Monday, June 29, 2009

Henrique Cymerman

Galardón de la Fundación Conde de Barcelona

Henrique Cymerman, premio Godó de Periodismo

El periodista ha sido distinguido por una serie sobre los 40 años de la guerra árabe-israelí. Los reportajes fueron publicados en este diario en una fase de graves problemas en la región. El jurado apreció la atención del autor a todas las fuentes y su ecuanimidad

El periodista Henrique Cymerman, corresponsal de La Vanguardia en Israel, ha obtenido el premio Godó de Periodismo 2009, que concede la Fundación Conde de Barcelona, vinculada al Grupo Godó de comunicación, gracias a suserie de artículos 40 años de la guerra de los Seis Días, publicada en este diario en junio del 2007.

Una dilatada y premiada trayectoria periodística

Nacido en el año 1959 en Oporto, Henrique Cymerman estudió Ciencias Políticas y Sociología en la Universidad de Tel Aviv. Posteriormente (entre 1980 y 1982) sería profesor de estas materias en esta misma universidad israelí. Inmediatamente después de este periodo docente, inició su ya dilatada trayectoria periodística, primero como corresponsal en España y Portugal del diario israelí 'Maariv' y del diario británico 'Jewish Chronicle', durante la etapa 1982-1986. Al mismo tiempo, dirigía la Central Pedagógica y de Documentación de la Comunidad Israelita de Barcelona. Entre 1986 y 1991 colaboró, como experto en temas de Oriente Medio, en 'El Periódico de Catalunya'.
En 1991 inicia su trabajo como corresponsal en Jerusalén de 'La Vanguardia', Antena 3 Televisión y corresponsal de la Televisión Portuguesa SIC en Oriente Medio. Simultáneamente, era comentarista de la BBC, de la televisión israelí y de la televisión palestina. Autor del libro 'Voces desde el Centro del Mundo', con entrevistas a los principales líderes de Oriente Medio y a miembros de la sociedad civil palestina e israelí, Cymerman ha recibido numerosos premios por su labor.

El jurado –reunido el pasado día 19– apreció en dicha serie, y de modo sobresaliente, las virtudes que son habituales en el trabajo periodístico de Cymerman: atención a todas las fuentes informativas, independencia de criterio y ecuanimidad en los aspectos analíticos. Unas virtudes que La Vanguardia alienta, y que resultan particularmente meritorias debido a la delicada situación sociopolítica de la zona y, también, a las extraordinarias dificultades coyunturales que atravesaba cuando los artículos fueron escritos.


Henrique Cymerman (Oporto, 1959) es corresponsal de La Vanguardia en Israel desde 1991, y también de la cadena televisiva Antena 3. Es autor del libro Voces desde el Centro del Mundo (Temas de Hoy), que reúne entrevistas con los principales líderes de Oriente Medio, y que fue publicado en español, inglés, portugués, hebreo y árabe. El jurado del premio Godó de Periodismo estuvo presidido por Alfredo Abián, vicedirector de La Vanguardia; e integrado por Álex Rodríguez, director adjunto; Quim Monzó y Antoni Puigverd, escritores y colaboradores de este diario, y Llàtzer Moix, redactor jefe adjunto al director.

El premio Godó de Periodismo, convocado desde 1995, mantiene una continuidad con el premio Godó Lallana, que otorgaba también La Vanguardia desde 1965. En sucesivas ediciones, el Godó de Periodismo ha recaído en artículos de Antonio Franco, Helmut Schmidt, José Antonio Zarzalejos, Jorge Marín (Josep Manyé), Javier Tusell, Ernest Lluch, Carlos Nadal, Julio Fuentes, Xavier Sala i Martín, Robert Fisk y Manuel Castells.

La dilatada trayectoria de Henrique Cymerman como corresponsal y experto en temas de Oriente Medio ha sido distinguida anteriormente con premios como el de Mejor Corresponsal Mundial (1997) por los New York Festivals; el premio especial de
la Asociación de Periodistas de España (1998); Periodista del año 2003, por la Asociación de Periodistas de Portugal y, este mismo año, el premio de la Universidad de Tel Aviv por su contribución a la paz y al entendimiento en Oriente Medio.

El libro de Cymerman Voces desde el Centro del Mundo (2005-2008) fue publicado en cinco lenguas, con otros tantos prologuistas de excepción: Jorge Sampaio (portugués), Baltasar Garzón (español) y Javier Solana (hebreo, árabe e inglés). La obra recibió el apoyo personal del presidente de Israel y premio Nobel de la Paz Shimon Peres, y del viceprimer ministro palestino, Azzam al Ahmad, quien declaró que "Cymerman representa a los dos pueblos, en ambos bandos, palestinos e israelíes".

Monday, June 15, 2009

Parashá Shelach

Rabino KALMAN PACKOUZ

Aish,  Yerushalayim

GOOD MORNING! I once offered a young man the opportunity to meet my good friend and renowned author and speaker, Rabbi Zelig Pliskin. The young man was a bit nervous, "But, what should I say to him?" I asked the young man, "Do you have any questions about life that you would like answered?" When he replied "No," I then suggested, "Well, then why not ask Rabbi Pliskin, 'What is the secret of life?' " The young man became very excited (perhaps at the thought that he might play "Stump the Rabbi") and anxiously walked with me to meet Rabbi Pliskin to ask his question.

Why did I suggest this question? I once saw a Ziggy cartoon with a young man climbing a steep mountain to ask the guru, "What is the secret of life?" And the guru answered, "Before I tell you ... have you heard about Amway?" I knew that Rabbi Pliskin was not into Amway or selling "Kabbalah water," so not only was it safe to ask him this question, but with his sharp mind and keen sense of humor, his answer would be worth hearing. I wasn't disappointed!

"Breathing," replied Rabbi Pliskin. "Breathe in and breathe out. As long as you keep breathing you will be alive." Then Rabbi Pliskin continued, "The other secret to life is attitude. Life is how you decide to view it. I once read about a person going through a toll booth and the attendant had his radio blasting music and was dancing. He asked him, 'What's the occasion?' and the attendant answered, 'I'm having a party!' A few weeks later the driver went through the same toll booth and the same attendant had his radio blasting music and was dancing. The driver asked him, 'Why are you having another party?' He smiled and said, "Mister, every day is a party. Life is a party. You have to celebrate!' "

King Solomon in his great wisdom tells us the secret of a high quality life. "Every day in the life of a poor person is bad. And for a person with a good heart, life is constant parties." (Proverbs 15:15)

A "poor person" refers to one who has a poor attitude. He keeps thinking about what is wrong and what is missing. So for him every day is distress and misery. The person with a "good heart" refers to someone who is constantly grateful and appreciative for all the good in his life. When you master this attitude your life will be full of moments of joy and celebration.

When you master joy for the good in your life, you will be able to be appreciative of each and every breath. So breathing will not only keep you alive, it will also give you what to celebrate. And since every moment of life is a moment of breathing, you will radiate joy!

If you are breathing while you are reading this, celebrate your ability to breathe and celebrate life!




Torah Portion of the Week
Shelach

The Jewish people received the Torah on Mt. Sinai and were ready to enter the land of Israel. There was a consensus of opinion amongst the people that we should send spies to see if it was feasible to conquer the Land. Moshe knew that the Almighty's promise to give the Land included a guarantee to conquer it. However, one of the principles of life which we learn from this portion is: the Almighty allows each of us the free will to go in the direction we choose. Even though one man and the Almighty is a majority, Moshe by Divine decree, sent out the princes of the tribes (men of the highest caliber) to spy out the land.

Twelve spies were sent. Ten came back with a report of strong fortifications and giants; they rallied the people against going up to the Land. Joshua ben Nun and Calev ben Yefunah (Moshe's brother-in-law) tried to stem the rebellion, but did not succeed. The Almighty decreed 40 years of wandering in the desert, one year for each day they spied in the land of Israel. This happened on the 9th of Av, a date noted throughout Jewish history for tragedy - the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain amongst them.

* * *

Dvar Torah
based on Growth Through Torah by Rabbi Zelig Pliskin

The Torah states:

"And we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight" (Numbers 13:33).

The Kotzker Rebbe said that the mistake of the spies was in the words "and so we were in their sight." It should not bother a person how others view him. (Otzer Chaim)

A person who worries about how others view him will have no rest. Regardless of what he does or does not do, he will always be anxious about receiving the approval of others. Such a person makes his self-esteem dependent on the whims of others. It is a mistake to give others so much control over you. Keep your focus on doing what is right and proper. Work on mastering the ability to have a positive self-image regardless of how others view you.

If people give you constructive criticism because of things you are doing wrong, you should appreciate the opportunity to improve. However, do not allow your self-image to be dependent on the arbitrary approval and disapproval of others.

