Interview with Paloma Diaz-More
“One of the main characteristics of Sephardic culture is that it is international, that is, it is spread across different countries”.
“Now I think that the countries with the most Sephardim are Israel, Mexico, the United States, Argentina and France. Most of the Jews currently living in Spain are also of Sephardic origin.”.
Without a doubt, Paloma Díaz-Más is, at 70 years old, one of the greatest experts on the Sephardic world. She is also a writer, university professor and researcher, member of the Royal Spanish Academy. Her work The Sephardim: history, language, culture, which was a finalist for the Spanish National Essay Prize in 1986, is already a classic and a must-read book if we want to delve into the legacy of what the Sephardim have meant for our country and, I would dare say, for the world.
by Ricardo Angoso
RA: Do you think that Sephardic culture is still alive, present in the world and with a projection into the future?
P.S: It depends on what is meant by Sephardic culture. On the religious side, there is a Sephardic tradition, with a specific liturgy and rabbinic tradition, different from those of other branches of Judaism. This Sephardic religiosity is still alive, since there are Sephardic synagogues in different parts of the world and there are Sephardic rabbis.
From a linguistic and literary point of view, the truth is that Judeo-Spanish (called Ladino in Israel) is a language in danger of extinction, although there are attempts to revitalize it.
And then there is the question of identity. There will continue to be Sephardic culture as long as there are people of Sephardic origin who identify with those origins and with that tradition.
RA: Will Ladino eventually disappear?
P.S: A few years ago I would have answered yes, but now I'm not so sure.
The truth is that Judeo-Spanish began to decline in the second half of the 19th century, with the process of westernization of the Sephardim in Turkey, the Balkans and North Africa. Then, with the independence of the Balkan states, the Sephardim adopted the national languages, like the rest of their fellow citizens, and Judeo-Spanish was relegated to the domestic sphere, as a family language. And with emigration to other countries, the Sephardim adopted the languages of their countries of settlement. So in the 20th century it was very common to find families in which the grandparents spoke Judeo-Spanish, the parents understood it, and the grandchildren did not even know it.
However, in the 21st century we are experiencing a revitalization of Judeo-Spanish through an unexpected means: the Internet, where an international community of speakers has been created that interacts in Judeo-Spanish through computer resources (social networks, blogs, Zoom meetings, web pages, YouTube broadcasts) from different countries around the world. Most of the participants do not speak Judeo-Spanish in their daily lives, but they meet to speak their language or write in it on the Internet. And people from other origins are joining this community, such as, for example, non-Jewish Spaniards or Americans interested in the Sephardic language.
RA: Do you think Spain paid enough attention to its past and its Jewish legacy?
P.S: Traditionally no, although since the 19th century there have been intellectuals who have been interested in that past or Hebraists who have studied medieval Hebrew literature created in the Iberian Peninsula.
At an institutional level, I think there was a turning point in 1992, with the commemoration of the Fifth Centenary, which included a series of activities (exhibitions, conferences, courses, etc.) on the expulsion of the Jews and the Sephardic diaspora. These activities had an impact in the press and also contributed to spreading the Jewish legacy among the population.
In recent decades we have witnessed how various government bodies (state, regional and local) have promoted initiatives such as the restoration of Jewish quarters and the creation of interpretation centres in different cities, courses, series of conferences, exhibitions. These are frequent activities, although not permanent, rather rather isolated and unsystematic. What is undoubtedly lacking is attention to the importance of the Jewish legacy in education, especially in secondary and high school, which would contribute to young people knowing and appreciating this legacy.
RA: Why has the Sephardic world always been so disconnected from Spain and received so little attention?
P.S: First of all, because the Jews were expelled from Spain and were not allowed to return. This led to the formation of Sephardic communities in many countries (especially in the Ottoman Empire and North Africa) that developed over the centuries without any close relationship with the Iberian Peninsula, although we know that there were some more or less informal or clandestine contacts through Spanish and Portuguese converts.
