwartz identifies around 15,000 Anusim, in addition to those in Belmonte, who have maintained secret Jewish practices throughout the centuries. These Portuguese Jewish communities believe they are the only remaining Jews.
Sephardim in the Holocaust and the Birth of Israel
1939- 1945 AD: Sephardic Jewry in Europe suffers the same fate of their Ashkenazi counterparts. While Sephardim live in all parts of Europe, the largest Sephardic communities are in Greece, Holland, Yugoslavia, and Italy. More than 90% of the Jewish community in Greece is wiped out by the Holocaust. Hitler’s goal to eliminate world Jewry is not confined to central Europe. The spread of Nazi ideology has a devastating affect on the Jewish communities of Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, and Tunisia.
1941 AD: For two days in June, Iraqi Jews suffer their own Kristallnacht, known as the “Farhud,” meaning “violent dispossession.” Incited by pro-Nazi radio messages from the Zionist enemy Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, Iraqi mobs rampage several Baghdad districts killing any Jew in site, including women and children, and destroying all Jewish property. The army and Iraqi police do nothing to stop it and in many instances participate. The massacre continues for 48 hours until they are forcefully stopped by British forces reentering Baghdad. This is the beginning of the end for Iraq’s Jewish community.
1948 AD: With the establishment of the State of Israel, Sephardim living in Islamic countries are persecuted and threatened. Over the next twenty years, 600,000 Jews from Muslim states flee to Israel independently or are brought over on special Israeli military operations. Over 200,000 come from Morocco and 100,000 from Iraq. In most cases, Muslim authorities in all Arab states confiscate the Jews’ possessions and property and force them to relinquish their citizenship. Resultantly, the majority of Sephardim arrive to Israel poor and empty-handed. Overwhelmed by the enormous numbers and with no help from the United Nations, the Government of Israel places the Sephardic immigrants in transit camps in the less populated areas of Israel, primarily the Negev. The difficult conditions of these camps do not create an ideal beginning for these communities, putting them at a disadvantage compared to the wealthier and more educated Ashkenazi community. Today, Sephardim still make up a much larger percentage of the working and under class in Israel than Ashkenazim but with time this social and economic gap is closing.
1956 AD: Tunisia gains its independence from France and a number of anti-Jewish policies are put into place while many Jews are targeted for attack and the Jewish ghettos are razed to the ground. Tunisia’s 100,000 Jews emigrate to France or Israel.
1962 AD: Algeria gains its independence from France. In the face of mounting hostility toward Jews, nearly the entire Algerian Jewish community migrates to France or Israel.
1968 AD: On 14 December, the Jewish community in Spain receives official recognition as a practicing religious body. On the same day and in the same document, the edict of expulsion of 31 March 1492 is abrogated.
1999 AD: In Israel, the Sephardic political party, Shas, wins 17 out of 120 seats in the Knesset. This marks a great achievement by the Israeli Sephardim in achieving political influence.
Conclusion
For centuries, thousands of Anusim and their descendants maintained their Jewish beliefs and practices in secret for fear of persecution or judgment. Over time, some Sephardim were able to pass the family secret down from generation to generation; others continued Jewish practices without knowing their source; and many lost the knowledge of their Jewish ancestry but never lost their sense of otherness.
It is suspected that thousands—if not millions—of Bnai Anusim, descendants of forced converts from Spain, are residing today in Mexico, South America, Spain, Portugal, and southwestern United States. Only a fraction of these “lost Jews” are aware of their Jewish identity. Recently, however, there has been a revival occurring among Bnai Anusim who are either discovering their Jewishness for the first time or finally shedding the secrecy of their identity. Particularly, in the last twenty years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of Bnai Anusim who have publicly identified themselves as Jews and begun to explore the roots of their Hebraic heritage.
According to testimonies, some Bnai Anusim families carefully preserved and protected Jewish practices and therefore were always very conscious of their Jewish identity. Others, after centuries of forced assimilation, miraculously awakened to their sense of connection to Judaism and independently acted on their desire to return to their ancestral faith. Restoring their Jewish identity is a powerful process in reclaiming what had been forcefully stolen from their ancestors.
Assimilation and complicated family histories have made the task of identifying sources of Jewish ancestry difficult, although not at all impossible. Part of the discovery process is recognizing the Jewish practices Bnai Anusim have kept over the centuries, often without even knowing their source or purpose. Keeping Kosher, observing the Sabbath, using Ladino (Spanish Hebrew) words and phrases, and celebrating Jewish holidays are just some of the traditions these Sephardim have maintained. The survival of less known rabbinic practices such as putting pebbles on graves and sweeping floors a certain way, which could not have been learned from just reading the Torah, is particularly convincing proof of their direct Jewish heritage. For many returning Jews, their given names and family names are historic links to their Jewish genealogy. Dell Sanchez, in his books The Last Exodus and Aliya!!!, gives an extensive list of Sephardic surnames, noting that many historians believe the letters “ez”—short for Erez Israel—were attached to names by Sephardic Jews as a way of saying “I am of my land, Israel.” In addition to genealogical and historical proof, there are growing numbers of Sephardim who have chosen DNA testing as a scientific tool for unlocking the truth of their ethnic origin.
