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| Definition | |
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A Sephardi Jew is a Jew descended from, or who follows the customs and traditions followed by, Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal) before their expulsion in the late 15th century. This includes both the descendants of Jews expelled from Spain under the Alhambra decree of 1492, or from Portugal by order of King Manuel I in 1497, and the descendants of crypto-Jews who left the Peninsula in later centuries to North Africa, Asia Minor, the Philippines and elsewhere around the world, and the descendants of crypto-Jews who remained in Iberia. In modern times, the term has also been applied to Jews who may not have been born Sephardi (or even Jewish) but attend Sephardic synagogues and practice Sephardic traditions. Today there are around 12,000 Jews in Spain and 2,500 in Portugal[2] (although it must be taken account that, when expelled from Portugal, Jews were allowed to stay if they converted to Christianity, resulting in a high percentage being assimilated in the Portuguese population. See: History of the Jews in Portugal). There is also a community of 600 in Gibraltar.[3] These are not necessarily Sephardi as defined above.
The name comes from Sepharad (Hebrew: ספרד, Modern Səfarád Tiberian Səp̄aráḏ / Səp̄āraḏ ; Turkish: Sefarad), a Biblical location.[1] This was probably the "Saparda" mentioned in Persian inscriptions: the location of that is disputed, but may have been Sardis in Asia Minor. "Sepharad" was identified by later Jews as the Iberian Peninsula, and still means "Spain" in modern Hebrew.
For religious purposes, and in modern Israel, "Sephardim" is often used in a wider sense to include most Jews of Asian and African origin, who use a Sephardic style of liturgy. This article is mostly concerned with Sephardim in the narrower ethnic sense, rather than in this broader Modern Israeli Hebrew definition. See also: Jewish ethnic divisions.
The term Sephardi can also describe the nusach (Hebrew language, "liturgical tradition") used by Sephardi Jews in their Siddur (prayer book). A nusach is defined by a liturgical tradition's choice of prayers, order of prayers, text of prayers and melodies used in the singing of prayers. Sephardim traditionally pray using Minhag Sefarad, which is quite similar to Nusach Edot haMizrach (liturgy of the Eastern Congregations). For more details of the Sephardic liturgy see Sephardic Judaism.[citation needed]
Note that the term Nusach Sefard or Nusach Sfarad does not refer to the liturgy generally recited by Sephardim, but rather to an alternative Eastern European liturgy used by many Hasidim.
[edit] Tags:Jewish Ethnic Divisions,Hebrew,Jews,Iberian Peninsula,Liturgy,Sepharad,Turkish,Portuguese,Portugal,Alhambra Decree,Manuel I,History Of The Jews In Portugal,Gibraltar,Sardis,Nusach,Hasidim,Philippines,Cite,Disputed,Persia,Expulsion,Israel, | |
| Divisions | |
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Historically, Sephardim are those Jews associated with the Iberian Peninsula.
The most prominent sub-group consists of the descendants of the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492, who settled in various parts of the Ottoman Empire, in particular Salonica and Istanbul, and whose traditional language is Judaeo-Spanish, sometimes known as Judezmo or Ladino. Some went further east to the Arabic-speaking territories of the Ottoman Empire, settling among the long-established Arabic-speaking Jewish communities in Baghdad, Damascus and Alexandria. A few followed the spice trade routes as far as the Malabar coast of southern India, where they settled among the established Cochin Jewish community.
Another branch settled in Morocco and Algeria and spoke a variant of Judaeo-Spanish known as Haketia or adopted local Arabic. Several of the Moroccan Jews emigrated back to the Iberian Peninsula to form the core of the Gibraltar community (see History of the Jews in Gibraltar). In the 19th century, modern Spanish and French gradually replaced Haketia or Judeo-Arabic as mother tongue among most Moroccan Sephardim and other North African Sephardim.[4]
A third sub-group, known as Spanish and Portuguese Jews, consists of Jews whose families remained in Spain and Portugal as ostensible Christians, and later reverted to Judaism in Italy, the Netherlands, Northern Germany, England or the New World.
