"Sephardic Jews" is a term that had echoed in my mind for a number of years, but it wasn't really until I read André Aciman's memoir, Out of Egypt, that I had developed a feeling for who these people were and -- to a lesser extent -- how they differed from the (to me) more familiar Ashkenazi Jews.
Aciman grew up in Alexandria, Egypt, in a large, prosperous Sephardic Jewish family, a family well integrated into Alexandria society until they were expelled from Egypt by the nationalistic government when the boy was 14.
In his memoir, Aciman explains that Sephardic Jews were descendants of the Jews who had been expelled from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. They ended up in various parts of the Mediterranean, some in Italy, many throughout what was then the Ottoman Empire, which, at the time, included Egypt. Their language was a form of Spanish, closer to fifteenth century Spanish -- called Ladino -- that had over time picked up bits of vocabulary and variations in pronunciation from the ethnic groups with whom they had associated, in the Ottoman Empire or elsewhere.
I later learned more about the community of Sephardic Jews in the memoir of Leon Sciaky, Farewell to Salonica. Leon grew up in the Ottoman city of Salonica (today Thessaloniki, in Greece). His memoir emphasizes the extent to which Salonica (like Alexandria) was a highly cosmopolitan city under the Ottomans, and how he grew up with close friends in all ethnic groups in the city. His closest friend during his teen years was Shukri, an ethnic Turk. Leon moved to the United States in his early 20s, as the less tolerant Greeks took over Salonica from the surprisingly tolerant Turks.
After his move, Leon contrasted the vibrant acceptance of new ideas in America with the stagnant conservatism of Ottoman society. But he also looked back with fondness on the closeness of friendships and the peace and quiet of his Ottoman childhood, the rituals of hospitality that were more than rituals.
I mention these two books as an introduction to my impressions of a lecture I attended last night at the University of Washington. It was the third in a series presented by the History Department, focusing this year not on ancient or medieval history, but on various areas of interest in the history of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. Yesterday's lecture focused on the history of the Sephardic Jewish community in Seattle, and was delivered by an excellent speaker, Professor Devin E Naar, who received his history doctorate from Stanford in 2011.
In his hour and a half of allotted time, Dr. Naar discussed a number of topics related to the Jewish community -- emphasizing that Seattle has always had the second largest percentage of Sephardic Jews in its population of any American city, second only to New York. His lecture was accompanied by his presentation of useful and persuasive visual displays on the screen behind him, including copies of early twentieth century articles from Jewish New York newspapers that had reported in detail problems and achievements of the growing Seattle Sephardic population. These articles demonstrate the close continuing relationship between the New York and Seattle Sephardic communities in those years.
A large portion of Dr. Naar's lecture related to the difficulties all Jews, but especially Sephardic Jews, had in immigrating to America and in obtaining citizenship once they had immigrated. Jews in general were described as dangerous scum by some of the more extreme haters. Beginning in the 1920s, up until 1964, America had a quota system designed to maintain through selective immigration the same proportion of ethnic groups as had existed in the late nineteenth century. Thus British and Scandinavian citizens had a tremendous advantage over other groups in moving to this country. Certain of today's politicians would have felt very comfortable with the arguments that were made about which ethnic groups were desirable, and which were not. While Ashkenazi Jews could squeak through the immigration quota by describing themselves as Germans or French, Sephardic Jews -- despite their fifteenth century Spanish origin -- were often barred as "Turks" by immigration authorities.
From a Seattleite's perspective, some of the most interesting parts of the lecture were descriptions of the areas of the city, block by block, where the Sephardic community had settled -- in a portion of the International District -- cheek to jowl with blocks occupied by other ethnic communities (Chinese, Blacks, Japanese, Ashkenazi Jews). All of these minority groups were barred from residing in much of the city through use of enforceable restrictive covenants in property deeds. Despite these barriers, they nevertheless often became successful small businessmen, restaurant owners, and so forth, often owning well-known businesses to whose original owners' background we never give much thought.
Congratulations to Dr. Naar and to the History Department for presentation, in an all-too-short lecture, new insights into an unrecognized aspect of Seattle's history, and discussing some distressing issues, transcending Judaism, that still burden our political debates at present. Next Wednesday's lecture will discuss Seattle's relationships with people from Russia and the USSR.
-------------------
Photo: Professor Naar
No comments:
Post a Comment