Forty Years After the Edict of Expulsion from Spain
Forty Years After the Edict of Expulsion from Spain
by Shelomo Alfassa
(December 14, 2008) - On this very day, just 40 years ago (December 14, 1968), The New York Times reported on how Spain made a small step on the long road to redress toward the Jewish people, when the Spanish Minister of Justice publicly annulled the 'Edict of Expulsion.' The Edict had been issued by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella on March 30, 1492. It declared that Jews were mandated to be displaced from Spain, a country Jews were settled in long before Catholicism even had arrived on the Iberian Peninsula. The Edict explicitly charged the Jews were destroying Christianity in Spain by socially intermingling with Christians. The document declared in part:
Some 150,000 Jews became refugees overnight, forced out of Spain, the country they loved. These Jewish families lost all they owned. The entire incident of departure and forced relocation tore apart families in a most horrendous manner. Women and children were violated, men were taken from their wives, women from their mothers, people perished on land and on the sea in transit.
The greater preponderance of these Jewish refugees relocated to the Ottoman Empire. They were welcomed there by the Turkish Sultan who looked upon the Jewish refugees as potential assets to his country. In the end, this rang true, for during the period when the Jews were in Turkey, the Empire reached its pinnacle, while at the same time, Spain fell from grace, morphing from the world's military and monetary leader to a country existent upon suspicion and economic woe for many dim centuries afterward.
Today, 40 years after the Edict was annulled, a 2008 Pew Foundation study demonstrates that 46% of the Spanish population still rate Jews unfavorably, this is the highest level in all of Europe -- this, while it was just determined by DNA analysis that 20% of modern Spaniards are of Jewish ancestry! (ironic?)
While there have been many events clad in pomp and circumstance between Jews and modern Spaniards over the last several decades, it's interesting to note that there never have been formal hearings held on the discussion of the return of Jewish private or communal property, reparations, or merely direct open apologies from Spain and/or the Vatican, the mother church of Spain. Of course there remains no statute of limitations on any of these potential remedies that are yet to be discussed.
by Shelomo Alfassa
(December 14, 2008) - On this very day, just 40 years ago (December 14, 1968), The New York Times reported on how Spain made a small step on the long road to redress toward the Jewish people, when the Spanish Minister of Justice publicly annulled the 'Edict of Expulsion.' The Edict had been issued by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella on March 30, 1492. It declared that Jews were mandated to be displaced from Spain, a country Jews were settled in long before Catholicism even had arrived on the Iberian Peninsula. The Edict explicitly charged the Jews were destroying Christianity in Spain by socially intermingling with Christians. The document declared in part:
"[We] banish them from all our kingdoms, we desired to content ourselves by commanding them to leave all cities, towns, and villages of Andalusia where it appears that they have done the greatest injury...Jews who have been most guilty of ... crimes and delicts against our holy Catholic faith have been sufficient as a complete remedy to obviate and correct so great an opprobrium and offense to the faith and the Christian religion, because every day it is found and appears that the said Jews increase in continuing their evil and wicked purpose wherever they live and congregate... [thus we] resolve to order the said Jews and Jewesses of our kingdoms to depart and never to return or come back."
Some 150,000 Jews became refugees overnight, forced out of Spain, the country they loved. These Jewish families lost all they owned. The entire incident of departure and forced relocation tore apart families in a most horrendous manner. Women and children were violated, men were taken from their wives, women from their mothers, people perished on land and on the sea in transit.
The greater preponderance of these Jewish refugees relocated to the Ottoman Empire. They were welcomed there by the Turkish Sultan who looked upon the Jewish refugees as potential assets to his country. In the end, this rang true, for during the period when the Jews were in Turkey, the Empire reached its pinnacle, while at the same time, Spain fell from grace, morphing from the world's military and monetary leader to a country existent upon suspicion and economic woe for many dim centuries afterward.
Today, 40 years after the Edict was annulled, a 2008 Pew Foundation study demonstrates that 46% of the Spanish population still rate Jews unfavorably, this is the highest level in all of Europe -- this, while it was just determined by DNA analysis that 20% of modern Spaniards are of Jewish ancestry! (ironic?)
While there have been many events clad in pomp and circumstance between Jews and modern Spaniards over the last several decades, it's interesting to note that there never have been formal hearings held on the discussion of the return of Jewish private or communal property, reparations, or merely direct open apologies from Spain and/or the Vatican, the mother church of Spain. Of course there remains no statute of limitations on any of these potential remedies that are yet to be discussed.
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