A fourth sub-group, known as Crypto-Jews, are those who choose to remain hidden since the Spanish and Mexican Inquisitions, but practice secret Jewish rites in privacy. (Library of Congress, Microfiche 7906177). Safarditas are found particularly in the northern state of Nuevo León, Mexico, the American Southwest i.e., New Mexico, Arizona, and South Texas (formerly part of Nuevo Santander, Spain/Mexico), the Caribbean, and South America and this also includes Crypto-Jews that were brought into exile during the 15th century inquisition that took refuge from Southeast Asia e.g., in Northern Samar, the Philippines, as well as, Crypto-Jews found in Belmonte, Portugal and in the former Portuguese colony of Goa, India, where they were subjected to the Goa Inquisition.
From the perspective of the present day, the first three sub-groups look in retrospect like separate branches, each with its own traditions, though some degree of merger is taking place as Spanish and Portuguese congregations increasingly include Jews of other backgrounds[original research?]. In earlier centuries, and as late as the editing of the Jewish Encyclopedia at the beginning of the twentieth century, they were usually regarded as together forming a continuum, with the Jewish community of Livorno acting as the clearing-house of personnel and traditions between the three sub-groups as well as the main publishing centre[improper synthesis?].
[edit] Tags:Ladino,Haketia,Spanish,Judaeo-spanish,Arabic,Who Settled In Various Parts,Ottoman Empire,Salonica,Istanbul,Judezmo,Baghdad,Damascus,Alexandria,Malabar Coast,India,Cochin Jewish,Morocco,Algeria,Spanish And Portuguese Jews,Italy,Netherlands,American Southwest,Caribbean,Northern Samar,Belmonte,Goa,Goa Inquisition,Jewish Encyclopedia,Jewish Community Of Livorno,León,New Mexico,Arizona,Mexico,Judeo, | |
| Sephardim and Mizrahim | |
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For religious purposes, the term Sephardim means all Jews who use a Sephardic style of liturgy, and therefore includes most Jews of Middle Eastern background, whether or not they have any historical connection to the Iberian Peninsula. Most of these communities (with some exceptions such as the Yemenites) do in fact use much the same religious ritual as the Sephardim proper and, like them, base their religious law on the Shulchan Aruch without the glosses of Moses Isserles. When used in this sense, "Sephardim" should be translated not as "Spanish Jews" but as "Jews of the Spanish rite". (In the same way, Ashkenazim means "Jews of the German rite", whether or not their families actually originate in Germany.)
Accordingly, in the vernacular of modern-day Jews in Israel and worldwide, especially many Ashkenazi Jews, "Sephardi" has come to be used as an umbrella term for any Jew who is not Ashkenazi. This nomenclature is often perceived as unsatisfactory[who?], and a variety of other terms have been coined.
A term in common use for all Jewish communities that historically are not of Spanish descent is Mizrahim, which in Hebrew means "Easterners". In current use, Mizrahi Jews is a convenient way to refer collectively to a wide range of Jewish communities, most of which are as unrelated to each other as they are to either the Sephardi (in the narrower sense) or Ashkenazi communities. They include in particular the communities living in, or coming from, Southern Arabia (Yemen), Mesopotamia (Iraq), Syria, Persia (Iran) and India. The distinction between Sephardim and Mizrahim is not watertight as many communities (e.g. Syrian Jews ) are ethnically speaking a mixture between local Jews and later arrivals of Jews from Spain and Portugal.
Moroccan and other North African Jews (sometimes known as "Maghrebi Jews") are closely associated with the Sephardim proper (Jews of Iberian descent), both because the Jewish community of Al-Andalus was itself partly of Maghrebi Jewish origin and because many Sephardim settled in North Africa after their expulsion from Spain.
[edit] Tags:Ashkenazi Jews,Mizrahi Jews,References Or Sources,Reliable Sources,Challenged,Neutrality,Shulchan Aruch,Ashkenazim,Ashkenazi,Mizrahim,Yemen,Mesopotamia,Iraq,Syria,Iran, | |
| Distribution | |
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Prior to 1492, substantial Jewish populations existed in most Spanish provinces. Among the more prominent were in Toledo, Córdoba, Sevilla and Granada. Smaller towns such as Ocaña, Guadalajara, Spain, Buitrago de Lozoya, Lucena, Ribadavia, Hervás, and Almazán were founded or inhabited principally by Jews. In Castile, Aranda de Duero, Ávila, Alba de Tormes, Arévalo, Burgos, Calahorra, Carrión de Los Condes, Cuéllar, Herrera del Duque, León, Medina del Campo, Ourense, Salamanca, Segovia, Soria, and Villalón were home to large Jewish communities or aljamas. Aragon and Catalonia had substantial Jewish communities in the famous Calls of Girona, Barcelona, Tarragona, Valencia and Palma de Mallorca.