The Chofetz Chaim commented, When you view yourself as inferior, you will assume that others also view you in this manner. The truth could very well be that the other person views you in a much higher manner. As the Yalkut Shimoni states, "The Almighty said, 'Who says that you were not in their eyes as angels?' " (HaChofetz Chaim, Vol. 3, p. 1060)

Realize your intrinsic value as a being created in the image of the Almighty and you will feel much more comfortable around other people.


CANDLE LIGHTING - June 19

Jerusalem 7:13
Guatemala 6:15 - Hong Kong 6:51 - Honolulu 6:57
J'Burg 5:05 -
Porto KOAH 9:04 - Los Angeles 7:49
Melbourne 4:49 - Mexico City 7:58 - Miami 7:56
New York 8:12 - Singapore 6:54 - Toronto 8:44


QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

Life is meant to be lived, not hoarded.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Los Muestros Where have all Sephardim gone?

Where have all Sephardim gone?

Brigitte Sion

Kuando mas eskurese es para amaneser. When the sky darkens, it heralds dawn's arrival. (Ladino saying)

The last Sephardic synagogue on Manhattan's Lower East Side, a narrow brick building squeezed between two Chinese glaziers at 280 Broome St., is open only on the Sabbath and for the Jewish holidays. Its name in Hebrew characters, Kehila Kedosha Janina, is engraved in stone above the entrance. The red front door opens to a small sanctuary in need of fresh paints, with too many chairs for the few regular worshippers. Every time the door bangs, the women sitting on the balcony lean forward anxiously, for each Saturday morning service, comes the fear of not having the ten men required reading the Torah.

"Eight!" they shout in chorus, with a mix of triumph and sadness. They sometimes wait an hour before they reach the quorum. If they cannot, they skip the Torah reading altogether. The congregation celebrated its 71st birthday in May, but the future of its religious activity does not look bright. "We are on our last legs," admits Hyman Genee, President of Kehila Kedosha Janina and leader of the service. "We are starting a museum now for when our last members will be gone."

The congregation is one of the few remnants of a dying culture that flourished for ten centuries in Spain and then in the Ottoman Empire. Although founded by Romaniote (Greek) Jews, its congregates are now mostly Sephardic. The name "Sephardi" is a Hebrew word meaning "Spanish." Its inheritors have now forgotten the language and customs, and have blended into the larger Jewish American world ruled by Ashkenazi standards. Some individuals are struggling to keep this culture alive; a last-minute effort before its inevitable death, but it does indeed look like, as Genee said, the Sephardic heritage's only future lies in museums. Congregation Janina was built by Greek Jews who came from the city of Ioannina at the turn of the century. They emigrated along with Sephardim from the Ottoman Empire - what is now Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslavia. The numbers of these immigrants were hard to estimate, says Rachel Amado Bortnick, president of the Dallas Jewish Historical Society, because many Sephardim identified themselves only as Turks or Greeks, not Jews. However, in his book La America: The Sephardic Experience in the United States,<.I>" Marc Angel, Rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York City, estimates that 30,000 Sephardim came to America between 1890 and 1924, 80 to 90 percent of whom settled in Manhattan's Lower East Side. As, that is still a small number compared to the two million Ashkenazim who arrived at the same time from Poland, Russia and Germany, they quickly felt like a minority within a minority. This was not, however, for reasons of numbers alone. Many of the new Sephardic immigrants did not find the welcome they received from the Ashkenazim as warm as they had expected. "They used to call us black Jews," recalls Morris Calderon, an 82-year-old volunteer at the Sephardic Home for the Aged in Brooklyn who used to live in the Lower East Side. "We called them Zigazuk, which is how Yiddish sounded to us." Sephardim seemed like strangers to the Ashkenazim, who had difficulties accepting them as Jews. They did not speak Yiddish but Ladino, they pronounced Hebrew differently, they chanted Middle-Eastern-sounding melodies. They also had weird customs, such as kissing the hand of the elderly, having the whole family stand in the synagogue when one of its members are called to read the Torah portion, and eating rice and beans for the Passover Seder.

The tensions lasted for decades. Even by 1958, when Bortnick turned 20 and left her hometown of Izmir, Turkey, to study in America, the Sephardim were still seen as peculiar. In her new hometown of St. Louis, Mo., there were no Sephardim and most of the 60,000 Jews who lived there had never heard of Sephardic people.

"The first Jewish family I met asked me if I spoke Yiddish,w/I>" Bortnick remembers, now laughing. "When I said that I had never heard Yiddish in my life, they said, " What kind of Jew are you?" She had to learn what a dreidel was and how latkes tasted. As a result, she felt she was neither Gentile nor Jew. "My whole concept of what being Jewish meant was shaken," she now recalls sadly. "I felt very lonely because my father had told me that the first thing I should do was to meet Jewish families in America. I did that! They doubted I was Jewish and they were not the kind of Jews that I was familiar with."

Separated by language, culture and customs considered strange and exotic by the majority of Jews surrounding them, the first generation of Sephardim took refuge in a closely-knit community. However, even in their own circles, they never made a concerted effort to make their voice heard. In his 1987 book "Sephardim in Twentieth Century America," historian Joseph Papo describes how, rather than unite as Sephardim with a common culture and a common language, Jews from Salonika, Kastoria, Monastir, Izmir or Çanakkale each opened their own synagogue and social club and remained apart from one another. By 1928 there were 28 separate services in New York, among which 21 were for Ladino-speaking Sephardim. The fact that Congregation Janina is the last of its kind reflects the communal disorganisation of New York Sephardim. Not only did they not fit into the established American Jewish world, but their attempts to find a chief rabbi, build a centralised synagogue and set up religious schools failed as well.

"The only thing that ever united the Sephardim of New York is the Sephardic Home for the Aged," says Dr. Joel Halio, chairman of the medical committee at the Home's Board. "It was founded in 1948, out of frustration. That is why they all contributed to this project. It is the crown achievement." The Sephardic Home for the Aged is now housed in a seven-story, redbrick building at 2266 Cropsey Avenue in Brooklyn. It has a capacity of 270 beds and offers ultramodern care services. "In these lands our people dwelled," reads the caption of a ceramic-tiled map in the bright lobby. The map highlights some cities in Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, where the residents of the home, their parents or grandparents came from at the turn of this century. Virtually no other testimonies of Sephardic culture are visible aside from this ceramic display. The Board members - mostly men in their 40s and 50s - bear typical Sephardic last names such as Kamhi, Russo, Hazan or Elias. Their dark hair and matte complexions reflect their Mediterranean origins, but they were all born in America and barely speak Ladino. Only half of the residents are Sephardic. Activities relating to their Balkan roots are limited to bingo with numbers said in English and Spanish, lectures during Sephardic Week in December, belly dancing for New Year's Eve, and borekas eaten at special occasions. Borekas are made of thin dough filled with cheese or spinach and shaped in small crescents. Baked until golden, they are served warm, allowing the salty filling to develop its flavour with each bite. This landmark of Sephardic cuisine is one of the few Sephardic customs still passed on to younger generations. "My kids will know what a boreka is," Halio says. "They will know that I spoke Judeo-Spanish, but they won't speak it themselves."

The 80- or 90-year-old residents of the home, who were born in Europe, are among the last Sephardim in America to have a full command of Ladino and to have kept a complete knowledge of their ancestors' traditions. Those Sephardim who stayed in Greece, Yugoslavia and Italy were killed in Nazi concentration camps; a fact ignored by many histories books. Of the 56,000 Sephardim living in Salonika before World War II, 53,000, or 95 percent, died in the gas chambers. The annihilation of Jewish life in Greece gave a fatal blow to Sephardic culture and Ladino. Scattered around the world, survivors were too few to carry on the transmission of the Sephardic heritage.

The death of Ladino is salient evidence that the Sephardic culture is endangered. When 200,000 Jews left Spain in 1492, they took their house keys with them, convinced that their exile would be temporary. They also took the language with them. For five hundred years, their descendants kept on speaking medieval Spanish in the Ottoman Empire, where most of them settled. This language survived thousands of miles away from its native country, without undergoing linguistic transformations like modern Spanish. Known as Judeo-Spanish or Djudezmo, as well as by the name Ladino, its pronunciation is softer than modern Spanish (the guttural sound known as "jota" doesn't exist), and it has borrowed many words from Turkish, Greek, Italian, French, Hebrew and Serbo-Croatian. For example, "Good luck" is translated "Mazal bueno," "mazal" coming from the Hebrew, and "bueno" from the Spanish.