As Sephardic Jews come to terms with their identity, whole communities are coming forth publicly and professing their desires to return to normative Judaism. Synagogues are being built and rabbis are sent to even the most remote communities of Bnai Anusim to offer them religious teaching in mainstream Judaism and reconnect them to World Jewry. Before these lost brethren fully return to orthodoxy, a conversion process is usually necessary. However, rabbis usually more sensitive to the context of the conversion, emphasizing it as a cautionary measure and ceremony of return, not meant to deny their Jewishness but to protect it.
In the wake of the return of the Bnai Anusim to Judaism, we can also expect to see a massive aliya to Israel. To be sure, many of these Bnai Anusim have expressed their feelings of not belonging in the land of their birth, preferring to return to the home of their ancestors. They feel an unexplainable love for Israel and a longing to be part of the Jewish state. As the Spirit of God moves in their hearts, they are encouraged by the prophecies and feel commanded to return to Israel. Some have even testified of angelic visits and divine appointments in which this message was revealed. In the coming days of the Lord we will witness the full fulfillment of the prophecies in the final exodus. The hearts of the lost Jews will be restored to their fathers (Malachi 4:5) and they will gather and reunite with their brethren to possess the land promised to them (Obadiah 19-21).
Shelley Neese is managing editor of The Jerusalem Connection.
The Islamic Infiltration of America
Nov 1st
Islam in America, Part 5
By Dr. Richard Booker
In his startling book, Inflitration, investigative journalist Paul Sperry, provides shocking facts about the radical Muslim agenda to destroy our way of life. He quotes Donald Lavey who is an FBI counterterrorism veteran who also served as counterterrorism chief for Interpol:
“Muslim subversives have managed to build an impressing infrastructure of support for the bad guys like al-Qaida terrorist. Muslim subversives have been working clandestinely to undermine America’s constitutional government and the Judeo-Christianity on which it was built. Their goal is to replace the U.S. Constitution with the Koran and turn America into an Islamic state. Their strategy is to exploit the very rights and freedoms they intend to banish, while counting on the ever-trusting American people to remain blind to their true intentions.”
Sperry says that radical Islamists have infiltrated every level of American life and cites the following alarming examples.
1. A senior White House official of Persian origin has been put in charge of government contracting and outsourcing, even though congressional lobbying records show he once lobbied on behalf of a Muslim activist who is now a confessed terrorist.
2. The same official prior to 9/11 lobbied Congress and federal agencies to make it harder for federal law enforcement to deport Middle Eastern immigrants with suspected terror links.
3. An Islamic activist obtained a sensitive intelligence post at the Department of Homeland Security even though he failed to disclose his past association with the same confessed terrorist.
4. In their rush to recruit Arabic translators after 9/11, both the FBI and the Pentagon cut corners on background checks and hired Muslim translators in spite of their ties to various foreign military and intelligence agencies in Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey. Of course the translators can tell the FBI anything they want and the FBI would not be the wiser. At the same time, none of the 60 Arab-speaking Jews who applied were accepted because the Muslims would not work with them.
5. Laptops with classified intelligence about al-Qaida investigations have gone missing from the translation unit in the Washington field office of the FBI.
6. The FBI hired the daughter of a former senior Pakistani intelligent officer to translate the intercepts of Pakistani targets. About 6 months later, a secret FBI code was compromised, falling into the hands of the Pakistani government.
7. A Muslim FBI agent refused to wear a wire to secretly record a Muslim target of counterterrorism investigation because he was a friend of the person being investigated.
8. A Palestinian activist, who sponsors an orphaned child of a Palestinian suicide bomber, has free access to the White House through Karl Rove, the President’s friend and political advisor.
9. President Bush struck a deal with Muslim-rights groups to avoid describing terrorism as “Islamic.”
10. CAIR (the Council of American-Islamic Relations) is considered one of the most respectable and influential mainstream Islamic organizations in America with an open door to Washington’s elite. Yet, it has donated money to known terrorist organizations and three of its former top officials have been arrested for terrorist-related activities.
11. CAIR receives large sums of money from Islamic groups in the Middle-East with ties to terrorists.
12. CAIR has successfully won more than two hundred cases against U.S. companies for alleged discrimination against Muslims.
13. A Muslim social studies teacher who was on the Saudi government payroll is educating your children about Islam in public schools through sugar-coated textbooks and role-playing exercises in which kids “pretend to be Muslims” for weeks. Furthermore, the Saudi’s are giving millions of dollars to schools to fund their pro-Muslim propaganda through textbooks, teachers, and professors and establishing pro-Islamic Studies Department in major universities.
14. Saudi Arabia is also financing, with money from Islamic radicals, thousands of synagogues around the country with an Islamic fundamentalist message.
