At
the Golden Door of New York's harbor, stands the Mother
of Exiles who for 125 years has offered a promise of comfort
to refugees with the words, "Give me your tired,
your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."
These eloquent words were written by Emma Lazarus, a young
Jewish woman whose ancestors had fled the Iberian Peninsula,
escaping persecution from the 15th century Inquisition.
Emma's family had arrived in New York during the Colonial
period, but the eloquent words of her heart warming sonnet
would go on to welcome her distant 'cousins,' the Spanish
Jews who arrived in New York City, from Turkey and the
Balkans, in the early 20th century.
Spanish
Jews from the Balkans and Turkey on NY's Lower East Side
- 1921
(The author's great-great grandfather is in this photo)
In
1481 and 1497 respectively, the Jews of Spain and Portugal
were forced to flee their countries of birth, because
of mounting religious persecution. The greater preponderance
of these people, the 'Sephardic' Jews, found a safe haven
among the Turkish people of the Ottoman Empire. A large
majority of them settled in prominent Ottoman cities such
as Sarajevo, Sofia, Salonika and Constantinople. Retaining
their proud Hispanic roots and their hidalgo traditions,
these Jewish Spaniards blended well and thrived alongside
Muslim society. Living in an Islamic land, for over four
centuries, these Iberian refugees kept their language,
culture, religious traditions and foods, as they had existed
in Spain and Portugal. These Jews were the descendants
of the most renowned Spanish masters, the Jewish rabbinical
and philosophical thinkers such as Moses DeLeon, author
of the kabbalistic book the Zohar; and Yosef Karo,
who penned the Code of Jewish Law--which is followed
by all observant Jews to this day.
The
early 20th century saw a shifting Europe coupled with
armed conflict and economic decline. These are two of
the primary factors that triggered a mass migration of
many different peoples of varied backgrounds away from
the continent. It was during this period that a large
number of Spanish Jews living in Turkey and the Balkans
would migrate to the United States, long seen as a place
of religious freedom and economic stability. While Europe
would struggle with economic and political recovery during
the years following the Great War (WWI), this was not
the case in the United States. Left virtually unharmed
by the war, the United States was able to experience a
decade of peace and prosperity.
From
the turn of the century to a peak in 1920, Spanish speaking
Jews arrived at Ellis Island almost daily. They came from
former Ottoman Balkan towns and cities found throughout
Thrace, Macedonia, Belgrade, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Greece,
Turkey, and other locations where Sephardic Jews had lived
for hundreds of years. Now on New York City's Lower East
Side, they would dwell in crowded and stuffy tenement
buildings. There, among their co-religionists who had
come from places such as Germany, Poland, Romania and
Syria, the Spanish Jews established their residences;
living in tight enclaves among their own people, they
felt as if they were not completely uprooted from their
past. Among the rumble of the Second Avenue elevated train
that once clamored down what is today the west side of
Allen Street, they spoke their colloquial Spanish language
(known as Ladino), prayed in their synagogues known as
'kals,' ate their Spanish-style Balkan and Turkish
komidas (foods), frequented kavanes (coffee
houses), and sung their old Spanish romansas and
kantigas, romantic ballads and songs. Before there
were Cuban, Puerto Rican, Honduran or Mexican immigrants
on the Lower East Side, a "Spanish" grocery
store would have been a "Jewish" grocery store.
The
initial immigrants were extremely poor and most jobs consisted
of selling fruit, candy, peddling small items, or shining
shoes. Eventually, they fell into better jobs such as
seamstresses, clothing pressers, and factory workers.
They would go on to develop small brotherhood groups,
burial societies, community clubs, then large multifaceted
social organizations. The Spanish Jews established a sophisticated
press on the Lower East Side, consisting of many newspapers
such as La Epoca (The Age), El Progreso
(The Progress), La Bos del Pueblo (Voice of the
People), La Amerika (The America), La Luz
(The Light), and La Vara (The Stick). While the
first newspapers were printed in the Spanish language
utilizing Hebrew letters (Ladino), the later papers were
issued in Spanish using Roman letters, and eventually
they were published in English. Learning the English language
was important to these new Americans, as we can see from
this October 30, 1915 excerpt from La Epoca:
La
Epoca is happy to call the attention of the people to
the fact that English Classes have been opened solely
for the well being of our people…The English language
is of paramount importance to all now living in this
country and it ought to be learnt; because America expects
from every American what every American expects from
America."
By
the mid-1930's, New York and the rest of the country was
beginning to recover from the Great Depression. Opportunities
for greater education and jobs were becoming available,
and soon the Spanish Jews would move to New York's outer
boroughs and assimilate among mainstream America. Eventually,
the large Spanish-Jewish community atomized across the
United States. As the children and grandchildren of these
first immigrants assimilated into modern American culture,
their drive for both "the American dream" and
modern education increased, and by the 1950's, a sizeable
population of the third generation were completing college.
Jews of Spanish descent went on to obtain respectful positions
in mainstream society, education, business, and government
all across America.
But
with this new status, came the loss of their centuries-old
culture, language, and way of life. From a peak of some
50,000 Ladino speakers in 1930, there remains very few
in 2011 who still can converse in the language that had
been brought from Iberia to the Ottoman Empire, then brought
to North America where (unbeknownst to them) it would
rapidly decline in usage. The dissolving of the American
Spanish-Jewish communal infrastructure, led to wide-spread
religious and cultural erosion and assimilation, and from
1960-1980, nearly every community of Jews that were descendant
of those that fled Spain and Portugal in the 15th century,
dwindled then vanished. Today, while Sephardic Jews live
across the United States, there remains no cohesive surviving
original Spanish-speaking Jewish community in America.
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