The history of Sephardic Jews originates on the Iberian Peninsula, the location of the modern states of Spain and Portugal. According to historians, they came to the territory of Iberia earlier than all its indigenous inhabitants - the Romans, barbarians and Arabs. However, after 8 centuries of peaceful life, they were forced to go into exile by decree of the king of Spain.
Sephardic History
The name “Sephardim” comes from the words “biblical place” (Hebrew: ספרד, Modern Səfarád, Turkish: Sefarad). This people is also mentioned in Persian inscriptions under the name "Saparda", which some scholars dispute.
Jewish emigration and settlements in Spain, according to historians, occurred during the rule of the Roman Empire, after the fall of Carthage (about 210 BC). Many refugees migrated from Judea to the Mediterranean after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman emperor Titus. Later, the Jews even called the Iberian Peninsula "Sepharad", which is translated from modern Hebrew and means "Spain".
In history, Sephardic Jews are considered to be immigrants from the Iberian Peninsula, whose descendants were expelled from Spain in March 1492 by the Alhambra decree of King Ferdinand II and Isabella of Castile. By this time, Jews had lived in this territory for more than 800 years, and their number was about 100 thousand people.
Most Jews were wealthy people. They served as government officials, led large banking and trade institutions. For many years they gave large loans to the Spanish kings, for which they received aristocratic titles and excellent secular education. After the expulsion verdict, nearly 30% of them were forced to leave.
In modern Israel, the name "Sephardim" is also often used for religious purposes to refer to Jews of Asian and African descent, because in the liturgy they use the Sephardic style.
Flight of Jews from Spain and Portugal
Under the terms of the royal decree in Spain, only those Spanish Sephardic Jews who accepted the Christian faith could remain. Most (70-80% of Jews) agreed with this condition and remained to live on the peninsula, dubbed. They formed the ethnic layer of marrans, some of which still secretly observed the rites and laws of Judaism. After some time, they returned to their religion. Many of their descendants now live in Italy, the Netherlands, Northern Germany, England and the USA.
Those who decided to leave settled in various regions of the Mediterranean, Europe and other countries (a map of the refugee paths of Jewish Sephardic people is shown in the photo below):
- to the Ottoman Empire, mainly to Istanbul and Thessaloniki;
- to Northern Morocco and other African countries, some of them later emigrated back to the Iberian Peninsula and formed the community of Gibraltar;
- to European countries: Italy, Holland, etc .;
- crypto Jews who lead a secretive lifestyle - since the time of the Spanish and Mexican Inquisition, they have been practicing secret Jewish rites. They now live in Mexico, in the southwestern states of the USA, on the islands of the Caribbean and the Philippines.
From Portugal, Jews were also forced to emigrate to Italy and the Ottoman Empire. Many of them settled in Amsterdam and other European countries.
Jews in the Ottoman Empire
The Sephardim, who migrated from Spain to the East, received a warm welcome from the Turkish Sultan. Possessing considerable wealth and business ties in Europe, they occupied all key posts in the management of the Jewish community in the Ottoman Empire. However, they pressed the local Jews. Thanks to their high self-esteem, they were able to impose their customs, culture and laws on other immigrants, including and ashkenazam.
Prosperous Ottoman Sephardi were generous philanthropists, opened new schools, libraries and printing houses. They held public office, served as court bankers and collected taxes. In their Ladino language, they translated many publications from Hebrew and European classics, but in spoken language they used its colloquial version - judezmo.
However, in the 19th century. the economic collapse of the Empire took place, and control over the capital quickly passed into the hands of European capitalists. The final blow was the 2nd World War. After the occupation, Jews in Greece, Yugoslavia and Serbia were almost completely exterminated. And the survivors left for America (USA and Latin) and Israel.
African and American Sephardic
A large community of Sephardim moved to North Africa (Morocco and other countries). In the 19th century they were colonized by France, thanks to which Jews received French citizenship in 1870. After the colonists left Algeria in 1962, most Jews moved to France, where they now represent one of the largest Sephardic communities in the world, not counting Israel.
French Sephardim still retain their traditions in the ancient melodies and romances of Spain and Portugal, prefer Iberian national dishes, follow Spanish customs.
The Sephardic community in Mexico now totals more than 5 thousand people. Most of them moved here from Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece. In the United States as far back as the 19th century. most of the Jews were Sephardic, services were conducted in Portuguese, although they spoke English. However, the numerous emigration of Ashkenazi Jews from Germany and Eastern Europe during the 19-20 century. led to the fact that they began to dominate the American continent.
Sephardic language
The traditional language of most Sephardic is Ladino or Judeo-Spanish. It belongs to the Romanesque group and is based on Old Castilian and Old Portuguese. It also borrowed words from Turkish, Greek, Arabic, French and Hebrew.
Until recently, 2 Ladino dialects existed in the Mediterranean, depending on the region: East and West African (Hakitia). The eastern dialect retained the Old English features in morphology and vocabulary, is considered more conservative. The North African is greatly diluted with colloquial words borrowed from the Arabs, this was influenced by the Spanish colonial occupation of Northern Morocco in the first half of the 20th century.
Among Portuguese Jews, the Judeo-Portuguese version of the language was prevalent, which influenced the dialects in Gibraltar.
What is the difference between Sephardic and other Jews
There is no essential difference between the two sub-ethnic groups of Jews. They differ in their customs, traditions, habits, the fulfillment of religious commandments and rites. All this was due to historical events and the geography of their residence: Ashkenazi formed on the territory of Central Europe (Germany, Poland, etc.), Sephardim - on the Iberian Peninsula. Historically, they use different languages: Yiddish and Ladino. Modern Ashkenazi make up the majority of the Jews of Israel and belong to the Sephardim down. German Jews have high self-esteem, considering themselves more intelligent, etc.