The first Jews to leave Spain settled in what is nowadays Algeria (in Oran and Tlemcen) after the massacre in Catalonia that took place in 1391. Following the 1492 expulsion from Spain, and the subsequent expulsions in Portugal (1497), these Jews, the nascent Sephardim, settled mainly in the Ottoman Empire (the modern-day Balkans, Anatolia, the Levant and North Africa – see also History of the Jews in Turkey) and thus in Morocco and Algeria, in southern France, Italy, Netherlands, Spanish North America, (Southwest United States New Mexico, Texas (Tejano), Arizona, and Mexico), Spanish South America and Portuguese Brazil and Goa, as well as the Netherlands, whence a number of families continued on to the former Dutch possessions of Curaçao, Suriname, Aruba and New Netherland (now New York), England (as well as English colonies such as Barbados and Jamaica), Germany, Denmark, Poland, Austria and Hungary.
As a result of the Jewish exodus from Arab lands, many of the Sephardim from the Middle East and North Africa relocated to either Israel or France, where they form a significant portion of the Jewish communities today. Other significant communities also exist in New York City, Argentina, and Montreal, Canada and Gibraltar.
[edit] Tags:Toledo,Córdoba,Sevilla,Granada,Ocaña,Guadalajara, Spain,Buitrago De Lozoya,Lucena,Ribadavia,Hervás,Almazán,Castile,Aranda De Duero,Ávila,Alba De Tormes,Arévalo,Burgos,Calahorra,Carrión De Los Condes,Cuéllar,Herrera Del Duque,Medina Del Campo,Ourense,Salamanca,Segovia,Soria,Villalón,Aljamas,Aragon,Catalonia,Girona,Tarragona, | |
| Language | |
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The traditional language of the majority of Sephardim is Judeo-Spanish, also called Judezmo or Ladino. It is a Romance language derived mainly from Old Castilian (Spanish) and Old Portuguese, with many borrowings from Turkish, and to a lesser extent from Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, and French. Until recently, two different dialects of Judeo-Spanish were spoken in the Mediterranean region: Eastern Judeo-Spanish (in various distinctive regional variations) and Western or North African Judeo-Spanish (also known as Ḥakitía), once spoken, with little regional distinction, in six towns in Northern Morocco and, because of later emigration, also in Ceuta and Melilla (Spanish cities in North Africa), Gibraltar (colony of Great Britain), Casablanca (Morocco), and Oran (Algeria).
The Eastern dialect is typified by its greater conservatism, its retention of numerous Old Spanish features in phonology, morphology, and lexicon, and its numerous borrowings from Turkish and, to a lesser extent, also from Greek and South Slavic. Both dialects have (or had) numerous borrowings from Hebrew, especially in reference to religious matters, but the number of Hebraisms in everyday speech or writing is in no way comparable to that found in Yiddish.
The North African dialect was, until the early 20th century, also highly conservative; its abundant Colloquial Arabic loan words retained most of the Arabic phonemes as functional components of a new, enriched Hispano-Semitic phonological system. During the Spanish colonial occupation of Northern Morocco (1912–1956), Ḥakitía was subjected to pervasive, massive influence from Modern Standard Spanish and most Moroccan Jews now speak a colloquial, Andalusian form of Spanish, with only an occasional use of the old language as a sign of in-group solidarity, somewhat as American Jews may now use an occasional Yiddishism in colloquial speech. Except for certain younger individuals, who continue to practice Ḥakitía as a matter of cultural pride, this splendid dialect, probably the most Arabized of the Romance languages apart from Mozarabic, has essentially ceased to exist.
