Tragedy in Spain

We continued our studies of the Sephardim - the Jews of Spain - during the week day sessions. After briefly reviewing what we had learned the previous week about the early history of Jewish presence in Spain and the Golden Age of the Jews in Spain from the 9th through the 11th centuries, I introduced the subject of the "Reconquista" - the Spanish term for the Christian reconquest of Spain from the Moors during the 11th and 12th centuries.

Again, I used video segments and multimedia presentations from the "Heritage: Civilization and the Jews" dvd-rom program to share both the situation of the Jews who remained in Spain
(Part 4, "The Crucible of Europe," minute 49:00 to the end of chapter), as well as the re-defining of what it meant to be Jewish by those who left Spain in 1492 after the Edict of Exile issued by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in March of that year. (Part 5, "Search for Deliverance," beginning of video until minute 8:05).

We learned about Jews who converted to Christianity in order to remain in Spain, but who secretly continued to practice what they could recall of the religion of their ancestors (ironically, often referring to Inquisition records to learn about Jewish beliefs and rituals). These Jews were referred to as "marranos" by the Christians (an old Spanish term for "swine"), and as "New Christians" by the Church. They, themselves, used the term "conversos" (the converted ones), while in Hebrew they are referred to as "anooseem" (the persecuted ones) and in English as the Crypto-Jews (the hidden Jews). We learned about the re-emergence of Jewish mysticism, the Kabbalah, among the Jews who left Spain, and its explanation for why God would allow such a traumatic event as the exile from Spain to occur. Finally, we learned about how Sultan Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire invited the exiles to settle in his lands (which included the Land of Israel in the 15th century), and how many of them took up his offer.