Sephardic people expelled from Spain, having moved to other countries, for many years maintained a group feeling of pride, discriminating other Jews: they did not allow them to sit in synagogues with others, forbade marriages and introduced other rules. Spanish Jews did not prohibit polygamous marriages, had specific rites (liturgy), synagogue architecture (the so-called “Mudejar style”) and even a special way of packing the Torah scroll in a case (teak).
In the 18th century Sephardic during the French Revolution were able to expel the Ashkenazi from the city of Bordeaux, having received civil equality before other Jews. In the 18-19 century. natives of Iberia gradually began to move away from the religion and traditions of their fathers, were baptized, but proudly bore their names and family titles.
The appearance of Ashkenazi Jews and Sephardim is almost indistinguishable. The former are predominantly fair-skinned, fair-haired, have light eyes, are more prone to hereditary diseases. The latter have a darker olive skin, but this is not always noticeable. Studying the photos and appearance of Sephardic Jews, it is visually difficult to identify the differences.
Among the Jewish community, people of Asian and African descent of non-Hispanic origin are also considered to be an “Eastern” group called “Mizrahi”. These include the communities of Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Iran and India.
The opinion of geneticists
Studies of geneticists, biologists and anthropologists on the identification of differences in the genes and appearance of Sephardic Jews, Ashkenazi, led to unambiguous conclusions: all Jews form one ethnic group, which is genetically isolated from other peoples. But this does not include the communities in Ethiopia and India, now called Mizrahi. They represent a separate group that stood out about 2.5 thousand years ago when they were captured by the Babylonians.
Jews in Southern Europe received 30% of DNA impurities from genes of local peoples: French, Italians, Spaniards. In the Middle Ages in Europe, 2 groups are clearly delineated: Sephardic and Ashkenazi. The latter appeared in Germany in the 8th century and spread widely throughout Eastern Europe: Poland, Russia, etc. Most Ashkenazi, who did not have time to leave Nazi Germany and the occupied lands, died in the Holocaust. Survivors relocated to Israel and the United States.
According to geneticists, Sephardic and Ashkenazy stood out in separate ethnic groups about 1200 years ago. Moreover, the number of the second group in a certain period decreased significantly and, due to closely related marriages, became susceptible to some genetic diseases.
Sephardic in Russia and the CIS republics
Peter the 1st from Holland brought the first Sephardic Jews to Russia: the Abarbanel family belonged to them, one of whose ancestors financed the Columbus expedition to the New World in 1492. It is also known that some families from Bessarabia and the Baltic countries moved here.
According to scientists, about 500 thousand Sephardic Jews now live in the territory of the Russian Federation and the countries of the former USSR. Most of them call themselves so because of the confession of Judaism of the Sephardic tilt, but few of them have Spanish roots. These include Georgian, Bukhara, Azerbaijani and other Jews living in the Caucasus region and Central Asia.
Famous sephardic
Among ethnic Sephardim, one can distinguish many prominent personalities who glorified their name in various fields of activity.
The most famous of them:
- Benedict Spinoza is a philosopher of the New Age, who lived in the Netherlands in the 17th century, who adhered to unorthodox religious views and ideas of rationalism, pantheism and determinism. Comes from a wealthy family whose ancestors left Portugal for Amsterdam. He was expelled from the Jewish community and accused of heresy, after which he began to study natural sciences, Greek philosophy and Latin. Spinoza's most famous work is Ethics, which summarizes the main points of his philosophy. He died at the age of 45 from tuberculosis.
- David Ricardo is an economist who lived in the 18th century. in the UK, one of the founders of political economy, its basic laws and principles of income distribution through taxation. His family emigrated from Holland. He successfully engaged in operations on the stock exchange and in trade, earning millions of pounds, but after 12 years he took up scientific work in the field of economic theories.
- Camille Pizarro is a famous French artist, the founder of impressionism. Comes from a wealthy Sephardic family living in the Antilles. After moving to Paris, he was educated as a painter and artist, was a friend of Cezanne, adhered to the political views of the anarchists.
- Emma Lazarus - a writer and poetess from the USA, comes from a planter family who fled from Portugal to the New World from the Inquisition. In addition to writing, she was engaged in translations into English of verses in Hebrew. Her poem, The New Colossus (1883), adorns the podium of the Statue of Liberty in New York.
Sephardic and Ashkenazi in Israel
After the formation of the state of Israel, many Jews began to come here, among whom were Sephardim. They arrived from Morocco, Algeria, the countries of the East, the former republics of the USSR. Most of them have perfectly preserved their traditions, having come here almost without property. However, officials in the young state who dealt with refugees reacted negatively to them. Children were given forcibly to kibbutzim, tearing them away from their families. Most Sephardic people had no education. The situation changed only in the late 1970s, when the programs of school and university education, construction and affordable housing came into effect.
Now the Sephardim have been able to improve their status and take a certain place in the life of the country. Their cultural traditions have become closer to Israeli reality. Marriages between ashkenazy and Sephardim are widespread.
In Israel, Ashkenazi Jews and Sephardi have separate synagogues and their own self-government, and at the same time there are 2 supreme rabbis (photo can be seen below).
Spain offers Sephardic citizenship
According to Spanish authorities, the country invites descendants of Jews who were expelled in the 15th art. by decree of the king. They are invited to obtain citizenship by a simplified procedure. Thus, the state is trying to eliminate the injustice against Jews, which was committed more than 500 years ago.
To prove their affiliation with the Sephardic Jews, either historical documents or a certificate from the religious community, certified by the leader and notary, is required. According to statistics, in the world there are 1.5-2 million descendants of Jews expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th century.