Eastern Judeo-Spanish has fared somewhat better, especially in Israel, where newspapers, radio broadcasts, and elementary school and university programs strive to keep the language alive. But the old regional variations (i.e. Bosnia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Turkey, and Italy for instance) are already either extinct or doomed to extinction. Only time will tell whether Judeo-Spanish koiné, now evolving in Israel—similar to that which developed among Sephardic immigrants to the United States early in the 20th century will prevail and survive into the next generation.[5]
Judeo-Portuguese (Lusitanic) has been conserved by the crypto-Jewish marranos of Portugal and Brazil and is still spoken by a few of them.[citation needed] It is also spoken by Sephardim still remaining in Turkey and amongst the Sephardi immigrants of Israel of Portuguese and Brazilian descent.
Judeo-Portuguese has also been used by Sephardim — especially among the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of Western Europe. The pidgin forms of Portuguese spoken among slaves and their Sephardic owners were an influence in the development of Papiamento and the Creole languages of Suriname.
Other Romance languages with Jewish forms, spoken historically by Sephardim, include Judæo-Aragonese, and Catalanic (Judæo-Catalan). The Gibraltar community has had a heavy influence on the Gibraltar dialect Llanito contributing several words to this English/Spanish patois.
Other languages associated with Sephardic Jews are mostly extinct, i.e., formerly spoken by some Sephardic communities in Italy. Low German (Low Saxon), formerly used as the vernacular by Sephardim around Hamburg and Altona in Northern Germany, is also no longer in use as a specifically Jewish vernacular.
[edit] Tags:Judeo-portuguese,Catalanic,Catalan,Greek, | |
| Early history | |
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The precise origins of the Jewish communities of the Iberian peninsula are unclear. There is fragmentary and inconclusive evidence of a Jewish presence on the Iberian Peninsula dating from pre-Roman times. More substantial references date from the Roman period.
Evidence which suggests Jewish connections with the Iberian Peninsula includes:
References in the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, I Kings, and Jonah to the country of Tarshish, which is thought by many to have been located in modern southern Spain (in ancient Tartessus).
A signet ring found at Cadiz, dating from the 8th-7th century BC. The inscription on the ring, generally accepted as Phoenician, has been interpreted by a few scholars to be "paleo-hebraic."
An amphora dating from at least the first century found in Ibiza, which bears imprints of two Hebrew characters.
Several early Jewish writers wrote that their families had lived in Spain since the destruction of the first temple. The famous Don Isaac Abravanel (1407–1508) stated that the Abravanel family had lived on the Iberian Peninsula for 2,000 years.
It is thought that substantial Jewish immigration probably occurred during the Roman period of Hispania. The province came under Roman control with the fall of Carthage after the Second Punic War (218–202 BC). Exactly how soon after this time Jews made their way onto the scene in this context is a matter of speculation. It is within the realm of possibility that they went there under the Romans as free men to take advantage of its rich resources.
Although the spread of Jews into Europe is most commonly associated with the Diaspora which ensued from the Roman conquest of Judea, emigration from Judea into the greater Roman Mediterranean area antedated the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans under Titus. Any Jews already in Hispania at this time would have been joined by those who had been enslaved by the Romans under Vespasian and Titus, and dispersed to the extreme west during the period of the Jewish Wars, and especially after the defeat of Judea in 70. One account placed the number carried off to Hispania at 80,000. Subsequent immigrations came into the area along both the northern African and southern European sides of the Mediterranean.
Among the earliest records which may refer specifically to Jews in the Iberian peninsula during the Roman period is Paul's Epistle to the Romans. Many[who?] have taken Paul's intention to go to Hispania to preach the gospel (Romans 15:24, 28) to indicate the presence of Jewish communities there, as well as the fact that Herod Antipas's banishment by Caligula in the year 39 may have been to Hispania.[6]
From a slightly later period, Midrash Rabbah, Leviticus 29:2 makes reference to the return of the Diaspora from Hispania by 165.
Perhaps the most direct and substantial of early references are the several decrees of the Council of Elvira, convened in the early fourth century, which address proper Christian behavior with regard to the Jews of Hispania.
