My Amazon Review of Jane Gerber's "The Jews of Spain: The Sephardic Experience"

The Spanish Legacy

CUNY Jewish history professor Jane Gerber has written a marvelous history of the Jewish experience in Spain from Roman times through the Inquisition and the diaspora that followed. I read this book just prior and during my recent trip to Spain. Because the focus my trip was largely on Spain’s Sephardic legacy her book brought a great deal of context to my travels through Toledo, Cordoba, Granada and Seville. One obvious legacy is the ubiquitous presence of Iberian ham as proof that Spain was no longer Jewish or Moslem.

Gerber begins with a discussion of Columbus who wasn’t Jewish, but likely had many Jewish contacts. After all the leading cartographers of his era were Jewish. Further because the Mediterranean under Moslem rule was one giant free trade area it was ideal for Jewish merchants to ply their trade throughout the region. Those trading contacts would become crucial after the expulsion of 1492.

Although I once thought that the Jewish golden age in Spain ran from 711-1492, it really ended in 1086 when the very strict Islamic Almoravid dynasty replaced the more relaxed Umayyad dynasty. The great Maimonides leaves Spain for Egypt around this time. There is a statue of him in Cordoba.  It was under the Umayyad’s that the Jews of Spain thrived. With the Christian reconquest underway Jews sought refuge with some of the Christian kings and some actually thrived. In particular the Abravanel family were the reigning court Jews of the era. What I learned from the book is that 1492 was a culmination of Jewish hatred that had long antecedents. Specifically there were mass pogroms stirred up by local priests throughout Spain in 1391 where Jew were massacred, most notably in Seville.

After the exile Gerber follows the Jews as they remain in Spain as Converso’s move on to Istanbul, Salonika and Sarajevo with a few moving to Safed. It was in Safed that exile Joseph Caro wrote his guide to Jewish practice, “The Shulchan Aroch.”Later they move to Holland and then on to the New World. The Sephardim initially thrive in the eastern Mediterranean, but then gradually decline as the Ottoman Empire falls into its long term decay.  She then follows their expulsion from the region after the establishment of the State of Israel to Israel proper where they now represent about half of the Jewish population.

What Gerber’s book lacks is a discussion of the Converso Jews who settled in the American southwest and Mexico.  The Inquisition followed them to the New World. Today there are Catholic families in New Mexico who practice such Jewish traditions as lighting candles on Friday night, avoiding pork and sitting Shiva for the dead. A few of those families have actually returned to Judaism.

To sum up, Gerber has written a very informative book about the Sephardic experience that few Americans in general and Ashkenazi Jews in particular have very little understanding.

For the full Amazon URL see: https://www.amazon.com/review/R233CYL4H9J2AT/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv