The Jewish Gibraltar

Image via Wikipedia//Expulsion of Jews in Europe

A mixture of British, Spanish and Moroccan influences, Jews are present in Gibraltar for over 650 years. There have been periods of persecution, but for the most part they have prospered, being one of the largest religious minorities in the city, where they have made contributions to the culture, defense, and Government.

The first record of Jews in Gibraltar dates back in the year 1356, when the community issued an appeal asking for the ransom of a group of Jews taken captive by pirates. Another document indicates that a number of Jews fleeing Córdoba sought refuge in Gibraltar in 1473. Jews were expelled from the entire Iberian Peninsula under the Alhambra Decree in 1492, effectively ending all Jewish activity there, except in the cases of Conversos or possible Crypto-Jews.

According to a clause from the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, Spain ceded Gibraltar to Britain: "Her Britannic Majesty, at the request of the Catholic King, does consent and agree that no leave shall be given, under any pretext whatsoever, either to Jews or Moors to reside or have their dwellings in the said town of Gibraltar." At the time, Jews were banned from Spain; they did live in the shadow of the Rock, before and after 1713. A couple of years after, Britain and Morocco signed a treaty allowing Jews to reside on the island.

Significantly, the Jews of Gibraltar have faced almost no official anti-Semitism during their time in the city (with the exception of the period of Spanish rule). In 1749, Gibraltar's first rabbi or chacham, Isaac Nieto, came from London to found the first synagogue, Shaar Hashamayim, which is still in use today. During Gibraltar's tercentenary celebration, Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, was quoted as saying, "In the dark times of expulsion and inquisition, Gibraltar lit the beacon of tolerance," and that Gibraltar "is probably the community where Jews have been the most integrated."

The Jews of Gibraltar initially preserved some old customs. For example, in 1777, Issac Aboab, a Gibraltarian Jew born in Tetuan, was listed as having two wives, Hannah Aboab and Simah Aboab. Bigamy was illegal in the Kingdom of Great Britain at the time, but the law was apparently not fully operative in Gibraltar, and though polygamy had been forbidden in Judaism since approximately 1.000 CE, this shows that it was not the case in all groups (particularly some Sephardic and Mizrahi groups).

During the sieges of the city by the Spanish and during the Peninsular War, Jewish civilians valiantly helped defend Gibraltar from invaders.

Twentieth Century and today

Most of Gibraltar's Jews evacuated to the United Kingdom during the Second World War, when the Allies used Gibraltar as a base of operations. Some Jews opted to establish in the United Kingdom, but most returned, although there was a slackening in some of their religious practices. The efforts of Rabbi Josef Pacifici, who assumed the Gibraltar rabbinate and took control of Jewish education in Gibraltar, have helped reverse this tendency. In 1984 Rabbi Ron Hassid became the new Chief Rabbi and has been there ever since. Since he arrived he has impacted Gibraltar and much of the surrounding communities in Spain, Mellila and Ceuta.

Several Gibraltarian Jews have served in important positions in the Government there in the 20th century, particularly Sir Joshua Hassan, who served as Chief Minister of Gibraltar for two separate terms before his death. Solomon Levy served in the ceremonial role of Mayor of Gibraltar from 2008 to 2009. The city maintains five Kosher institutions, a Jewish Primary School and two Jewish secondary schools. In 2004, at a celebration of the 300 years since the British takeover, the congregants at the Great Synagogue (Shaar Hashamayim) performed the anthem "God Save the Queen" in Hebrew, the first time this has been done officially.

Demographics

In 1753, when the first census was taken, the Jewish population of Gibraltar was 575 out of about 1,800 civilian inhabitants. This had risen to 863 by 1777. In 1787 the population had fallen to 776. By 1830 the civilian population numbered 17,000, of which 1,300 were "native" Jews and 600 recent Jewish immigrants, and by 1878 the community had reached its numerical peak of 1,533. In 2001, there were 584 Jews (roughly 2% of the total population), of whom 464 were self-described Gibraltarian, 63 were "Other British", 4 were Moroccan and 18 Spanish. Five Jews came from other European Union countries, and 39 did not hail from Gibraltar, the United Kingdom, Morocco, Spain, or any other countries in the European Union. A large number of Gibraltar's Jews are Sephardic, but there are a number of English Jews.

Languages spoken in the Jewish community include English, Spanish, Ladino (spoken by the large Sephardic population) and Arabic (traditionally spoken by some of the population that traces its origins back to Morocco).

