Farewell Espana: The World of the Sephardim Remembered.

MOST OF US Americans enjoy the mixed blessing of not knowing much about the persons and places from whom and which we've come. Occasionally, some family member will have letters or photographs dating as far back as a great-grandparent. Knowing who and where our ancestors were when Andrew Jackson was elected President in 1828 is unusual. Even those of us whose families have lived in only one place in this country, and who could probably know more about our forebears if we chose to, tend to construct our own self-serving family histories, conveniently putting in and leaving out whatever we wish.

It is a fact that my first Toledano ancestor to come to America, Manuel, arrived in New Orleans from Cordoba, Spain, in the late 1760s, not long after Charles III of Spain reluctantly agreed to accept the "gift" of Louisiana from his cousin Louis XV of France in the Treaty of Fontainebleau. Manuel Toledano, a customs official, married a French woman, had a family, prospered, and lived a full Roman Catholic life. Since Manuel came to America from Spain and since his surname is that of a distinguished Sephardic Jewish family, one assumes that his branch of the family converted to Christianity before Spain's 1492 deadline. Whether his Roman Catholicism was a matter of faith or convenience, I will probably never know. Whatever the case, his religious affiliation served him well in New Orleans, a Roman Catholic stronghold to this day. Had Manuel's pre-1492 ancestor who converted had any idea that on December 16, 1968, Samuel Toledano would receive from Spain's Minister of Justice, Antonio Oriol, a government proclamation formally revoking the Catholic monarch's Expulsion Decree of March 31, 1492, he might have urged the family to leave Spain and bide its time.

Over the years, it has been my good fortune to visit with several of my Jewish "cousins," including Edward in London and the aforementioned Samuel in Madrid, all of whom have maintained their Jewish religious and cultural traditions. In truth, the only Toledanos I've ever met who are not Jews are the descendants of Manuel.

Howard Sachar, a professor at George Washington University, recounts the story of the Spanish Jews. Having settled on the Iberian Peninsula in pre-Christian times, Jews flourished during four hundred years of Roman rule, in large part because Judaism was recognized by the empire as a legal religion.

Their good fortune began to deteriorate when, under Constantine, the Roman Empire converted to Christianity. Visigothic Christian rule during the sixth and seventh centuries brought about turmoil and suffering for the Sephardic (Iberian) Jews. Then, in 711, Tariq ibn Ziyad, governor of Tangiers, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and established Islam's first stronghold on Europe's mainland. As one result, a partnership of sorts arose among Muslims, Christians, and Jews, one that would give rise not only to extraordinary cultural and intellectual achievements, but also to inhumane and uncivilized conduct. For nearly eight centuries, people committed to three distinct religious beliefs lived, prospered, and suffered together. That the Jews suffered the most, particularly from the mid 1100s through 1492 and beyond, is clear; but they were also able to make valuable contributions in philosophy, science, the arts, commerce, and statesmanship.

Ultimately, the centuries-long "holy war" between Islam and Christendom brought an end to Spain's extraordinary multicultural experience and resulted in a wave of intolerance culminating in brutality and expulsion. That the Sephardic Jews were able to achieve so much intellectually and culturally in the midst of so many grave tensions is a fact in which they take pride to this day.

The year 1391 was one of special horror for the Jews throughout Spain. Massacres, looting, and the destruction of synagogues took place from Seville to Barcelona, and led as intended to the immediate conversion of nearly 100,000 Jews to Christianity. Both the Christians and the former Jews, called conversos, had substantial difficulty in accepting the new equality on the one hand, and the forced conversions on the other.

Hostility toward conversos or "New Christians" resulted in their massacre in Toledo in 1449. The distinction to be made was no longer one of faith, but "purity of blood" (limpieza de sangre). Jews could not any more be redeemed simply by conversion. Yet King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella initially opposed anti-Jewish violence. The Queen declared "it is up to me to defend and protect them and to maintain their rights." Nevertheless, in 1478, she sought and obtained Rome's permission to undertake an Inquisition into alleged Judaizing on the part of New Christians. Nearly 30,000 conversos were burned to death or otherwise destroyed.

On March 31, 1492, three months after Granada, the last Moorish outpost in Spain, fell, Ferdinand and Isabella "by the grace of God King and Queen of Castile [etc., etc.], because we were informed that in these our kingdoms there were some bad Christians who Judaized and apostatized from our holy Catholic faith ... who try to always achieve by whatever ways and means possible to subvert and to draw away faithful Christians from our holy Catholic faith and to separate them from it," issued the Edict of Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, effective July 31, 1492. On December 5, 1496, King Manuel I of Portugal, in exchange for permission to marry Ferdinand and Isabella's daughter, issued his decree expelling the Jews from Portugal, effective December 31, 1497. Thus Iberia was purged of its Jews. (Or so it thought. Marranos, or crypto-Jews, persisted and can be found in parts of the former Spanish empire even today.)

Just before the Spanish edict was to take effect, one final effort was made by Isaac Abravanel, converso statesman and courtier, to change the Queen's mind. "Do you believe that this comes from us?" she asked and quickly answered for him: "The Lord hath put this thing into the heart of the King." However, one far more in touch with reality, the Ottoman King Bayezid II, upon learning of Spain's expulsion decree, exclaimed: "Can you call such a king wise and intelligent? He is impoverishing his country and enriching my kingdom." I would have also asked, "Can you call such a king Christian?"

The Ottoman Empire and many other parts of Europe and the Mediterranean world were indeed enriched by the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal. During the fifteenth century, Sephardic settlements were established in such cities as Fez, Naples, Venice, Palermo, Messina, Spalato, Sarajevo, Belgrade, and Cairo. In the sixteenth century, cities in Morocco, France, England, Italy, and several Ottoman kingdoms benefitted greatly from the presence of the Sephardic immigrants. By the early seventeenth century, about 1,500 such Jews had settled in Holland, and by the end of that century, the 6,000 Dutch Jews were as safe and secure as were Dutch Christians. Their influence has been credited with nourishing commercial vitality in the Netherlands. If Andalusia had been the Second Jerusalem, Holland became the Calvinist Jerusalem.

Given such a narrative, perhaps it is my fault that I found Professor Sachar's book disappointing. I had expected from the title that it would include far more about the Sephardim in Iberia, whereas most of the material relates to those parts of the world where Jews, both Sephardic and Ashkenazic, located after 1492, and a significant portion involves twentieth-century history. The book's lack of chronological continuity is also something of a problem. Often, transitions from the Middle Ages to the present are made within a matter of paragraphs. For such reasons it is more likely than not, and most regrettable, that this book will be of interest almost exclusively to Jews.

At the same time, this book has caused me to learn about and reflect upon a part of my family's history previously unknown to me. What would I have done in 1391 or 1492 if the life-or-death decision had been mine to make? Though we can never put together the many parts of who and what we are, even the smallest piece can shed some light.

How deeply can we really look into our spiritual selves and into our true feelings as they pertain to our religious identities? Surely it is simpler and less disruptive to leave things as they are, especially if they engender comfort and acceptability. To see is not always to believe, just as to believe is not necessarily to see. My mother's father was a non-practicing Roman Catholic. Her mother, whose family came to Louisiana in 1848 from Alsace-Lorraine, was a (non-practicing) Jew--making me, according to the Jewish definition, a Jew. My father's parents were devout Roman Catholics, though some of his father's ancestors were once Sephardic Jews. I was raised an Episcopalian and at one time long before that church became a strictly secular organization, gave serious consideration to becoming a minister. Now I am a man without a religion but not without faith. With all of those things said, where do I go from here? Perhaps I could find the answer in Spain.