NEW WEEKLY TORAH PORTION WITH THE GREAT SEPHARDIC MASTERS
FREE: Subscribe Now -- to the all new 'Mivhar Ha-Peninim'
The Mivhar Ha-Peninim ('A Selection of Pearls') is a brief weekly commentary on the parashat ha-Shavua, the Torah portion of the week. It also includes a selection on Jewish history. It is read by Jews across the world each week.
The Mivhar Ha-Peninim focuses on the words and understanding of the Torah, from great rabbis such as Hakham Yishak ben Moshe Arama (1420-1494) of Spain; Hakham Moshe Alshech (1508-1600) of Ottoman Turkish (Safed) and others.
SUBSCRIBE HERE: http://www.alfassa.com/torah.html
Published and edited by Shelomo Alfassa of the Sephardic community of New York.
May 26, 2009
Sonia Sotomayor NOT the first Hispanic for US Supreme Court
The media is making a huge mistake reporting that Sonia Sotomayor, chosen by President Obama, will be the first Hispanic to be chosen for the US Supreme Court. Yet, Benjamin Nathan Cardozo (1870-1938) was the first Hispanic Justice in the US Supreme Court. Cardozo, a Sephardic Jew, served on the Supreme Court from 1932 until his death. He was born in to a Jewish family which immigrated from Portugal via the Netherlands and England to America. He was a long time member of the 'Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue' in New York City, home to 'Congregation Shearith Israel,' which was founded in 1654. Cardozo was a cousin of the poet Emma Lazarus whose poem "...Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free ..." resides on the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of legal immigration into the United States of America.
Shelomo
Alfassa is author of "A Window into Old Jerusalem." He is the former
executive director of the 'International Sephardic Leadership Council' and
today is the US Director of 'Justice for Jews from Arab Countries,' which is
based at the 'American Sephardi Federation' in the 'Center for Jewish History'
in New York City.
www.alfassa.com
Why
Jewish Pirates Sunk
A book review by Shelomo Alfassa
Jewish
Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling
Jews Carved out an
Empire in the New World in Their Quest for Treasure,
Religious Freedom - and Revenge.
By Edward Kritzler - Doubleday,
$26.00, 2008
At first, Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean looks like an incredible book. Edward Kritzler tells the story of how certain Jews which fled Spain during the era of the Inquisition, went on to become involved in sea trading, exploration and in certain cases, piracy. And while it is indeed a pleasant book, filled with history, exploration, intrigue and adventure - that said, what it is not, is a scholarly work.
The book twists the tales of several Sephardic men (Jews from Spain and Portugal) that were expelled from Spain during the era of the Inquisition. In its narrative, the book occasionally blurs it's subject matter, including that of the Jews that worked on ships with Jews that piloted them. It doesn't describe large numbers of Jewish pirates, for there were not large numbers of Jewish pirates. What the book does, is focus on the few stories of the very few known 'pirates' which were of Jewish extraction. The author weaves their personal stories into the larger contemporary history. He also draws in the history of certain conversos, Sephardic Jews that had converted to Christianity under Inquisitional duress, who had fled Spain for the Caribbean islands, Brazil and Holland. (The author leaves out that the overwhelming majority of the Jews which left Spain went to the Ottoman Empire).
The book starts out with Kritzler telling that, "King Solomon's trading post (1000 B.C.) developed over a millennium to become Sephard [sic], a strategic outpost of the Roman Empire." Yet, this is a conjectured theory, for there is no proof that Jews were in Spain during the period of Solomon. A common conviction in Jewish folklore is that the Jews arrived in Spain, sailing from the holy land with the Phoenician sea traders. Yet, these are more likely romanticized stories which have developed over time. What we do know, is that there certainly was no location known as "King Solomon's trading post" and that there is indeed archeological proof that Jews arrived in Spain with the Greeks. The Greeks took up sea going trade, much like the Phoenicians, sometime between 500 and 800 BCE. It is well known that the Greeks were in Spain several hundred years prior to the Romans. Inconsistently, further into his introduction, the author indicates Jews had been in Spain only since "the time of Christ," which would have been some 1000 years after he first mentioned Jews settled - during the period of King Solomon.