Llanito, the vernacular language for the majority of Gibraltarians, has significant Jewish influence. Some 500 words are of Hebrew origin, and the language also has features of influence from Haketia, a Judeo-Spanish language spoken by the Sephardic communities of Northern Morocco and the Spanish exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.

Sources:

http://www.manfredlehmann.com/sieg287.html

http://www.haruth.com/jw/JewsGibraltar.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3878083.stm

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Gibraltar.html

What is a Yom Hillula

Image via Wikipedia//Meron on Lag BaOmer

A Yom Hillula (Hebrew: יום הילולא‎) is another word for yahrzeit (the anniversary of someone's passing), but it refers to a great Tzaddik. Unlike a regular yahrzeit, marked with sadness and even fasting, a Yom Hillula is commemorated specifically through simcha, and festive celebration. This term is most often used in Hasidic circles to refer to the day of the passing of Hasidic Rebbes. Initially, was mostly used for festivities, but according to a late interpretation (Moses Alsheikh) the death of a saintly man is a kind of "mystical marriage" of his soul with G-d.

The first Tzaddik whose Yom Hillula was celebrated is that of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, on Lag BaOmer. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai referred to this day, whose celebration was a specific request to his students, as Yom Simchato ("the day of his happiness"). There is thus a very widely observed custom to visit Meron (the burial place of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai) on Lag BaOmer, and celebrate with torches, song, and feasting. Another celebration takes place on the 14th of Iyyar, the anniversary of the death of R. Meir Ba'al ha-Nes, at their respective gravesides in Meron and Tiberias, in Galilee. In galut, this anniversary was observed with great solemnity in the Jewish community of Djerba (Tunisia). It consisted of a procession with a richly ornamented candlestick (menorat Shimon bar Yoḥai), which was followed by eating and drinking with musical accompaniment. A similar hillula was observed in Libya and Morocco (and now in Israel) on the first day after Passover, called Maimuna in honor of the anniversary of the death of Maimonides, who died on Passover.

Sources:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0009_0_08968.html

Jerusalem on Tisha B'Av

The sad side of the City of Gold...

Plus: Crash Course on Tisha B'Av

Android application on Tisha B'Av

The world of applications for smart phone with a Jewish topic is amazing and promise to be back one day with an evaluation of some of them. I would focus now on the Android application dedicated to Tisha B'Av, with English and Hebrew texts, easy to use and accessible from the point of view of the price.

Jewish life in Jamaica

I prepared this post months ago, but after reading a feature report about Jewish life in Jamaica published by the Israel Magazine, I decided to "air" mine as well...

The history of the Jews in Jamaica is connected to the History of the Jews in Spain and Portugal.

The Spanish Inquisition was at its height during the reign of the devout Roman Catholic King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile, and was implemented as a result of their desire to make Spain one nation, united under one religion. In the close neighborhoods, by the late 1490s, King Manuel I of Portugal decided that Jews must be Christianized. Some get converted, some refused to do so and were killed and others gathered in groups to leave for locations such as Amsterdam, Hamburg, London, and the lands of the "New World" where they could practice their religion of choice more openly.

Jamaica, where Columbus landed in 1494, was one such location. Jews of Portuguese-Spanish ancestry first arrived on the island some 40 years later in 1530. They made their homes in Spanish Town, then known as St. Jago de la Vega the only operating town on the island at the time. After many years, groups of Jews approached their Spanish governor and requested permission to settle and permission was duly granted. One of the best organized and most important communities in the Caraibes can be found at Kingston, whose history is dating back to 1656. The proof: the 21 cemeteries and two synagogues.

For the Jamaican Jews, of their religion and recognition of their identity remained a struggle under Spanish rule. Yet, genealogical records show Jews as succeeding to live into their eighties and nineties.

Jamaica's revered historian Edward Long described the Jews in 17th century Spanish Town thus:

"The Jews here are remarkably healthy and long-lived....I think they owe their good health and longevity, as well as their fertility, to a very sparing use of strong liquors, their early rising, their indulgence on garlic and fish, Mosaic Laws, sugar, chocolate."