Ladino's heterogeneous nature gave the language a unique flavour, mixing spontaneity, humour and warmth, and reflected in tasty popular sayings. "Ken se kema la boca en la chorba, asopla en el yogurt," goes one. "He who gets burnt with soup blows cold on his yoghurt," an equivalent of "Once bitten, twice shy." An abundant Judeo-Spanish press developed, alongside with a popular literature made of short stories, jokes, comedies, tales and encyclopedias. For more than four centuries, Ladino was the daily language that Gentiles had to learn if they wanted to do business with Jews in Salonika, who accounted for more than half of the population.

Today, estimates of the number of speakers in the world vary. In the 1994 book "The Death of a Language, the Story of Judeo-Spanish," Tracy Harris, professor of Spanish at Bradley University, reckons there are 60,000 Ladino speakers left, while Moshe Shaul, editor of "Aki Yerushalayim," the last publication in Ladino in the world, doubles this figure. Haim Vidal Sephiha, now retired from the only chair of Judeo-Spanish in the world at the Paris University La Sorbonne, wrote in his 1986 book "Judeo-Spanish" that 400,000 people still speak the language. A serious survey of Ladino speakers is not available, but it is generally agreed upon that Ladino is not the dominant language for most speakers - who are over 40 - and that there are very few children who know it, if any.

The 1993 UNESCO Red Book on endangered languages lists Ladino in its "seriously endangered" category. "One of the tragedies of American Sephardim," explains Halio, "is that my father's generation, the first to be born in this country, had no grandparents to sing lullabies, bake the bread and teach the customs."

Because the Ashkenazim rejected the new immigrants when they came to New York, he says, his parents' generation gave up on maintaining their culture to become fully integrated Americans. Halio, like many other American Sephardim growing up in the 60s, therefore learned only a little about his background. He says he had to beg his parents and grandparents for details about his heritage.

Halio was not taught Ladino at home, where his bilingual parents spoke Ladino to their parents and English to their children, but decided to learn the language on his own in order to speak with his grandmother. However, he says, most American Sephardim of his generation have almost no knowledge of this language, except for a couple of sayings or words with no English equivalent, such as the words for special foods. A "pastel" is a meat, spinach or cheese pie, "bumuelos" are ball-shaped doughnuts eaten with cheese or syrup, "guevos enhaminados" are hard-boiled eggs cooked until brown. Many Sephardim have not only forgotten their heritage, but have adopted Ashkenazi customs. They now avoid naming their children after living grandparents; they eat gefilte fish and use Yiddish words. They now say "kosher" when they used to say "kasher," "shabbes" for "Shabbat," "shul" for "synagogue" and "yarmulke" for "kippa."

Despite the inevitable extinction of Ladino, some individuals are trying to keep the language alive, or at least to prolong its death throes, in a last-minute effort to promote it in larger circles. In Jerusalem, Moshe Shaul edits "Aki Yerushalayim," a 100-page journal published twice a year, and has recently opened a Ladino web site, La Pajina Djudeo-Espanyola. He teaches Ladino to a handful of high-school students in Israel and is currently working on a textbook. However, Shaul failed to transmit to his own children the heritage he is now desperately trying to preserve. "Until 15 years ago, I only spoke Hebrew at home with my family, trying to be a fully integrated Israeli," he explains, adding that he did not start getting interested in Judeo-Spanish until his daughters were already adolescent.

Bortnick said she decided not to speak Ladino to her children because her Ashkenazi husband could not understand the language. She also wanted them fully integrated into American society. "I did not want my children to grow up as strangers," she says, recalling how uncomfortable she felt as the only Sephardi in St. Louis. "I know it was a mistake, but that is the way I felt at the time." Whether by means of integration or because of a non-Sephardic spouse, most Sephardim have not passed on the language to their children. Even Joel Halio, who made the effort to learn Ladino and knows he is the last link of the chain, married a non-Jew and talks in English to Grace, his 2-year-old daughter. Nevertheless, he remains involved in many Sephardic organisations in New York, and runs the Federation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture that sponsors book publishing and film making about Balkan Jewry.

"My religion went out of business," Halio says, explaining that synagogues following the Sephardic ritual have almost completely disappeared. To him, being Sephardic is now a cultural thing, which he is still eager to make better known. The inevitable death of this culture within a few generations is most striking in America, especially as the first Jews to settle on the East Coast - in New York, Philadelphia and Newport - were Sephardim. The 23 immigrants who dedicated Congregation Shearith Israel in Manhattan in 1654 struggled to maintain their heritage in the New World because of their small number and because of their place in society throughout history. "In Spain, Jews were part of the establishment, of the larger society," says Bortnick. "They did not dress differently, they were not confined to a specific place, nor did they have a ghetto mentality. They were adapting, whatever it took." This attitude favours assimilation, Bortnick explains, and assimilation leads to disappearance. Sephardim who immigrated to America in the beginning of the 20th century were never capable of uniting and preserving their identity. Those who lived in Greece, Yugoslavia and Italy were killed in the Holocaust. Even in Israel and in Turkey, the last countries with important Sephardic communities, the heritage is loosing its characteristics with every generation blending more into the larger society.

Sephardic culture does not seem to have a future, but Sephardim are only starting to admit this fact. "It is really a lost cause," says Bortnick with a sigh, "but it is sad to say it." She believes that religious traditions will continue in the synagogues, but not the social traditions associated with the holidays. "I try at least to record, to preserve for posterity what we have been throughout the ages." Among the people resisting the disappearance of Sephardic culture stand many non-Sephardic - and sometimes non-Jewish - supporters. Scholars such as George Zucker and Bernard Pierron have recently written books on related topics. Ashkenazi cantors, such as Ari Priven at Congregation B'nai Jeshurun on Manhattan's Upper West Side, are now including Sephardic melodies in the services. Restaurants are adding Sephardic recipes to their menus. The musical scene is also witnessing a number of musicians who are drawing from the Sephardic repertoire. Groups such as Voice of the Turtle and Alhambra, singers such as Sandra Bessis and Judy Frankel are in particular associated with this recent interest in Sephardic music. The female voice is predominant in Ladino songs, or "romansas," because the musical tradition was passed on from mother to daughter. The popular repertoire includes cradlesongs, wedding songs and love songs. Other songs tell the lives of Spanish Jews or episodes of Sephardic history. The singing, influenced by Moorish intonations, is sometimes accompanied by a tambourine called a "pandero," or a guitar. "Los Bilbilikos kantan, sospiran de amor, i la pasyon me mata, muchiga mi dolor," goes the first verse of "Los Bilbilikos" ("The Nightingales") a centuries old Sephardic hit. "The nightingales sing, they sigh with love and passion engulfs me, multiplying my pain."

"I learned my first Ladino song, 'Los Bilbilikos,' in 1963," recalls Judy Frankel, a San Francisco-based Ashkenazi singer who is a Medieval and Renaissance specialist. "But I did not become interested in Sephardic music before the 1980s, when I went to Jerusalem to look for Jewish Renaissance music. There I got reacquainted with Ladino." Since then, Frankel has dropped most of the other music she was singing and concentrated almost exclusively on Sephardic songs. "It was like a snowball, it developed a life of its own." She gives 52 concerts a year and has released her fourth album; Plata y Oro (Silver and Gold) made of songs she learned from Sephardim in the Bay area.

"Sephardic culture is oral more than archival," she says. "I want to help carry the torch and remind the younger generation about this heritage." She sees the interest in Sephardic culture from non-Sephardim as part of current interest in ethnic studies. "People are interested in old things, in folk art, in folk music. They want to know more about cultures that are tiny, interesting and beginning to disappear." The fact that she is Ashkenazi never prevented her from gaining access to the Sephardic repertoire. "At first Sephardim were curious," she says with a laugh, "now they consider me as part of their family. Our large Jewish community in the world is like a bouquet and every smaller community is a flower. It is not a competition, it is a cornucopia." Moshe Shaul attributes the renewed interest in Sephardic culture to the modern trend of searching for one's roots, the 1992 commemoration of the Jews' expulsion from Spain, and the efforts to awaken this dormant culture. "Will it last long enough, and will it also generate a willingness to fund the projects which will allow this culture to be saved from oblivion? I hope so."

Rabbi Marc Angel of Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue in Manhattan, does not share Shaul's optimistic view. He articulated his fears as early as 1973 in a lecture about Sephardic culture to his congregation. "When a culture is about to die out," he said, "it first experiences a resurgence in nostalgia among its members. There is one last burst of creative energy before it gives way to new and different patterns of life." For Angel, the current interest has nothing to do with a renaissance, since the minority is irremediably swept into the majority stream. Angel's Orthodox congregation is located on Central Park West at 70th St. The sanctuary reflects a traditional Sephardic arrangement with the reader's pulpit in the center of the room, facing the Ark rather than the worshipers. The dark wooden pews run alongside instead of facing the Ark. The liturgy is Sephardic: "A" is not pronounced "o," and "t" not as "s" the way Ashkenazim do. A men's choir sings centuries-old melodies imported by the first Sephardim in 1654.