The book offers authoritative but inaccurate declarations, such as the Jews arrived in Spain, "...in the first century A.D.," [sic] and that they were there because, "Emperor Titus, after conquering Israel and burning the Temple, exiled thousands of Jews." Yet, there is no proof that a large scale migration of exiled Jews arrived in Spain during this period. Scholars have discussed this topic for centuries, and while Moshe Ibn Ezra indicated this and while Yishak Abravanel has a similar opinion, there remains no proof of such. The Roman conquest of Hispania (generally speaking of modern Spain and Portugal), began near 264-241 BCE, and by this time, Jews has been living there-this being several hundred years before Titus walked the earth.
In a discussion on the number of victims of the mass murders and mass conversions of Jews perpetrated by the Christians in 1391, the author indicates that "100,000" Jews were left dead and there were "100,000 converts for Jesus." He said that another "300,000" later came out of hiding. That is a total of 500,000 Jews! These figures far exceed Abravanel's number of 300,000 total Jews that were exiled from Spain-and even Abravanel's figure is looked at by scholars as exaggerated. Most scholars today have deduced that the number of Jews that were made refugees by the Spanish government as around 150,000 and up to 200,000. As for the number of conversions, they are estimated to be 10,000-35,000, this is significantly less then Kritzler's peculiar figure of 100,000.
The book has many details which must be examined closely if one is searching for historic accuracy. This includes the stunning and unsubstantiated supposition made by the author, that Christopher Columbus "sailed with a hidden agenda" which was to "acquire a new land where Sephardim could live free from the terrors of the Inquisition." If this was indeed a secret of Columbus, then I'm not sure how Kritzler knew about it. Even scholars that focus on Iberia and/or the Sephardic Diaspora have not written about this.
In another example, Kritzler tells of the Jewish heritage of the famous "pirate" Jean Lafitte of New Orleans, who allegedly told how his Sephardic grandmother spoke to him about the family's tragic experience with the Inquisition. The author mentions that Lafitte wrote about this in his journal. Yet, the (in)famous "Journal of Jean Lafitte" is widely alleged to be a forgery, and many historians have declared it as an outright counterfeit document. Whether it is a forgery or not, Kritzler has included Lafitte's account in the book as if it was substantiated truth. Thus, Kritzler's critical error is magnified by not mentioning or even alluding to the questionable authenticity of "Journal of Jean Lafitte."
On a technical note, the book has several problem with word usage, here are but a few examples:
-
The book inconsistently uses both the word "Muslim" as well as the obsolete word "Moor" to describe people of Islamic religion.
-
The author uses both the words "Jews" and the archaic "Israelites" to describe Jewish people.
-
On the same page (and throughout the book) the word "mellah" (Arabic for 'walled city') is italicized, but the word "mullah" (Islamic cleric) is not.
- The word "Marrano" is spelled with a capital letter 'm' while "converso" and "anusim" are spelled with a lowercase 'a' and 'c' respectively.
-
Some foreign language words are randomly italicized while others are not. For example, "auto-da-fé" (act of faith) is not italicized, while "quemadero" (place of burning) is. The word "converso" (convert) is not italicized, but the word "cedula" (royal license) is.
-
The word "Mudejares" (Spanish Muslims) is not italicized and has a capital letter, while "moriscos" (Moors) is not italicized and has a lower case first letter.
-
Transliterated Hebrew terms such as "Neveh Shalom" (oasis of peace), "Mahamad" (board of directors of a Spanish-Portuguese congregation), "Zur Israel" (Rock of Israel) and "Cabala" (mystical teachings of Judaism) are not italicized, while other Hebrew words such as "hazan" (man who leads prayers and songs in the synagogue) and "mikvah" (ritual bath) are.
This
attractive hard covered book is 263 pages supplemented
with another 60 pages of back matter, including a timeline
(1492-1675) which focuses only on topics, people and
places mentioned in the various chapters. The book is
like a rainbow-sprinkled doughnut; it is highly attractive
and at first tastes great, but only after you start
eating it do realize it is filled with empty calories.
This work is recommended to those who fancy historic
tales, especially maritime and explorative narratives,
but are not looking for solid history or precise scholarship.
Shelomo Alfassa is author of "A Window into Old Jerusalem." He is the former executive director of the 'International Sephardic Leadership Council' and today is the US Director of 'Justice for Jews from Arab Countries,' which is based at the 'American Sephardi Federation' in the 'Center for Jewish History' in New York City.
An Account of the Vicious Expulsion from Spain (1492)
from the work:
"THE JEWS AND
MOORS IN SPAIN"
by Rabbi Jos. Krauskopf
Written in 1886
Edited by Shelomo
Alfassa
This account focuses on the Jews expelled by the Spanish government and how the Jews were ravaged at sea on their voyage to the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) and other locations.