In addition to a Jewish market and a good number of Jewish shops, the Neveh Shalom Synagogue was established on Spanish Town's Monk Street in 1704. This place of worship largely serviced Jews of Sephardic (Spanish-Portuguese) descent and so another synagogue was built in 1796 on Young Street to serve Jews of Ashkenazi (English and German) descent. The two Spanish Town congregations united in 1844. Many families had begun to relocate to Kingston as that town grew in economic and political importance. Today, the site of the Sephardic Synagogue and its adjacent cemetery replete with gravestones featuring names such as Henriques, De Souza, de Pass, Melhado and Nunes, lie largely in ruins, but the Neveh Shalom Institute, a foundation that exists to preserve Jewish Remains in Colonial Jamaica, has plans for its restoration. Archival work is already under way.

In 1655, following the English Conquest, Amsterdam Rabbi Menasseh Ben Israel visited Lord Protector Cromwell and requested permission for Jews to settle in England (which Cromwell welcomed in the hope that the Jews would bring capital and mercantile knowledge). This implied permission in English colonies, which led to another influx of Jewish settlers to Jamaica from places like Amsterdam. All Jewish settlers had to be naturalized as British citizens and as such they were entitled to own property a right denied to Jews in Medieval Europe.

Port Royal

The Jews, many of whom were merchants and money changers, not planters, flourished in Port Royal. Trade between commercial centres inhabited by Jews such as Amsterdam, the Dutch colonies of Curaçao, St. Eustatius and Saba, the Danish St. Thomas, Genoa, Venice, North America, London, Turkey and India was brisk. The ability of Jamaican Jews to speak Spanish also propelled their success in trade with Spanish America. Goods traded included pepper, cocoa, vanilla, pimento, cocoa and sugar. By the 19th century, some Jewish merchant families moved into shipbuilding and construction. Jamaican Jews were limited by law to ownership of two slaves only, unless they owned plantations, and few did. In addition, they were charged with only using Jewish indentured servants although this restriction was loosely imposed and therefore largely ignored. It should be noted, however, that the Jews, having introduced sugar cultivation technology to Brazil in the 1520s, are largely credited with doing the same in Jamaica circa 1530.

Sadly, there is little documentation of Jewish life in Port Royal, but earthquake survivor Edmund Heath's account of the infamous 1692 event, notes the existence of a Jew's street and synagogue which records locate on New Street running parallel to Cannon Street. The Jewish legacy in Port Royal also includes a cemetery at Hunt's Bay. During the 17th century it was not unusual to see Jewish families carrying their loved ones by boat across the harbor to be buried.

Most Jews who survived the 1692 disaster left Port Royal and joined their brethren in Spanish Town, Kingston, Montego Bay and other locations islandwide. In general, Jews tended to favour major towns, but in Jamaica they spread out all over the island. Ruins of Jewish cemeteries in places as far from Kingston as Savanna-la-Mar, Clarendon and Port Maria testify to this fact.

By 1700, although recognized as second-class citizens as a result of their religion, the Jews, generally prosperous merchants, are noted as having borne the weight of the majority of the island's taxes. It was not until the 1740s after the hearing of numerous petitions, that King George II lifted undue taxation on the community. Less than a century later, Jamaican Jews were given the right to vote and they quickly began to acquire local political power. By 1849 eight of the 47 members were Jewish and that year the Assembly decided not to meet on Yom Kippur. It was the first modern political body to do so.

Jews in Kingston

With the decline of Spanish Town as the seat of government and business, the Jews turned their attention to Kingston towards the middle of the 18th century. The first synagogue is said to have been built in 1744, and perished in the Great Kingston Fire of 1882. Another, an Ashkenazi Synagogue, appeared in 1787.

It too, was subsequently lost in the great Kingston fire of 1882 and replaced in 1887. During the mid-end of the 19th century, groups of Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews came together to found the United Congregation of Israelites and they built their own synagogue on Duke Street. In 1907, however, all synagogues and many other buildings were destroyed by the Great Kingston Earthquake. The Shaare Shalom Synagogue or "United Congregation of Israelites" was rebuilt on Duke Street in concrete instead of brick by the Henriques Brothers in 1912. A dramatic sight, standing serenely in white, it is still in use today. Its floor, like that of only a few others in the Western Hemisphere, is made from sand to commemorate the idea that Jews were forced to practise their religion in secret the sand muffles the sound of footsteps and leaves no trace of footprints. Other interesting symbols include the Ark of the Covenant and the two perpetual lights that burn on either side to commemorate the 1921 union between the two different Jamaican congregations, Ashkenazi and Sephardic.