However, the congregation now comprises half Sephardim and half Ashkenazim. "We are not an ethnic congregation," Angel says. "The children raised here are more American than anything else." The fact that his congregation calls itself "The Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue" is only historical, he explains. "Our goal is not to raise Sephardic Jews, but just Jews." Although the Judeo-Spanish culture is slowly vanishing from New York's two major institutions that still bear an ethnic name --the Sephardic Home for the Aged and the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue --, a number of smaller associations, social clubs or individuals also are striving to postpone the death of their traditions. "Erensia Sefardi<.I>" ("Sephardic Heritage"), a quarterly newsletter focuses on history rather than on the present. Its Connecticut- based editor, Albert de Vidas, uses most of his editorials to argue about who should be called Sephardic. In the Fall 1993 issue, for example, he wrote: "When certain Ashkenazic writers claim that the Arabic-speaking Jews of Yemen or the Farsi-speaking Jews of Iran or the Berber-speaking Jews of the Atlas mountains are Sephardim, that is a stretch of the imagination that defies all scholarship." It is true that to many Ashkenazim, Sephardim are people who don't know Yiddish.

According to de Vidas, it is as wrong to call Jews from Syria, Algeria or India Sephardim because they do not speak Yiddish as it would be to call Jews from Central Asia or Ethiopia Ashkenazim because they don't speak Ladino. While some use the word Sephardim to include the Mediterranean and the Middle Eastern Jews who follow rituals similar to their Balkan cousins', others limit the term to Ladino-speaking Jews, which is its strictly Hebrew meaning. Rabbi Angel uses the term "Pan-Sephardim" for people who are very close culturally and religiously, whether they originate from Spain or not. The debate among Sephardim, scholars and lay people alike, may sound sterile at a time when their heritage's life expectancy is not believed to be long. But it may also be a sign that its state of preservation is so precarious that its keepers cling to such details, perhaps unconsciously realizing that it may be too late to take the kind of action that would actually preserve the culture.

"What is really disturbing," Bortnick says, "is that some scholars already consider us a subject of an extinct culture, a historical relic." Another historian of Sephardic origin, Marianne Sanua, has a different perspective. "If Sephardim want recognition and appreciation from non-Sephardim, they will have to find their place within the markets of intellectual and artistic property exchange -- museums, exhibitions, collections, archives, history centers and university chairs," she says. "I am mostly concerned with those who don't know that we ever existed at all, or that we exist now." Hired as an exhibition researcher by A Living Memorial to the Holocaust-Museum of Jewish Heritage, before its opening in New York in September 1997, she describes museums as living and exciting places where the world can observe a culture. "Formerly, Sephardic culture was transmitted at the synagogue and at home," she says. She adds that museums cannot take over the transmission, but are the only means to stop this culture from going extinct altogether. But museums interested in Jewish history have paid little attention to Sephardic culture. The permanent exhibition of the Jewish Museum on the Manhattan Upper East Side displays only a few pictures from the Ottoman Empire and a couple of religious artifacts. Once in a while, a special exhibit captures more aspects of this heritage.

This neglect is being somewhat remedied by the four-year-old Lower East Side Tenement Museum, at 90 Orchard St., which is currently adding the apartment of a Sephardic family, the Confinos, to its permanent exhibit. "It was a story we needed to tell," says Kate Fernoile, Director of education. The new apartment, which opened in September 1997, stands next to the ones displaying the daily life of a Sicilian and a German-Jewish family. Further south, in Battery Park, a brand new hexagonal building made of gray granite hosts A Living Memorial to the Holocaust-Museum of Jewish Heritage. Its collection should include remaining artifacts from the Jewish communities of the Balkans, which were almost completely destroyed during the Holocaust. In proportion to its number, Greek Jewry suffered more from Nazi destruction than Polish Jewry, since more than 90 percent of its population died in concentration camps. However, little has been told about this chapter of history. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC almost ignores Jewish communities of Greece, Yugoslavia and Italy, displaying a picture here or there, whereas it gives detailed accounts on all Ashkenazi communities' fate. "We are hoping that someday in the future we will be able to correct that with additional material as well as with special exhibitions," says Michael Berenbaum, Director of the research institute. The new museum in New York intended to rectify the mistakes of Washington, says Marianne Sanua. She took upon herself to collect artifacts of Sephardic origin, a task made harder by misunderstandings on both sides. "Ashkenazim mean well, but they are mostly uninformed," she says. "They want to include Sephardim but they don't know the first thing about them. They don't have a geographic handle." Although current Ashkenazim may have lost their parents' or grandparents' prejudice, they still see Sephardim as exotic. "The next person who calls me exotic," Sanua says, greatly annoyed, "I'll break his neck!" She also has to overcome difficulties with the Sephardim she approaches to gather testimonies of their past. "Sephardim are unsure and hesitant when it comes to giving or lending artifacts to museums," she says, adding that they don't want to give away the last testimonies of their past. "They don't understand how museums operate." Sanua says she feels sorry for her peers because they are so few and they don't have a YIVO or a Leo Baeck Institute to promote their heritage. "Sephardim must learn to cooperate with already existing Ashkenazi institutions if they want their culture to be better known." The result is however disappointing, because the museum indeed displays artifacts from Syrian Jews - an important community in New York - but nothing much about Balkan Jewry, its early immigration to the United States or its destruction during the Shoah. "Since the capture of Jerusalem and the destruction of the second Temple by the Romans in 70 A.D., the dispersion of the Jewish people across the world has fostered a sense of ill-being in any foreign land," explains David Benbassat-Benby, a Greek-born journalist retired in France, who covered Sephardic issues. He adds that after their forced exile from Spain, their second homeland, Sephardim suffered from the same century-old pain, and transmitted it to the next generations living in the Ottoman Empire, especially in the Balkans. "This state of mind, together with the solidarity among scattered communities, have enabled Sephardim to maintain their traditions, their Ladino and their culture for almost 500 years. But the Shoah and the emigration of survivors to Israel and other countries have made major centers of Sephardic life, such as Salonika or Sarajevo, almost completely disappear." There appears to be a vicious circle, which Sephardim themselves must break if they want help and recognition. "We don't get support from Jewish organisations," Bortnick says, "but frankly, we don't make a big issue of our Sephardic nest." Sephardim did not share their rich heritage with the larger Jewish society when they arrived in America. They are now trying to make themselves known, at a time when they do not have much left to offer. "We don't impress the larger Jewish world very much," Bortnick says.

After this prolonged decline of Sephardic culture, it looks as if museums and research institutes will be the likeliest places to keep the Sephardic flame kindled. But no showcase will ever replace a living culture. No written recipe will ever taste like a warm boreka.

Los Muestros

La Synagogue sépharade d'Anvers – Beth Moshé

Les origines d'une communauté séfarade à Anvers datent de la Renaissance.

L'Espagne occupait alors la Belgique et les Pays Bas. Mais, si l'actuelle Hollande jouissait d'un semblant de liberté (l'Inquisition ne s'y installa pas), il n'en fut pas de même pour la Belgique.

Certains marranes, fuyant l'Espagne et le Portugal, se réfugièrent dans les provinces du Nord. Ils purent, dans les Pays Bas, revenir à leur foi d'origine. Ils n'en fut pas de même à Anvers. Les conversos, revenus à la foi de leurs ancêtres, risquaient gros en venant à Anvers, bien que les autorités hollandaises prissent sous leur protection ceux qui voulaient commercer avec elle (nous connaissons le cas de Capitaine de Barios : Lévy en Hollande, de Barios à Anvers).

Il existait même une église, lieu de rendez-vous des maranes

Parmi les marranes célèbres, citons Dona Gracia Nasi (La Señora), de son neveu, Joseph Mendes (qui devint duc de Naxos et fonda la première colonie sioniste; Tibériade).

Située en plein centre du quartier diamantaire, la Communauté du rite portugais, a été fondée 1908 par des juifs originaires de Turquie qui se réunissaient dans les locaux du Club Ottoman. La Synagogue fut construite en 1910 et coûta FB 45000 ! (il n'y a pas d'erreur de frappe).

Cette synagogue, fortement endommagée par l'attentat à la bombe de la fin des années 70, fut reconstruite grâce à la générosité de la communauté diamantaire, toutes origines confondues.

M.R.

