November 2009 Archives
[I am happy to report that recent advocacy work to get the USHMM to admit that Hitler and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem conspired in North Africa to kill Jews there, as well as in the Middle East, is one reason why this conference will indeed take place in June 2010.
It's very sad that the USHMM had refused to admit this until I held a press conference in January of 2006 at the National Press Club in Washington DC. Later that night, in front of a standing room only crowd, a colloquium my colleagues and I organized was held at The National Synagogue, where several prominent Jewish leaders met to discuss remedies to the USHMM's failure to document the role Islamic groups played in the Holocaust. The speakers included Rabbi Avi Weiss, NY Times best-selling author Edwin Black, Carol Greenwald, board member of Holocaust Museum Watch, Congressman Elliot Engle and myself.
Let's hope this conference next year is a huge success and the USHMM continues to right the many wrongs it carries. This includes changing the mission statement of the USHMM itself which is erroneous. It reads in part: "The Holocaust was the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany....." But what is WELL-KNOWN and ESTABLISHED, is that the Holocaust turned out to be a state-sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of Jews not only in Europe, but also of Jews in North Africa and Asia. In addition, historians know that Hitler had no plans to only kill "European Jews" - but all Jews - everywhere.]
regards,
Shelomo Alfassa
www.alfassa.com
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PROGRAM: A June 2010 workshop on Sephardic Jewry and the Holocaust will take place at the USHMM in Washington, DC. The application deadline is November 23 (see below).
It is sponsored by the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies (CAHS) of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) which is seeking applications for the workshop, planned for June 16-25, 2010 at the USHMM. Up to 14 applicants will be accepted.
It will be led by two leading scholars in the field, Aron Rodrigue and Daniel Schroeter. There are two parts, seminar and research.
The seminar will address interdisciplinary issues, such as Ladino language and Sephardic identity; the Sephardic experience in ghettos, camps, and transports; resistance and rescue; and the experience of North African Jews before and during the war. Geographic areas are Southeastern Europe (Balkans, Bulgaria, Greece) and North Africa (Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Morocco).
The research section will consist of orientation, exposure, and guided research in the Museum's extensive archival and other collections concerning North Africa, Croatia, Greece, Serbia, the Jewish community of Monastir, newly acquired collections in Ladino and Judeo-Arabic, and selected collections of Sephardic-survivor oral testimonies and Sephardic music.
The goals are to acquaint emerging scholars with the breadth of this rich and diverse subject matter; expose them to new scholarly research on Sephardic Studies and the Holocaust; and provide them with the background knowledge, archival resources, and scholarly networking necessary to initiate or continue work in this underrepresented area.
USHMM will accept up to 14 scholars from among advanced graduate students, doctoral candidates, post-doctoral scholars, and early career academics who are currently conducting or considering research on Sephardic Jewish Studies, Holocaust Studies in Sephardic countries or communities, or area studies in countries in which Sephardic Jews resided.
Candidates must be affiliated with an accredited, degree-awarding institution (baccalaureate, the equivalent, or higher) in North America.
Applications, which must be submitted electronically (or postmarked) in English by November 23, include a current CV, a statement on the scholar's interest and background, a supporting letter from an advisor, department chair or dean. Non-local attendees receive lodging for the workshop and $1,000 towards travel and incidental expenses. Local attendees receive $200 for the two weeks.
Questions? Contact Dr. Leah Wolfson lwolfson@ushmm.org at the USHMM for more information.
/THANKS TO SCHELLY TALALAY DARDASHTI FOR THE HEADS UP
by Shelomo Alfassa
November 19, 2009
In the first months of 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella signed the order of expulsion for all the Jews to depart Spain. The seats of Jewish learning that enriched the intellectual realm of Spain became desolate. A majority of the Jewish refugees settled in Ottoman Turkey, (places such as Adrianople, Constantinople and Salonika) as well as the Levant, North Africa, Italy, and elsewhere. A number of these Jews made their way to the Ottoman province of Syria, settling in Aleppo, Damascus, Beirut and other places in the 15th and 16th century.
With the Turkish advance into Palestine in 1517, the Spanish Jews in the Ottoman cities were now free to go to Jerusalem - no passport required. It was during this period immigration increased. Thus, in their lifetime, some of that distraught 15th century generation of Spaniards, born on Iberian soil, would go on to thrive under the Turks. These Spanish speaking Jews, long desirous of living in the Holy Land, became the leaders of Eres Yisrael.
Sephardic Jews became the only accepted Jewish community by the Ottoman government. When a situation arrived in regard to the Ashkenazi Jews, the Turkish governors would seek either the Jewish community leader (a Sephardi)--an elder known as the shaykh al-yahud, or the head rabbinical figure (a Sephardi)--the dayan (the rabbinical judge) for consultation (the latter was known after 1841 as the hakham bashi). At one point there were two dayanim, but even during this period, the Sephardic dayan was officially regarded by the Turkish government as the more senior representative.
The Ashkenazim did not speak Spanish and they were not allowed to learn Arabic, by order of their rabbis. This was during the period when the Spanish language that was the lingua franca of the Sephardim and their Jerusalem leaders. While Arabic may have been a vehicular language for the region, among the va'ad haedah hasefaradit bi'yrusalayim, the Sephardic Community Council of Jerusalem, Spanish was the language spoken by the men that stood at the head of the community; it was the leader of the va'ad that was recognized by the Turkish authorities as the sole representative of the entire Jewish settlement.
In an account as late as 1868, we still see the Sephardim as the representative Jewish body to the Turkish government:
The Jews are divided into two sects, the Sephardim and the Ashkenazim. The Sephardim are of Spanish origin, having been driven out of that country...by Ferdinand and Isabella. They were at first twittered among the great cities of the Turkish empire, but they gradually congregated in Jerusalem. Though they have been long resident in the Holy City, comparatively few of them speak Arabic; a corrupt Spanish is their language. They are subjects of the Sultan, but are permitted to have their own rabbinical laws.
As a Jew, being in the government of the Sultan, in any capacity, was to be a de facto ambassador for the Jewish people. Interaction between the Sephardim and the Ottoman government helped increase the overall condition for all the Jews in Eres Yisrael and throughout the entire Empire. The Sephardim of Jerusalem went on to become the first official large body to be legally allowed to immigrate and settle there. Many became wealthy bankers, entrepreneurs, merchants, communal leaders, renowned rabbis, and well-respected members of the Sultan's administration.
Jews from Spain played a considerable role in the State's origins and modern fruition. Throughout their centuries in the Diaspora, Spanish Jews developed and devoted a sense of philosophical and spiritual nationalism that prepared the foundation for which modem Zionism stood on, and the resulting fruit which is the return of the Jewish people to their land.
www.alfassa.com