Modern times

Today, unlike in the past, where services and practice were largely Orthodox, the service is best described as Liberal-Conservatist, parts are read in English although some hymns are sung in Hebrew. "Bendigamos," however, is sung in Spanish. Part of a worldwide Sephardic tradition after meals, in Jamaica the hymn is traditionally on the night of Sukkot. Today the numbers have dwindled to close to 200 practicing Jews. However, that number would be much larger if it were a measure simply of religious bloodlines, as many Jamaicans are descendants of Jews although they do not officially practice Judaism.

By religious bloodlines and not practicing of the Jewish faith, it is estimated that nearly 420,000 Jamaicans have Sephardi Jewish ancestry. The current community is of approximately 250 souls. The synagogue Shaare Shalom built in a similar style with the Amsterdam synagogue is built on sand. Your feet are feeling the sand every time when you attend the service. A symbol of permanence against the difficult times.

Sources:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/jamaica.html

Book Review: Aleppo Tales

Always happy to find out more about Jewish communities all over the world, I was very happy to read Aleppo Tales.

There were only few basic facts I knew before: a very sophisticated and somehow closed community (mostly indirect or direct observations from my Brooklyn life), including in relation with the other Sephardic groups.

The big merit of the author, the descendant of a long line of rabbis from Aleppo, currently teaching at a yeshiva near Jerusalem is his ability to recreate a tradition and forgotten history through literature. The three novellas of the book are subtly teaching us of the culture and religious traditions of the Syrian Jews through literary accounts built with historical mystery and a style reminding the old religious tradition of story telling. The plot is not always well managed, but your curiosity is aroused enough to meditate and to increase your eagerness to find out more about those communities and the ways in which they succeeded in including the contemporaneity to the tradition. You will find many elements of the religious writings, including the piyuttim and many talmudic sources. For those unfamiliar with the language and the terms, the English edition is providing an explanatory glossary at the end of the book.

It is a special book, with a special story of a valuable community. I wish I had the occasion to learn more about.

Book Review: Homesick, by Eshkol Nevo

Back online, instead of focusing on the protests in Israel, or the forecasts for September or not even the Nine Days - not because of lack of consideration, but because my words are still looking for a proper shape to enter the real world. Instead, I would like to write about my latest literary discovery: Eshkol Nevo and its Homesick (translated by Sondra Silverston).

The author is the grandson of the former Israeli prime minister Levi Eshkol and is teaching, among others, creative writing. I didn't know too much about him or his career before buying the book, driven by the double curiosity I always have when in a good bookstore in Israel: discovering a new author but also finding something new about the Israeli society.

Most part of the good Israeli pieces of literature are sociological accounts about the society and the people, in a country where history is always on the making. In other countries - I don't want to make nominations - you could have the luxury to meditate about love, time, friendship and relationship as absolute values - beyond time and geography. Based on the books I've read by now, I dare to say that Israeli literature is an example of producing quality works and creating a debate about eternal values under the pressure of events. The humans are changing and adjusting themselves in coordination or against the daily events, be it Rabin's death - the time frame of the book - or terrorist attacks.

The story of Amir and Noa is related with other stories of the people living in the building - all the accounts are mostly first person accounts of other stories. Their story is reflected and connected with other people's stories and they discover and abandon themselves through them. In this fragile world when your life is always under the threat of changes, you can't be alone and although you don't want to, you can't be alone. You need the others to re comfort yourself or they need you for a little piece of advice. You carry through the others your own stories and you are part of their stories as well. This is exactly the explanation of Modi's homesick: Amir's best friend present in the book by his backpacking stories from South America is longing for being home and for writing to somebody in his mother tongue. Noa's graduation project is about longing too. The Arab Saddiq is longing too for something his parents told him about and are longing about. Sima, the neighbor, is longing for a revival of her marriage, as his husband is hardly able to separate completly of his religious family whose comfort is longing too. The kid Yotam's family is also longing about his brother, Gidi, killed in Lebanon an event that dramatically disturbed the whole family universe. At the end, they will decide to leave for Australia and we can continue writing by ourselves their story of understanding the "homesickness".

The original title of the story, in Hebrew is: Arbaa baatim ve-gaagua - Four houses and longing, a sense kept in the German translation of the book: Vier Häuser und eine Sehnsucht, I prefer to the English choice.

What I appreciated about the book is the assumed neutrality role of the writer: you are presented histories and facts and connections. You are not offered political messages or any kind of subliminal messages. It is how a good piece of literature should be. A quality book recommendation for the summer.