A.B. Yehoshua / Why do we insist on a 'Jewish' state? - Haaretz - Israel News

A.B. Yehoshua / Why do we insist on a 'Jewish' state? - Haaretz - Israel News

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As layoffs mount, which Jewish executives shared the pain?brbr - Haaretz - Israel News

As layoffs mount, which Jewish executives shared the pain?brbr - Haaretz - Israel News

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Primeiro-ministro israelita aceita Estado Palestiniano - JN

Primeiro-ministro israelita aceita Estado Palestiniano - JN

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Gilad Shalit Prayer

prayer to GiLad Shalit

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Les Juifs de Rhodes rattrapés par la Shoah

Les Juifs de Rhodes rattrapés par la Shoah

 

Joël Kotek



Pour comprendre la destruction des Juifs de Rhodes un détour par l'Italie s'impose. Rhodes dans l'entre-deux -guerres n'est pas encore grecque. Les traités de la Première Guerre mondiale l'ont rattachée, avec ses consoeurs du Dodécanèse, au royaume d'Italie : rattachement de bonne augure pour les Juifs de l'île quand on sait le peu d'intérêt que l'Italie porte ou portera, sous les fascistes, à la question juive.
A lire l'historien Meir Michaelis, l'antisémitisme y fut toujours perçu comme une fausse note culturelle. A cela plusieurs raisons : les Juifs étaient relativement peu nombreux et assimilés, surtout, Mussolini ne partageait en rien les phobies antisémites du caporal autrichien. 

De là, à prétendre que tout fut rose pour les Juifs sous le fascisme, il n'y a qu'un pas que l'on se fardera de franchir.
Pour preuve, précisément, le cas de Rhodes. La nomination, en décembre 1936, de l'ultra fasciste Mario de Vecchi di Val Cismon au poste de Gouverneur des îles du Dodécanèse fut une véritable catastrophe pour les Juifs de l'île aux roses. Non content de fermer leur collège rabbinique, de les obliger à travailler le samedi et jours de fêtes, de Vecchi alla jusqu'à utiliser des stèles du cimetière pour la construction de sa villa. Tandis que ses prédécesseurs avaient pour habitude de rendre hommage aux juifs en visitant leurs synagogues le jour de Rosh Hashanah, de Vecchi les obligea à lui rendre visite ce jour saint. La situation empira avec l'adoption, en septembre 1938, des premières lois antisémites italiennes. Quoique promulguées sans grande conviction, ces lois n'en furent 
pas moins adoptées sans réelle ingérence allemande, sinon dans le cadre d'un rapprochement avec le Reich. Les Juifs étaient séparés du reste de la population italienne. On se doute qu'antisémite convaincu de Vecchi veilla à l'application stricte de la nouvelle législation : il interdit l'abattage rituel, ferma l'école publique aux juifs ; plaça les établissements sous contrôle gouvernemental. Plus grave encore, il ordonna l'expulsion des "nouveaux" Juifs de Rhodes, c'est-à-dire ceux des juifs qui s'étaient installés dans l'île après janvier 1919, date de l'incorporation du Dodécanèse dans la couronne italienne. Il fallut 
l'intervention de l
'Alliance Israélite Universelle pour sortir de l'impasse. Intervenant directement auprès de Mussolini, elle réussit à démontrer en quoi ces Juifs jouissaient également de la citoyenneté italienne, du fait du traité de Lausanne. Sauvés mais traumatisés., nombreux furent ceux qui choisir le chemin de l'exil pour le Congo, Tanger, Naples ou, via l'alya beth, la 
Palestine, etc.
La Shoah n'allaient pas tarder à happer leurs coreligionnaires restés sur place. 

Jusqu'à la déclaration de guerre rien ne semblait vraiment menacer les juifs d'Italie. La situation était difficile mais, comme souvent chez les fascistes, une grande dose d'incompétence réduisit sérieusement l'efficacité des directives antisémites. Voire, a contrario, elle poussa les Italiens, épuisés et de plus en plus méfiants vis à vis des Allemands, à faire obstruction à la politique de 
persécution et de déportation dans les régions qu'ils occupaient, de la France à la Croatie en passant par la Grèce. En ce qui concerne le cas de Rhodes, le sort des Juifs s'améliora, paradoxalement, en avril 1942, suite au départ de Vecchi. Tandis qu'à l'Est, la solution finale battait son plein, le nouveau Gouverneur, l'Amiral Campione, revit non seulement la politique antisémite de prédécesseur mais n'hésita pas à manifester sa sympathie à l'égard des juifs. La plupart des mesures antisémites furent rapportées. A l'écart des grandes routes de la shoah, dont ils ignoraient l'existence par ailleurs, les juifs de Rhodes se croyaient à  l'abri : les quatorze victimes juives d'un bombardement allié n'y changèrent rien. 

Il va sans dire que du point de vue allemand, l'attitude d'un Campione (comme du gouvernement fasciste, plus généralement) était inacceptable, sinon incompréhensible. Dans l'Europe entière, on arrêtait, on déportait les Juifs sauf dans les territoires contrôlés  par leurs… alliés italiens. Le 13 janvier 1943, l'ambassadeur l'Allemagne à Rome fut prié par Ribbentrop de rappeler au Ministre italien des Affaires étrangères qu'aux yeux de l'Allemagne les juifs italiens n'enrestaient pas moins des juifs. En mai 1943, des officiels allemands se plaignaient toujours de ce que le gouvernement italien ne "s'intéressait pas" à la question juive". Les 
Italiens qui ne voulaient pas entendre parler d'extermination, tirent bon. Le Statut des Juifs resta pratiquement tabou dans les  négociations germano-italienne tant que dura l'axe Rome-Berlin. 

La chute du Duce, le 25 juillet 1943, allait remettre les pendules (nazies) à l'heure. Les Allemands, réagissant à la vitesse de l'éclair, occupèrent aussitôt l'Italie. Rien n'allait plus arrêter les Allemands. Le destin des Juifs de Rhodes était désormais scellé. 
Eux qui se croyaient tirés d'affaire étaient prisonniers d'une incroyable souricière. Dès septembre 1943, les allemands  débarquaient à Rhodes où étaient stationnées des forces italiennes supérieures en nombre. 
Les juifs constituaient une cible idéale : totalement isolés du reste du monde (privé qu'ils étaient depuis 1941 de leurs postes de  radio), ils ignoraient tout de l'anéantissement de leurs frères continentaux.
Les Allemands firent tout pour ne pas éveiller les 
soupçons. Ce ne fut qu'en juin 1944 que débarquèrent à Rhodes les deux officiers SS chargés de "liquider" la communauté juive  de Rhodes : le 13 juin, l'île était désignée comme point de rassemblement pour l'ensemble des juifs du Dodécanèses. Le 19 juillet, 
l'ordre fut donné aux hommes juifs de plus de 16 ans de se présenter, dès le lendemain matin, à la Gestapo aux fins de  recensement. Non seulement les nazis ne leur rendirent pas leurs papiers mais ils furent informés qu'ils allaient être tous être  déportés, avec femmes et enfants, dans une île voisine. Sous peine d'exécution immédiate, ils s'entendirent priés de revenir dès le 
lendemain, accompagnés de leur famille et munis de leurs..
objets de valeur. N'étaient-ils pas supposé vivre désormais de leurs  économies ? Inconscients du danger, la presque totalité des Juifs de Rhodes - soit 1.700 hommes, femmes et enfants - accepta de  se rendre dans un camp provisoire dans l'attente du départ. Le 23 juillet, tandis que les responsables locaux, italiens et allemands,  se disputaient le butin qu'ils laissaient derrière eux, les Juifs furent effectivement embarqués dans de petits bateaux. D'une autre  île, il n'était point question. Arrivés au Priée le 31 juillet 1944, ils furent d'abord acheminés vers le camp de concentration de  Haydar prés d'Athènes. De là, exactement le 3 août 1944, ils furent entassés dans des wagons à bestiaux pour Auschwitz. C'est à  la mi-août, dans un état d'épuisement terrible, qu'il arrivèrent au centre d'extermination, distant de près de 1.600 kilomètres de leur  île natale. Sur les 1.700 déportés, 32 périrent durant le voyage, 1 145 furent exterminés dès leur arrivé, 437 succombèrent dans 
les camps de travail. En mai 1945 à la libération de l'île par les troupes britanniques, il ne restait plus qu'une poignée de Juifs.
Sur  les 1700 déportés de Rhodes, il n'y eut que 151 survivants. 

A l'instar de centaines d'autres, la communauté juive de Rhodes fut emportée à jamais dans la tourmente nazie.
Si physiquement  cette communauté n'est plus, une Rhodes immatérielle subsiste toujours intacte dans la mémoire dispersée de ses survivants et de  leurs descendants. Un grand nombre d'entre eux sont établis aujourd'hui en Belgique. 

