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6 Toward a Vigilant Society Minds, however, are not conquered by arms, but by Love and Nobility.1 —Spinoza Ashkenazim and Sephardim In Spanish-speaking countries discussions about Judaism are often marked by ideological suspicion, guilt, or a settling of scores. It is not often that we think carefully about the subject about to be considered under this heading. Unfortunately, it is a matter in which misunderstandings are often accepted as truths. In reality, it is an accepted fact that “[m]ost books of any sort on the Jews in the modern world deal in the main with Ashkenazim.”2 It is as if, in the modern era, the Sephardim have become, even for the rest of the Jews, an almost folkloric minority, destined to become extinct on their own. Some scholars even label the Sephardim as extra-European, meaning by “Sephardic” a North African and Eastern phenomenon.3 It is not surprising that those Sephardic Jews incorporated into Israel have felt themselves to be “in a subordinate position within a society offering two dominant models of European Jewish responses to Modernity—a secular national type and an Ashkenazic religious type.”4 Leaving aside the author’s rather presumptive statement, it is obvious that the Sephardic world has not had the attention or respect that its splendid past deserves. Spanish-speaking culture, in particular, is not only indebted to Sephardic Jews, but it also has an enormous duty to study this great cultural tradition. The two great branches of Judaism in Europe are the Ashkenazic and the Sephardic, the Jews originating from Ashkenaz and Sepharad. Initially until the Middle Ages, the Ashkenazim were from the Franco-Germanic territories, which included the Rhine basin and the Elbe, the inhabitants on both sides and the lands between them and the inhabitants of their tributaries , the Main and the Moselle. Jews had also settled along the Danube, particularly near Buda. In northeastern France the Jewish population was 181 182 A Vigilant Society largely concentrated on the banks of the Seine and the Marne. Dijon,Troyes, Paris, and Touques had important Jewish communities.5 In the sixteenth century this was broadened to include the Jews of Poland, the emigrants, and their descendents. The term “Sephardim,” referred “exclusively to the Jews of the entire Iberian Peninsula before their expulsion from Spain and Portugal in 1492 and 1498. Subsequently it is used for the Jewish exiles from those countries and their descendents.”6 We should add that, although they have followed along different paths, these two Jewries “have always been united in their desire to serve Judaism.”7 Nevertheless, it is obvious that important differences have existed between them, contrasts that scholars have attributed to factors of origin, geography, anthropology, and politics. Although there are no differences in basic Jewish beliefs, “there are many differences in matters of custom and outlook.”8 Beginning in ancient times there were already important divisions between the Babylonian and the Palestinian traditions in the Jewish world,9 probably on account of their different political situation. The differences ranged from the use of Aramaic, more proper to the poorer classes and the Hebrew, used by the aristocratic class, to the liturgy, but the greatest discrepancy lay in their theological orientation. In Babylonia the study of the Talmud prevailed, while in Palestine, due to its situation of repression and persecution, including by the Byzantine Empire, the Jews tended more toward the cultivation of literature and poetry as ways of keeping up their tradition (midrash and piyyut).10 Because of the political circumstances mentioned above, the Jewish communities of central Europe came under the influence of Palestine, while the Sephardim were more influenced by Babylonia on account of their connections with North Africa and the spread of Islam. Also put forth for this theory were racial, or as some scholars have termed, anthropological factors. According to this hypothesis, the Jews who emigrated from northern Israel mixed with the Aramaic, Mongol, Alpine, or Nordic population, while those from the south, the more refined and educated Jews from around Jerusalem, mixed with the eastern, Bedouin, or Mediterranean groups. An even earlier explanation was put forth by Rabbi Menahem b. Aaron ibn Zerah (d. Toledo, 1385): “It is well known that the appearance of the people of Germany is different from that of the people of Spain and that of the Ethiopian is different again by reason of the climate , the varying length of the sun which affects the air, and consequently the plants and the...

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