It is not very politically correct, but then again, history should never be.
-Shelomo Alfassa
The expulsion edict had prohibited the Jews, under penalty of death, from having money in their possession at their departure. And the Jews obeyed the mandate. What cared they for money when they could not enjoy it in their beloved Spain? What cared they for enjoyment, or even for life, when it was to be lived in distant and hostile lands? But the pirate captains and their heartless crews felt convinced, that the Jews must have large sums of money sewed up in their clothes, or concealed on their persons. No sooner were they on high sea, when men and women and children were ordered on deck, commanded to disrobe publicly, regardless of innocence of youth and modesty of sex. Many a virgin and many a youth, many a husband and many a wife dared to resist, not that they had money concealed, but for shame sake, and the raging billows rocked them into their eternal sleep for their resistance. Disappointed in their search, their thirst for gold was the more excited. Body after body they ripped open, before the eyes of the unfortunate exiles, in the belief that they must have swallowed their gold and precious jewels. And disappointed in this, there followed a scene, a more detestable and dastardly one the sun never shone upon.
When the sailors had finally satiated their brutal lusts upon the innocent and helpless, and faint from terror and torture, and when the still surviving victims had been made to cleanse the ships from every trace of the blood of their friends and kin, they were seized and dropped into the ocean without a pang of conscience, and as unconcernedly as if the great God had created Jews for no other purpose but to appease the beastly appetites of inhuman sailors, and serve as food for the fishes of the sea.
And all this for the glory of Christianity! All this in obedience to the teachings of the Church! Heaven! Who can name the crimes that have been perpetrated in Thy name? What seas of human blood have been shed in the name of Christ, of Mercy and Love and Peace and Good Will! The Church had steeled the heart against every sentiment of pity and mercy. Feelings of compunction of remorse in the perpetration of crimes against the Jews, were taught to be the crime, and not the crime itself. The tear of sympathy wrung
out by the sight of Jewish suffering was taught to be an offense to be expiated by humiliating penance. Any one, it was taught, might conscientiously kill a Jew wherever he had an opportunity. The taste of blood, once gratified, begat a cannibal appetite in the people, and the more it was satisfied the more intense became its thirst for blood. Their zeal was not altogether unselfish; every Jew accused of heresy, or killed, cancelled so the Church taught for the accuser one hundred days from his future purgatory punishment.
Another captain was somewhat more merciful; whether he had to expiate some of his tenderheartedness by humiliating penance, ecclesiastical history has neglected to record. He set all his exiles on the shore upon a desert coast, leaving the weak and the suffering pitilessly a prey to wild beasts and to starvation. One of these unfortunate deserted exiles who survived, tells us how he saw his wife perish before his eyes, how he himself fainted with exhaustion, and upon awakening beheld his two children dead by his side. For weeks, roots and grass furnished their food. Each day brought fresh miseries and fresh graves.
Mothers, unable to bear the pining of their children, struck them dead, and then took their own life. Whole families folded themselves in loving embrace, and while thus embracing ended their life with their own hand. When the wild beasts came upon them, the exiles plunged into the sea, and stood shivering in the water for hours and hours, until the beasts retreated. Wearily they made their way onward, until, at last, they beheld the joyous sight of human settlements. Exhausted, they lay along the coasts, wasted by suffering and disease, and half demented from starvation. Down to the shore came the priests and holding a crucifix in the one hand and provisions in the other, the unfortunate Jews were given the choice between Christ and starvation.
The flesh was stronger than the spirit. They begged for the bread, and ate at it ravenously, after the few drops of baptismal water had cleansed their soul from the foulest stains of infidelity. "Thus," says a pious Castilian historian, "thus the calamities of these poor blind creatures proved in the end an excellent remedy, that God made use of, to unseal their eyes, so that, renouncing their ancient heresies, they became faithful followers of the cross. How many hundred days of purgatory punishment were cancelled for this pious utterance of the Castilian, History again neglected to record.
Another ship load was cast out by
a barbarous captain upon the African coast, where the African savages pounced
down upon them, and abandoned themselves to frightful cruelties. The men and
youths they sold into slavery, the defenseless women were brutally ravished;
the children at their mothers' breasts, the aged and the sick and the infirm
were mutilated and tortured and murdered by the thousands.
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