Thursday, June 11, 2009

THE SEFARDIC JEWS TO AMERICA, 17TH CENTURY

LEGHORN: CENTER OF IMMIGRATION OF THE SEFARDIC JEWS TO AMERICA, 17TH CENTURY

Mordechai Arbell

When we follow the history of the first Jewish settlement in the Americas, noticeable is the important role played by Jews from Leghorn (Livorno, Liorna) in those settlements as well as the central place this port had in Jewish emigration to the new continent. Deep in the jungle of Surinam, in the oldest Jewish cemetery there (17th century) — Cassipoera — on a hill where Jews had settled before moving to a better place in the nearby area called until today "The Jewish Savanna," we find the tombstone of Abraham Mendes Vaiz:

Sepultura de bem aventurado e 
virtuozo de Abraham Mendez Vaiz, 
nacido en Liorneno, Anno de 5458, 
que corresponde a Anno 1697 e 
apreparon em su vida da ydade de 64 Annos.

In the poems by the famous Sefardi poet Daniel (Miguel) Levi de Barrios, we find the autobiographical description of his voyage, in 1659, with a group of Jews from Leghorn to the island of Tobago in the Caribbean where his wife Debora died. We also find that in Amsterdam, a representative of the Leghorn Jews, Paulo Jacomo Pinto, started negotiating in 1658 and 1659 with directors of the company founded by the three Walchern cities of Flushing, Middelburg, and Vere in the Netherlands for the settlement of Leghorn Jews in the New Dutch colony "Nova Zeelandia" on the Pomeroon river in the region of Essequibo, today the Republic of Guiana, and with the Dutch West India Company (Amsterdam) for settlement of Jews from Leghorn in the Dutch colony on the island of Cayenne, today French Guyana. Finally, in the archives Archivo General de Indias, in Seville, we can find documents of a Jewish settlement on the Venezuelan coast, Tucacas, settled by Jews from Leghorn in 1693. It is interesting to see why Leghorn was such a center of immigration to the Americas, how this was carried out, and what happened to those settlers in the new continents. Leghorn, ruled by the Medici family, was distinctly exceptional in its attitude to Jewish settlement there. In 1548 Cosimo I issued an invitation to foreigners to settle in Leghorn, in which conversos from Spain and Portugal could be included. This move was made by the Medicis when it was decided to make Leghorn an important international port, especially after the port of Piza became sand blocked. A more explicit invitation was issued by Ferdinand I on 10 June 1593 in which he guaranteed full religious liberty, the right to obtain Tuscan citizenship, civil and partly criminal jurisdiction among Jews, the right to own property, and the understanding that conversos could return to Judaism unmolested. In 1675 Leghorn, with the status of a free port, grew in importance. This attracted Jews of Spanish origin from North Africa and the Ottoman Empire, and also conversos from Portugal. There were 114 Jews in Leghorn in 1601 and approximately 3,000 in 1689. Portuguese and Spanish became the languages of Jews in Leghorn. The interchange between Leghorn and North Africa was one of the most important elements of the Leghorn trade. Jews from North Africa formed centers in Leghorn and Jews from Leghorn formed a special community of their own in Tunis in 1685. They were called "Gorni." The exodus of Jews from Oran, Algeria, started upon the Spanish occupation in 1509 and led to an increase in the Jewish population of Leghorn. The Spaniards, found Jews in Oran who had taken refuge there after the 1391 anti-Jewish massacres in Spain. In order not to move again, many of them had to convert to Christianity and the Inquisition followed those conversos until the Marquis de los Velez, governor of Oran, called in 1667 for the Inquisition to expel all Jews from Oran, including the conversos who had gradually returned to Judaic practices. Most of them settled in Leghorn where they joined the Oran Jews already there. On arrival in Leghorn, those immigrants from Oran who had been living as conversos returned to Judaism. This journey from Oran is described by the poet Miguel de Barrios, an officer in the Spanish army, and stationed in the fortress Mers el Kebir near Oran, who after reconversion was called Daniel Levi de Barrios: Murio en Argel mi querida Madre Sara, 
y mi Padre — en mi patria rigurosa [Spain] 
Mis hermanos Francisco, Antonio y Clara: 
Yazen debajo de Argelista Loja.... 
[In Leghorn] a mi tia Raquel Coen de Sosa 
devo la primer luz de la Ley pura 
y anadie de Israel la misteriosa 
lumbre que sigo en los pasos de Escritura 
la vision de Ezequel maravillosa...
 Those new arrivals from Oran had difficulties in adapting themselves to their new situation and welcomed the opportunity to find possibilities for livelihood in the American continent. The provinces of Nederlands, anxious to find colonists for their new colonies in America, saw the Jews in Leghorn as a very good colonizing human element. This is very well described by Charles Longland, the English agent in Leghorn in his report to the English secretary of state, John Thurloe (1657): It seems that the States of Holland are making a plantation between Surinam and Cartagena in the West Indies, wherein they go very wisely and politikly to work, aiming chiefly at a trade there with the Spanyard: for which purpose they have sent hether to invyte many families of Jews and granted them many privileges and immunities. Spanish is become now the Jews mother tongue, not only in these parts, but throughout the Turkish dominions. In which respect they will be very useful to the Dutch in their plantation; and many opportunities may present them to converse with the Spanyard...for which purpose they were sending thither twenty five families of Jews. It is difficult to establish which colony was meant by Longland — "between Surinam and Cartagena" — but the Dutch planned and settled two colonies in the same year in which they counted on Jewish settlers. One on the island of Cayenne, part of which is today French Guyana, and the other beside the Pomeroon river — in a settlement called New Middleburg beside the fortress of Nova Zeelandia in the colony of Essequibo — today the Republic of Guiana. The two settlements were to be settled by Jewish evacuees from Dutch Brazil who had to abandon it after the Portuguese occupation — 1654. Those settlers had experience in sugar cultivation, refining and marketing, and also in growing and producing vanilla, indigo, and other tropical products. They also had experience with the tropical environment and had become used to it. They were to be reinforced by Jews from Leghorn. The representative of the Leghorn Jews in Amsterdam, Paulo Jacomo Pinto, negotiated the transportation and conditions for those new Leghorn settlers. According to the conclusions reached, the first group had to first pass through Zeeland, Netherlands, and from there proceed to Pomeroon; the same was true for the second group, compromising 120 souls. For some enigmatic reasons, maybe vested interests of the Dutch companies, they were landed on the island of Tobago and left there, "reduced to poverty and misfortune." The situation in Tobago was disastrous. The first successful Tobago settlement was founded in 1652 by 80 Latvian Courlander families in what is known today as the "Great Courland Bay" named Jekabspills. In 1654 a shipload of 50 Dutch Zeelanders established themselves on the opposite side of the island and named the island "New Walchern." Curiously enough the two settlements remained unaware of each other's existence for quite some time. Carib Indians living between the two settlements raided them and drove them to the exhaustion of their manpower and resources, despite occasional reinforcements. The Dutch and the Courlanders fought each other for complete control of the island. It was into that situation that the Leghorn settlers arrived in Tobago. Notwithstanding, on 20 July 1660, an additional 152 Leghorn Jews left Leghorn destined for Cayenne and were landed in Tobago. One of the passengers was Daniel (Miguel) Levi de Barrios, mentioned previously. He wrote: El 20 de Julio de 1660, que fue el ayuno de 9 de Av, Miguel y su esposa se embaracaron en Liorna en la nave — Monte del Cisne —con 152 correligionarios. Pensaban probar fortunas en el Nuevo Mundo. Apenas llegaron de Tobago, colonia hollandesa en aquel entonces. Se le murio la esposa. En esta isla recibio sepultura. The Leghorn Jews of Tobago finally found their way off the island. Some went back to Amsterdam, the others reached their original destinations — Cayenne and Pomeroon during 1660–1661. The Dutch States General formed a Dutch colony on the island of Cayenne — today French Guyana. This colony was passed over to the control of the Dutch West India Company. One of its most specific objectives was to attract Jewish settlers experienced in dealing with tropical products. One of the refugees from Dutch Brazil negotiated with the company a grant of liberties and exemptions (12 Sept. 1659) for a Jewish Colony on the island of Cayenne. Paragraph 1 states that David Nassy and his partners are to be Patroon and Patroons of a colony...provided they do not extend so far as to interfere with other settlers. We understand from this section that the company's intention was to have an exclusively Jewish settlement. The Jews situated themselves on the western side of the island in a place called Remire or Irmire. The place is described by J. Bellin, geographer of that period, as "the most smiling and the most fertile region of the island." The Jews planted sugar cane, erected a sugar mill, produced colors from indigo and roucou, and tried to experiment with various tropical products. Protected by a fort, the settlement had an orderly community life with its own rules and regulations. The success of Remire was due to gradually improving relations with the local Indians, the successful sugar plant, and "a successful commerce carried on with those of their nation and others." The historian Ternaux-Compans describes Remire by saying: "David Nasi and his compatriots were joined by persons of the same religion who had quit Leghorn and devoted themselves to the cultivation of the earth. On 26 February 1664, a French fleet of five vessels and 1,200 colonists arrived in Cayenne. The Dutch in Cayenne gave up without a fight on condition that the Jews would have free exercise of their religion, a step the granting of which was quite exceptional for the French. Still more than two-thirds of Remire Jews, estimated at some 300, trekked to Surinam, then still English, and settled in what is known until today as the Jewish Savanna. This explains why near there, in the old cemetery in Casipoera we can find tombstones of people born in Leghorn. The remaining third of Remire Jews was taken by a British force that occupied the place in 1667 and destroyed it completely to either Surinam or Barbados, where the Jews were needed in the English sugar industry,. As for Pomeroon, here there was no intention of establishing an exclusively Jewish settlement. Yet, a large part of the population of New Middelburg, 50–60 families, was Jewish. Very attractive financial conditions and purchases on credit were given to the new settlers. The Jewish settlers were given special rights — unprecedented in other regions of the world — in the document: "Privileges granted to the people of the Hebrew Nation that are to go to the Wild Coast — August 20, 1660, " the Wild Coast being in those times the term for the region between the Amazon River and the Orinoco River. Among the articles we find: "Liberty of conscience is granted with the exercise of laws and ceremonies according to the doctrines of their ancients, and 
to have synagogues, schools, and burial ground according to their fashion." (Article 1) 
"Sabbath and Holydays will be observed and they [the Jews] shall not be obliged to appear in court nor have guard duty 
except if God forbid it should be of urgent necessity." (Article 2) 
"The Hebrews shall be admitted as Burgezes of Zeeland." (Article 3)