It should be remembered that the Inquisition was active until 1820; in the 1500th century, it is known that more than XNUMX people were tried as Judaizers in Spain. The situation was therefore not conducive to contacts.
RA: Where are the main centers of Sephardic culture in the world today?
P.S: One of the main characteristics of Sephardic culture is that it is international, that is, it is spread across different countries.
Traditional communities were dissolved by the historical events of the 2015th century, and especially after the Holocaust, so that today Sephardim are distributed in many places, especially in Israel, Europe and all of America (from Canada to Argentina, including the Caribbean islands). It is significant that, following the 200 decree granting Spanish nationality to Sephardim, applications were submitted by people of Sephardic origin from more than XNUMX countries.
RA: Is enough attention paid to the Sephardic world in Israel?
PD: It should be noted that most of the intellectuals and political leaders who created the State of Israel were of Ashkenazi origin. In the first decades of Israel's existence, many Jews of other origins (not only Sephardim, but also mizrahim (or Eastern Jews) felt left out in the decision-making process. This has changed over time, partly because mixed families with Jews of different origins are common in Israel.
On the other hand, Israel is a national state that aspires to its citizens having a common language, Hebrew (although Arabic is an official language), and is not so interested in promoting the use of languages of the different groups that make up the population; at an official level, the use of Judeo-Spanish is not encouraged, just as the use of Russian is not encouraged, despite the fact that in Israel there is a much larger population of Russian origin than Sephardic.
In Israel, initiatives to preserve Judeo-Spanish are currently coming mainly from university centers where Sephardic studies have been implemented, and from communities of speakers who have an activist attitude towards the preservation of their language.
RA: What are the main initiatives that have taken place in Spain to better understand the Sephardic world?
P.S: I would point out three.
Already in 1941 (a very complicated date, during the first Franco regime and while Nazism was rampant in Europe) a research institute called “Benito Arias Montano” (in memory of the great biblical scholar of the XNUMXth century) was created in the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), dedicated to Hebrew and Sephardic studies and which began to publish the magazine Sefarad, which is still being published more than eighty years later. A group of researchers on Sephardic language and literature emerged at the CSIC, in which I myself was trained and which still exists.
Another step was the activities around the commemoration of the fifth centenary of the expulsion of the Jews, in 1992, which I have already mentioned.
And in 2006, the creation of the Sefarad-Israel Center, dependent on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to promote relations with the Jewish and Sephardic world.
Apart from that, in various universities (especially Granada, the Complutense University and Salamanca) there are regular courses on Hebrew and Sephardic studies.
RA: Is there still a Sephardic literature? Who are its main authors?
PS: The The existence of a Sephardic literature is a generational issue. Authors whose mother tongue is Judeo-Spanish are almost all older, 70, 80 years old or more; among them there are some female poets and it is significant that the most cultivated is poetry (a more intimate and personal genre) and not novels or plays, which require a wider audience. But in this international community of Internet speakers new authors are emerging, who most often publish on the net.
RA: In which parts of Spain has the Sephardic legacy been preserved?
P.S.: In all of them. The stereotype that the main Jewish communities were in Al-Andalus is widespread, but that is only true until the 1492th century. Then, with the Almohad invasion, a good part of the Andalusian Jews emigrated and from the XNUMXth century until the expulsion in XNUMX the main Jewish communities were in the Christian kingdoms.
You only have to walk through the old quarters of many towns and cities in Castile, Extremadura, Andalusia, Aragon, Galicia, Catalonia, Valencia or the Balearic Islands to find remains of what was once the Jewish quarter. And often these quarters are now well signposted and restored to preserve its memory.
RA: Where are the main Sephardic communities in the world?
P.S.: Until the beginning of the 20th century, most Sephardim were in Turkey, in the city of Salonika, or in places in Morocco such as Tangier or Tetouan. But now I think that the countries with the most Sephardim are Israel, Mexico, the United States, Argentina, and France. Most of the Jews currently living in Spain are also of Sephardic origin.
Although it is difficult to know how many Sephardim there are in each place because there are no statistics and the Sephardim are also very mixed with Jews of other origins and with the general population.