15. A large influential Mosque in Washington D.C. was the “home synagogue” of two of the Saudi hijackers who attacked the Pentagon buildings. The Mosque is owned and controlled by Saudi Islamic fundamentalist. At least four of the leaders of the Mosque have now been investigated for terrorist ties.
16. There are an estimated 200,000 Muslim inmates in our prison system. Most are African-American converts, and many are eligible for parole. Their Islamic chaplains are preparing them for their new life of freedom as radical Muslims who hate white people and the white people’s Judeo-Christian racist religion that enslaves them.
17. Finally, U.S. intelligence tells us that al-Qaida has trained approximately 120,000 terrorist. Thank to our “open door policies” for immigrants and people who sneak across our borders, it is estimated that we have about 5,000 of these terrorists in the U.S.
Dr. Richard Booker is a bestselling author and speaker and the Founder of Sounds of the Trumpet and the Institute for Hebraic-Christian Studies. He is a contribution editor for the Jerusalem Connection. To learn more of his work, see his web site at: www.rbooker.com. This is the second of six articles on the Islamic Invasion of America. The articles are excerpts from Dr. Booker’s new book, “Radical Islam’s War Against Israel, Christianity and the West.” To get the full text, order this book directly from Dr. Booker’s web site at www.rbooker.com.
LORD, Have Mercy!
Nov 1st
By Jim Hutchens
As the United States receives its new President and Israel will be soon to follow, we need to remember what God says about the authorities he places over us. For example the prophet Daniel says, “The Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and places over them anyone He wishes and sets over them the lowliest of men.” (Daniel 4:17). The Apostle Paul confirms this when he says, “There is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.” (Romans 13:1). We must conclude therefore that the ballot box is the means by which God establishes His chosen authorities over us in the United States. LORD, Have Mercy!
There was much prayer by God’s people that preceded this election. Did God answer these prayers? I believe He did in His way. Was this election a reprieve or a rebuke to God’s people? This I do know, God is continuing to work in His people because of the dark and demanding days ahead. The Scriptures are clear, regardless of what the politicians and pundits say, it’s going to get a lot worse — end-time-worse, before it gets better. “This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints who obey God’s commandments and remain faithful to Jesus.” (Revelation 14:12).
In anticipation of that, I believe there is a purifying and cleansing work that God is doing within His people a work that calls for repentance on the part of His people. For Christians it means we are going to have to “clean up our act” seek His empowering grace to turn away from “the sin that so easily entangles us.” For Jews it means they are going to have to humble themselves and cry out to God for His help where there is no fear of God. Probably this will not come until there is the viable threat of total annihilation. In any case, before God moves with dispatch among His people as result of their prayers, there is going to have to be spiritual rejuvenation that takes place among His people. LORD, Have Mercy!
For too long we have looked to government as God and to politicians as saviors. Nothing could be further from the truth. The solutions we seek can never be provided by governments; they are basically spiritual problems that can only be solved with spiritual answers. Whether it’s the economy that has been driven by greed and deception or the threat of Islamic Jihadists that want to destroy us we must seek the Word of God for our answers. Enough of the egalitarianism of political correctness; enough of the nonsense that we are all seeking the same God through different religions; enough of the naive notion that our enemies can be appeased, and enough of the elected leaders that try to sell us this pig in a poke. And where does this all begin?
I believe it begins with Christians. The Apostle Peter said, “For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God: and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?” (I Peter 4:17). God tells us, Humble yourselves, therefore under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time.” As many of us have had to learn the hard way, if we don’t humble ourselves, God has a way of humbling us that often times is embarrassing and painful and results in great sorrow to ourselves as well as those we love. Paul tells us, “If we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world.” (I Corinthians 11:31-31).
I believe God is saying to His people, we need to humble ourselves, exercise self-judgment, turn from our self-centered sin and be healed. Remember the promise of God, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (II Chronicles 7:14). LORD, Have Mercy!
Recognizing the spiritual dimension of the enormous problems we face, whether the collapse of our economy, the ever-pressing threat of Islamic Jihadists, or the corruption and cover-up of our leaders, does not preclude action on the human level. There must be major surgery on our whole political system. Leaders must be held accountable. Jihadists must be hunted down and destroyed preemptively. Transparency must be insured in our economic system to reveal and punish the crooks.
As we come to the season of Thanksgiving and celebrate the coming of our Savior and Messiah at Christmas as we think of the miraculous provision of oil for the Temple as we celebrate Chanukah, we need to remember how God has richly blessed us as a people and a nation. What have we that we have not received from God’s gracious hand? We need to remember there is no god like our God the God of Israel the God and Father of our Lord Jesus our Messiah. We need to remember that “Our God will meet all our needs according to His riches in glory in Messiah Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19). At the same time we need to remember the LORD’s question to us, “Who may ascend the hill of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place? But also remember His answer, “He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false. He will receive blessing from the LORD and vindication from God his Savior.”
(Psalm 24:4).
We need you O LORD. By your grace, help us to be all that you would have us to be.
LORD, Have Mercy!
Jim Hutchens is President of The Jerusalem Connection, International and editor of The Jerusalem Connection Report.