The settlement grew in importance at a brisk pace. Its very fine sugar production hit the Netherlands market and a great demand developed for it. The English commander of Surinam, Gen. Byam, wrote in his journal: "...but the greatest of all the Dutch ever had in America was Bawroom [Pauroma, Pomeroon] — a most flourishing colony 16 leagues leeward of Essequibo." The success of the Pomeroon Colony was of short duration. The British holding Surinam were anxious to eliminate the neighboring Dutch colonies and started to attack them with force. General Byam described it: "9 Dec. 1665 Major John Scott commissioned by his Excellency Francis Lord Willoughby of Parham, with a small fleet and upward of 300 men took the Dutch Fort and Colony of Bawrooma [Pomeroon]." Scott destroyed the forts and plundered and burned the houses of the inhabitants. Most of the Jewish settlers sailed for the island of Curaçao. Curaçao, called the "mother of the Jewish communities in the Caribbean," was the center of Jewish life in the area, and the majority of its population of 4,000 consisted of Spanish-Portuguese Jews. The arrival of the Pomeroon Jews came during a period of crisis in Curaçao. One of the highest ranking Dutch administrators, Balthazar Beck, had a irreconcilable hatred of the Jews, who called him "The Second Haman." He tried his best to make Jewish life in Curaçao miserable. This situation, aggravated by a cholera epidemic, made life very difficult for the newcomers. The cantor of the Jewish community of Curaçao in the second half of the 19th century found the following in the synagogue archives: In the year 1693 a party of Hebrews about ninety, left Curaçao and set sail for America. These families established themselves in Newport....In the same year another number of Israelites left Curaçao for Venezuela. The majority of these, however, were Italians...emigrated from Leghorn...[who] came to Curaçao from where they went to Tucacas [Venezuela], where they established and formed themselves into a congregation. This finding was met with skepticism by many historians, as it was quite improbable that Jews could settle in territories governed by Spain and there was almost no other mention of this congregation's archives. A more thorough investigation in the Spanish colonial archives enabled us to complete the story of these Leghorn Jews. In 1714, José Francisco de Canas, Spanish governor of Caracas, reported to the king: In the first years of the eighteenth century the Dutch established themselves on the key of Tucacas. This place became a major center of smuggling to the people in the valley of Barquisimiento, Barinas, Turiamo, Coro, and even including Santa Fe [Bogotà, Colombia], and Quito [Ecuador]." The Jews participated actively in the settlement, where they have built houses, raised cattle, constructed a fortress and even a synagogue ...At the same time they inform [Dutch] Curaçao about the activities of the Spanish authorities. This fortified enclave of Tucacas was a center for the purchase and export of agricultural produce, mainly cacao, and the import of good from Europe. This competed with the Spanish colonial government which, owing to the lack of shipping, had difficulty in dealing with import and export.Different attempts by the Spanish authorities in 1710 and in 1712 to capture the settlement failed, as a result of an insufficient number of soldiers and the enmity of the local population who were interested in the commerce with the Tucacas Jews. The president of the Jewish community, which was called "Santas Irmandad," Samuel Hebreo (Samuel Gradis Gabay), also held the title of "señor de las Tucacas." At the end of 1717 the province of Venezuela became part of the viceroyalty of Nueva Granada. In November 1720 a special judge, Pedro José de Olavarriaga, was named commissioner against the contraband trade. He had a special army force and forty ships to attack Tucacas. In his report to the king, the viceroy Jorge de Villalonga wrote, "The synagogue which the Jews had erected on the mainland was destroyed, together with the other houses, and the intruders retreated to the key of Paiclos. Olavarriaga himself was imprisoned in 1721. At his trial most of the witnesses had a different story which coincided with the account given by one of them, Juan José de Varrios: "The inhabitants burned their own houses in Tucacas and left for Curaçao," and the witness Juan Salgado confirmed that "the inhabitants burned their houses and twelve to fourteen ships left for Curaçao." The descendants of the Jews from Leghorn settled in Curaçao and are today part of the Jewish community there. The Leghorn Jews of Cayenne are today part of the community of Surinam. In both places, Surinam and Curaçao, they have lost their identity as Italianos, and identify with the community at large. * 1 Fred Oudschans Dentz, "Wat er overbleef vom het kerkhof en de Synagogue van de Joden-Savanne in Suriname," WIG, vol. 29 (1948), p. 218. 
2 Mordechai Arbell, "The Failure of the Jewish Settlement in the Island of Tobago," in Judaica Latinoamericana, III (1997), 9–16, and Kenneth Scholberg, 
La poesia religiosa de Miguel de Barrios, Columbus, Ohio (1962), p. 10. 
3 P. M. Netsher, Geschiedenis van de Kolonien Essequibo, Demerary en Berbice, The Hague (1888), p. 73, and Mordechai Arbell, "The Jewish Settlement in 
Pomeroon/Pauroma (Guyana) 1657–1666," Revue des etudes Juive, vol. 154 (July–Dec. 1995), pp. 343–361. 
4 David Nassi and friends, Historical Essay on the Colony of Surinam, Paramaribo, Surinam (1788), p. 183. 
5 Mordechai Arbell, "Rediscovering Tucacas," in American Jewish Archives, vol. 48 (1996), pp. 35–43. 
6 Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 10, page 1571. 
7 Ibid., 1572. 
8 Encyclopedia Judaica Castellana, (1950), vol. 8, P. 201. 
9 Daniel Levi de Barrios, in Triumphal carro de la mayor perfecion, Amsterdam: 1682, pp. 632–633. 
10 Adam Anderson, Origins of Commerce, London: 1790, vol. 2, p. a585; David MacPherson, Annals of Commerce, London: 1805, v. 2, p. 472. 
11 Proceedings of the committee for the three Walchern cities Middleburg, Flushing, and Vere, the colony of "Nova Zeelandia" 1658–1663, in the 
Reijkarchief—West Indian Papers—24 February 1659. 
12 Samuel Oppenheim, "An Early Jewish Colony in Western Guiana 1658–1666 and Its Relations to the Jews in Surinam, Cayenne and Tobago," in 
Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, no. 16 (1908), pp. 57, 67. 
13 Scholberg, "La poesia religiosa," p. 10. 
14 Jan Jacob Hartsink, Beschryving van Guiana, Amsterdam: 1770, p. 940. 
15 J. Bellin, "Description geographique de la Guayane, contenant les possession, les establissement de Francois, Les Espagnoles, Les Portugais, les Hollandais 
dans ces vastes pays," Paris: 1763, p. 16. 
16 Jean Baptist Labat, Voyage de Chevalier de Marchais en Guinée et Cayenne, Amsterdam: 1725, p. 99. 
17 H. Ternaux-Compans, "Notice Historique sur le Guyane francaise," Paris: 1843, p. 66. 
18 Jean Baptiste du Tertre, Histoire generale des Antilles habitées par les Francais, Paris: 1667, v. 3, 0p. 34. 
19 Hague Rijksarchief, West India Papers published by Samuel Oppenheim in Appendix I of "Early Jewish Colony...," Publications of the American Jewish 
Historical Society, vol. 16 (1909), p. 168. 
20 Lieut. Gen. Byam's Journal of Guyana from 1665 to 1667: An exact narrative of the State of Guyana as it stood Anno 1665, British Museum, Sloane MS 
No. 3.662 fol. 27. 
21 Ibid. 
22 Joseph Corcos, A Synopsis of the History of the Jews of Curaçao, Curaçao: 1897, pp. 16–18. 
23 Archivo General de Indias, Seville (Santo Domingo), December 9, 1714, document 715. 
24 Archivo General de Indias, Seville (Santo Domingo), document 759 of September, October, November 1720. 
25 Celestino Andres Arausz Monfante, El ContrabandoHollandes en el Caribe durante la primera mitad del siglo XVIII, Caracas: 1984, p. 199. 
26 Jorge de Villalonga to the King, Cartagena de Indias, March 7, 1721, Archivo General de Indias (Santo Domingo) document 761. 
27 Archivo General de Indias (Santo Domingo), October 8, 1727, document 759, pp. 656–668. 
*