As citizens of the Roman Empire, the Jews of Hispania engaged in a variety of occupations, including agriculture. Until the adoption of Christianity, Jews had close relations with non-Jewish populations, and played an active role in the social and economic life of the province. The edicts of the Synod of Elvira, provide evidence of Jews who were integrated enough into the greater community to cause alarm among some: of the Council's 80 canonic decisions, all which pertain to Jews served to maintain a separation between the two communities. It seems that by this time the presence of Jews was of greater concern to Christian authorities than the presence of pagans; Canon 16, which prohibited marriage of Christians with Jews, was worded more strongly than canon 15, which prohibited marriage with pagans. Canon 78 threatens Christians who commit adultery with Jews with ostracism. Canon 48 forbade the blessing of Christian crops by Jews, and canon 50 forbade the sharing of meals by Christians and Jews.
Yet in comparison to Jewish life in Byzantium and Italy, life for the early Jews in Hispania and the rest of western Europe was relatively tolerable. This is due in large measure to the difficulty which the Church had in establishing itself in its western frontier. In the west, Germanic tribes such as the Suevi, the Vandals, and especially the Visigoths had more or less disrupted the political and ecclesiastical systems of the Roman empire, and for several centuries western Jews enjoyed a degree of peace which their brethren to the east did not.
Barbarian invasions brought most of the Iberian Peninsula under Visigothic rule by the early fifth century. Other than in their contempt for Orthodox Christians, who reminded them of the Romans and also because they were Arians, the Visigoths were largely uninterested in the religious creeds within their kingdom. It was not until 506, when Alaric II (484–507) published his Brevarium Alaricianum (Breviary of Alaric) (wherein he adopted the laws of the ousted Romans), that a Visigothic king concerned himself with the Jews.
The situation of the Jews changed after the conversion of the Visigothic royal family under Recared from Arianism to Roman Catholicism in 587. In their desire to consolidate the realm under the new religion, the Visigoths adopted an aggressive policy towards Jews. As the king and the church acted in a single interest, the Jews' situation deteriorated. Under successive Visigothic kings and under ecclesiastical authority, many orders of expulsion, forced conversion, isolation, enslavement, execution, and other punitive measures were made. By 612–621, the situation for Jews became intolerable and many left Spain for nearby northern Africa. In 711, thousands of Jews from North Africa accompanied the Moslems who invaded Spain, subsuming Catholic Spain and turning much of it into an Arab state, Al-Andalus. (N.H.Finkelstein, p. 13, 14)
The Jews of Hispania had been utterly embittered and alienated by Catholic rule by the time of the Muslim invasion. To them, the Moors were perceived as, and indeed were, a liberating force. Wherever they went, the Muslims were greeted by Jews eager to aid them in administering the country. In many conquered towns the garrison was left in the hands of the Jews before the Muslims proceeded further north. Thus were initiated the two centuries of Muslim rule in the Iberian peninsula which became known as the "Golden Age" of Sephardi Jewry.
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| Jews in Muslim Iberia | |
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See also Al-Andalus; Golden age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula; Timeline of the Muslim presence in the Iberian peninsula
With the victory of Tariq ibn Ziyad in 711, the lives of the Sephardim changed dramatically. Though Islamic law placed restrictions on dhimmis (non-Muslim members of monotheistic faiths), the coming of the Moors was by and large welcomed by the Jews of Iberia.
Both Muslim and Christian sources claim that Jews provided valuable aid to the Muslim invaders. Once captured, the defense of Cordoba was left in the hands of Jews, and Granada, Malaga, Seville, and Toledo were left to a mixed army of Jews and Moors. Although in some towns Jews may have been helpful to Muslim success, they were of limited impact overall. However it was frequently claimed by Christians in later centuries that the fall of Iberia was due in large part to Jewish perfidy.
In spite of the restrictions placed upon the Jews as dhimmis, life under Muslim rule was one of great opportunity and Jews flourished as they did not under the Christian Visigoths. Many Jews came to Iberia, seen as a land of tolerance and opportunity, from the Christian and Muslim worlds. Following initial Arab victories, and especially with the establishment of Umayyad rule by Abd al-Rahman I in 755, the native Jewish community was joined by Jews from the rest of Europe, as well as from Arab lands, from Morocco to Babylon. Jewish communities were enriched culturally, intellectually, and religiously by the commingling of these diverse Jewish traditions.
Arabic culture, of course, also made a lasting impact on Sephardic cultural development. General re-evaluation of scripture was prompted by Muslim anti-Jewish polemics and the spread of rationalism, as well as the anti-Rabban Tags: | |
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