Sephardim Jews and Their History

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                  

When Jerusalem was taken by the Romans in 70 CE (AD), many Jews were killed, but those that escaped fled in all directions.  Some went to Spain.  They became known as the Sephardim.  Their language became a mixture of Hebrew and Spanish, called LADINO. 

Sepharad -Spain was an Asiatic region, probably north of Palestine, to which exiles from Jerusalem were deported on the destruction of the FIRST TEMPLE PERIOD IN 586 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylonia from 605-562 BCE.  That's how they got their name of Sephardim.  (dim being the plural form). 

In the Middle Ages, the name of Sepharad was used for Spain, while the name Sephardi was given to the Jews of Spain.  It was used by their children and all those later that were Jewish.                                                                          

It's thought that Christopher Columbus could have been a "hidden" or Marrano Jew, one that didn't leave Spain but kept the fact a secret that he was Jewish but had been baptized as a Christian-forced to do so.  He had known sailors on his ship that were Jewish.  Jews that remained in Spain or had moved to Portugal and kept it a secret, even becoming Catholics, as that was the religion of the day,  and were called Marranos.  They practiced Judaism in secret, remembering holidays, not eating pork, etc.  We remember the poem, "In 14 hundred and 92 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue....."  He wrote to his son in Hebrew.  He had to be pretty fluent, and also his son, in order to do that.  

In 1492, the Jews of Spain were expelled and were called not called Sephardi Jews anymore but were called Marranos.  Some landed in Morocco and in smaller numbers in Italy, Egypt, Palestine and Syria and above all in the Balkans and the central provinces of the Turkish Empire where many towns and cities were built in places like Salonica and Constantinople.

In 1497, the Jews of Portugal were expelled and forced to also look for new countries to live in.  Later, Marranos built Sephardi towns and cities in Amsterdam, Holland, London, England, Hamburg, Germany, Bordeaux, France,  Bayonne, France and other places in Western Europe.  They also found new homes in the West Indies and on the mainland of North America.  This was important in their business dealings economically and had political significance.  

The differences between Sephardim and Ashkenazim Jews were in the language, Judeo Spanish or Ladino  for Sephardim and Yiddish for Ashkenazim.   The religion was the same, but showed up in how the synagogues were designed and the traditions of celebration and the food served with those celebrations,, though they both followed the kashrut laws of keeping kosher.  The Sephardim goes back to the Babylonian Jewry and that of the Ashkenazim to the Palestinian Jews.  Each pronounces Hebrew a little differently.  The way they dressed also differed.                       

Aleppo, Syria had a large Sephardi community.  They called Aleppo Aram-Zobah.  Its Jewish community is one of the oldest in the world.  The Al-hay yat mosque was built as a synagogue by Jews from the 6th century.  There were 1,500 Jews living in Aleppo when Benjamin of Tudela visited it in 1170.  He was from Tudela, Spain.  Aleppo  became the city of learning by many Jews in the Middle Ages.  The Spanish Jews and Marranos settled in Aleppo  after 1492 and reinvigorated the Jews already there.  Before 1914 when the First World War started, there were 14,000 Jews living in Aleppo.  Then, maybe because the city was a little crowed, many emigrated to America and England.  After the UN decision of November 1947 to partition Palestine-to divide it, anti-Jewish riots took place in Aleppo and many Jews left quickly for new places to live.  A Canadian lady, Judith Feld Carr, heard that Jews were living as prisoners in Syria and arranged to have them freed in the 1980s.  Not many were left.  Syria had become very anti-Jewish since 1948.                                                                       

                                                   The Rabbis of Aleppo

                                                              

The great cultural center of Sephardi life was Salonica which was destroyed by the Nazis in 1941.  Thessaloniki Saloniki or Salonica  is the second-largest city in Greece, with over 1 million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of Macedonia, the administrative region of Central Macedonia and the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace. It is also known as the "co-reigning" city of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, alongside Constantinople.Today,   Jews lived here before Paul visited in 50 CE.  Jews were here during the Middle Ages and were attacked by the Crusaders.  The Turks captured Salonica in 1430 and occupied it in 1450.  The textile industry attracted refugee Jews from Central Europe.  After the expulsion in 1492, many Jews arrived. and became the greatest haven for exiles along with Constantinople.  During the 16th century there were many Portuguese Marranos.  During the German occupation of 1941 to 1944, almost all of the community, after being attacked, was deported in 19 convoys to Poland for extermination.  

We consider the Sephardim to be all members of the oriental communities since they have adopted the Sephardi rituals in the synagogues, even including all non-Ashkenazim.  The surprise was the the Eastern European Hasidim now use the basic Sephardim ritual though not its pronunciation.  

Sephardim and other non -Ashkenazi communities make up about 1/5 of world Jewry, which altogether is 0.02 of the world population, They are the majority in Israel.  It happens that there are about 6 million Jews in Israel being 80% of the population, and 6 million in the USA-being about 2% of the population there.  

Today people with a Sephardim background are calling themselves the Anusim because Marranos in Spanish means "swine" which is another word for pigs, and Jews do not eat the meat from pigs.  The name of Marranos was used for Jews who had stayed in Spain and Portugal and had been baptized as the method used to stay in their homes and businesses. As early as 1391, Jews were being attacked in Spain for their religion  and were massacred.  The Dominican campaign was led by Vicente Ferrer at the beginning of the 15th century (1400s). " Almost every place Ferrer preached about the dangers of Jews and Judaism to Christians and of the need to isolate the Jews who still refused baptism, he incited local Christians to maltreat the Jews in some way." 

                                                                    

The congregation of the restored Synagogue of Barcelona may soon see some growth.

Times are changing.  Some Arab countries are making peace with Israel.  Spain is encouraging Sephardim to return to Spain.  After expelling them more than five centuries ago, Spain has finally opened the path to citizenship for Sephardic Jews. On June 11, the Spanish parliament passed the Sephardic ancestry law, which will allow thousands of people scattered all over the world to obtain Spanish nationality, allowing them to live and work in any country in the European Union.       

Applicants will be required to show that they are descendants of members of the community that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella expelled in 1492. They will also have to demonstrate knowledge of Spanish and take a test about Spanish culture and current events.  This is a big step for Spain.  Lithuania is not doing this though there have been Jews asking for citizenship there and being refused.   

                                                                         

        Turkish Jews were told to assimilate.  Turkish had become the primary language of the shrinking Jewish community of Tekirdağ.  Children spoke Turkish at home, overhearing only the most essential words in Ladino from their grandmothers  Many moved to the USA instead.  

    Jews lived in Turkey in Asia Minor when the Ottoman Empire was established there.  A synagogue was built in Brusa in 1326.   Trading had everything to do with where Jews became established after 70 CE.  After 1492, the Ottoman Empire opened its gates to the Jews who needed a home.  From 1517, Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire.                     

         .           Jerry Seinfeld b: April 29, 1954, -Producer, comedian | Seinfeld

Jerry Seinfeld was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Betty (Hesney) and Kalman Seinfeld. His father was of Hungarian Jewish descent, while Jerry's maternal grandparents, Salha and Selim Hosni, were Syrian Jewish immigrants (from Aleppo). 

  

Paula Abdul's father is  Syrian Jew, mother an Ashkenazi Jew. (born June 19, 1962) is an American singer, dancer, choreographer, actress, and television personality. 

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.medievalists.net/2012/08/vicente-ferrer-and-the-kings-jews-reassessing-the-modern-image-of-a-medieval-dominican/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Feld_Carr#:~:text=Judith%20Feld%20Carr%2C%20CM%20(born,a%20period%20of%2028%20years.