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

CRONICAS BOREALES

CRONICAS BOREALES


Ricardo Mateo Durand



Entre los dias 9 y 16 de mayo ppdos. -de domingo a domingo- en Tartu (Estonia), se llevo a cabo "El Festival de Musica Antigua", que congrego a conjuntos nacionales estonios y similares venidos de Alemania, Dinamarca, Espanya, Finlandia, Marruecos, Rusia, Suecia y Suiza. 

La parte marroqui estuvo representada por el duo Al Tarob, integrado por Abdalazis Samsaqui y por Otman Almerabet. Ellos, asentados en el sur de La Peninsula Iberica, interpretaron piezas instrumentalizadas y vocalizadas de su pais natal. Junto al mencionado duo Al Tarob, en la presentacion del viernes 14, las espanyolas Ana Isabel Arnaz y Amaya Oliver -constituyendo el "Proyecto Sepharad"- dentro de su repertorio incluyeron un par de canciones sefardies: "La Rosa Enflorece" y "El Rey Nimrod", que fueron acogidas y festejadas con calida simpatia y prolongado aplauso del publico. Asi, el "Proyecto Sepharad" se concreto en esas dos canciones del acervo musical sefardi. 

Aprovechando las circunstancias, en el marco del mismo evento y en el Aula del Museo de Historia de la Universidad de Tartu - que ocupa el edificio mas antiguo de Tartu y se halla en la Colina de Toome, lugar legendario por excelencia de la ciudad- el dia 15 se congrego un auditorio de unas 40 personas (numero nada despreciable tratandose de sabado y de primavera) para oir la charla titulada "Los judios espanyoles y los sefardies: historia y cultura", que refirio quien estas lineas escribe. La disertacion concluyo con la lectura de composiciones de Margalit Matitiahu. 

Como nota curiosa complementaria diremos que esa misma noche recibimos la llamada de un miembro de la comunidad ashkenazi a fin de coordinar un futuro conversatorio para su asociacion, lo que naturalmente fue aceptado con satisfaccion por nosotros. 

En el ambito de lo contingente -habida cuenta que contamos solo con nuestro entusiasmo- hemos concebido con el doctor Salvador Santa Puche, de Yecla (Murcia-Espanya), quien seria el profesor visitante, la realizacion de un curso de sefardismo de un par de meses de duracion en la Universidad de Tartu, previsto fundamentalmente para universitarios y egresados de la especialidad de filologia espanyola. Las clases se llevarian a cabo en el anyo lectivo venidero de 1999-2000. 

Monday, June 08, 2009

Reports of 'death' exaggerated

Reports of 'death' exaggerated

Posted by Rabbi Michael Marmur

I have been absent from this column for months, working hard to deal with the challenges facing my institution, which is struggling along with just about every other institution in the world in the current economic atmosphere. What might have sparked me back into life in the blogosphere were the reported comments of Rabbi Norman Lamm, predicting the imminent demise of the Reform and Conservative streams of Judaism.

I have no idea, incidentally, if the very venerable Rabbi Lamm really said the things attributed to him in the Jerusalem Post article. Whoever did concoct the notion that non-Orthodox Judaism is on its last legs is guilty of an extreme case of wishful thinking. The truth is that there is ample and powerful evidence that a Judaism of meaning aimed at those for whom Orthodoxy is untenable, unpalatable or impossible is more urgently in demand today than ever before. What are suffering are many of the national institutions, the infrastructures of the movements and the seminaries. The prognosis offered in the name of Lamm is similar to concluding that since people no longer buy vinyl records, music is going out of fashion. The challenge for my institution, the Hebrew Union College, and for others like it, is to embrace a sustainable model of excellence in teaching and learning. Reform Judaism isn't dying - it's changing. That's what we Jews do best.

In any case, I had decided that reports of my extinction were not enough to shake me out of my torpor. Instead, it was two events in Israel which have roused me from my unseasonal hibernation. The first was the landmark decision of the Supreme Court regarding the validity of Reform and Conservative conversions. The decision represents an historic acknowledgement that there is more than one way to convert to Judaism. One of the great ironies of Jewish life in Israel is that the most pure and pious examples of conversion have been found in non-Orthodox circles. Those who choose to come to us have done so with no assurance that process would yield any benefits, and yet they decide to enter into a serious intellectual, experiential and spiritual commitment. Some politicians will do all they can to ensure that this decision is not carried out in the field. In the week in which the Book of Ruth is read, I hope that the just decision of the Supreme Court will be upheld.

The second story which prompted me to re-enter cyberspace is extremely grave. A law is being prepared which will outlaw the marking of the Nakba on our Day of Independence. If you are caught doing this, so the promulgators of this law want to establish, you may be subject to up to three years of incarceration.

Now for the last 25 years I have celebrated Independence Day as a citizen,with the traditional blend of pride, concern and indigestion. Whoever thinks that the way to preserve the values of a Jewish and democratic state is to clap you in irons if you think differently is (in my humble opinion) seriously in need of help. This is a hallucinatory proposal with dire results. I am curious to see if it is intended to apply it to opponents of the Zionist State from within the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. It probably won't be, but even if a policy of equal opportunity intolerance were to be employed, I would oppose this law. It is wrong, dangerous, counter-productive and no good will come of it. It does not protect our State, but it sullies the independence we are meant to be celebrating.

Right - I got that off my chest. Now back to my College's serious challenges, pausing only to remind our "well-wishers" that, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the death of Liberal Judaism are exaggerated. What matters far more than inter-denominational triumphalism is the moral state of our State. Banning political protest will only bring darkness. Instead, we have to try and build a society in which Jews and Arabs can find the space they need, the rights they deserve, and the justice they crave. When we get there, that will be an Independence Day worth celebrating all year.

 

TODOS OS MEUS DIAS SÃO LINDOS


TODOS OS MEUS DIAS SÃO LINDOS                                   

 

 

 

Daqui por muitos anos

 espero

que ao saudarem-me

me desejem

que tenha um lindo

passado.

Porque todos os meus dias

são lindos.

Como os de quem morre depois da guerra.

A vida foi a melhor forma

que a natureza encontrou

para unir

o meu nascimento

à minha morte.

É a distância

que serve para me juntar

a mim mesmo.

Que interressa o fim

se não é final de nada.

Por isso, quero que

todas as flores dos campos

sejam para o meu futuro.

O verde dos prados,

o chilrear dos pássaros.

Os campos, os prados e os pássaros

foram sempre do meu tempo,

e fizeram-me concluir

que o único órgão

do meu corpo

que não pára de crescer

é o coração.

Se a qualidade

e a verdade vêm sempre ao-de-cima

será o último suspiro

de um homem

afinal

o seu melhor suspiro?

A última visão

a melhor paisagem?

Um homem só se pertence

se for ele mesmo

quem se vence...

Eu sou o somatório

de derrotas e vitórias,

as minhas e as de quem amo.

Dizer isto é imenso.

Mesmo que o som

da Física

tenha sempre a mesma velocidade,

e nenhuma  das palavras

ditas ao mesmo tempo

chegue ao infinito

antes da outra.

Os pássaros não voam,

lutam,

 eu os vejo voar.

E isso fascina-me

porque não voo,

senão, nem isso me

fascinava.

Só a felicidade de ser feliz.

Até os sinos que nem crêem em ninguém,

como a alma mais piedosa,

quando tocam

chegam ao céu.

 

 

 

Manuel Barreiroin  Poemas Barrosões