Jews in Spain and Portugal: From Flourishing Legacy to Germinating Spore
Touro Students and Faculty Explore Jewish History on Summer Tour to Iberian Peninsula
This month, Dr. Karen Sutton, Holocaust historian and professor at Touro’s Lander College for Women, had the privilege of joining 85 Touro students and faculty from across all our campuses for a fascinating journey through the Iberian Peninsula. They explored the rich and heartbreaking Jewish history in Spain and Portugal and learned about the present-day rebirth of the Jewish community. Dr. Sutton shares her experiences here.
Over the course of ten days in July, a group of 85 Touro students and faculty trekked along winding cobblestone streets to encounter the remnants of once-thriving places of Jewish learning and worship. The knowledge that some of the most famous Jewish scholars and biblical commentators, like Maimonides, Yehuda Halevi and Ibn Ezra once studied and wrote in the very same places that we were standing upon, struck a deep chord. Under both Moslem and Christian rule, Jews were either converted, annihilated or expelled en masse. And yet, we were still here to travel, learn about and even re-establish Jewish communities throughout Spain and Portugal.
Although almost all the places of worship and residence had long become Christian, that week we became archeologists, excavating and unearthing Jewish sites and artifacts in our own minds. We envisioned how these places looked when they were thriving with Jewish life—the synagogues that once had beautiful stars of David mounted on their entrances rather than crosses, the sanctuaries that were filled with Hebrew prayer books rather than New Testament Bibles strewn along the pews. Most of all, we could envision our Sefer Torah in the holy ark behind a rich tapestry. This powerful image of a Jewish community bursting with Biblical learning and passion was somehow conveyed despite the now total lack of concrete evidence.
Throughout the trip, scholars and Touro professors such as Dr. Stanley Boylan, Dr. Israel Singer, Dr. Dana Fishkin and Esther Boylan lectured about both the horrors and splendors of Jewish literature and learning in medieval and early Renaissance Spain and Portugal. Although Jewish life in Spain ended with the Expulsion in Spain in 1492 and a few decades later in Portugal, we learned about how and when tiny Jewish communities returned and how vibrant Jewish communities are now being rebuilt, particularly in Portugal. The tour combined lectures and discussions with hands-on site visits and students expressed that this type of pedagogy as an optimum learning experience.
“The rich culture of Spain and Portugal that I was able to witness on this trip through all the places we visited was unmatched,” said Ruthy Hamadani, a psychology major at Touro’s Lander College of Arts & Sciences in Brooklyn. “We all finished the trip with a very clear understanding of the history of the Jewish communities originating from this region. I’m so glad I had this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit these countries with Touro. I don’t know how to say thank you besides for promising to apply what I learned in the lectures and tours to my daily life.”
For me, the most compelling moment was in Madrid, at the arena of the auto-da-fe “act of faith” in Plaza Mayor located right above the Inquisition’s torture chambers. During the Spanish Inquisition, 32,000 Jews were convicted of being Marranos, or secretly practicing their religion, and burned at the stake for a period of over 200 years that began in 1480. As we envisioned the flames of the pyres and the incredible suffering of our brethren, we joined together to say Psalms as we tried to comfort each other and raise the souls of those who died there. At the time of the executions, the throngs of Christian spectators looked on with cheer and glee. For us, thankfully, it was just curiosity that our prayers and tears elicited from the onlookers, tourists of all religions.
A guided tour through the Prado Museum, where we saw the works of Diego Valesquez, was a cultural highlight of the trip to Spain. For many of us, the depiction of The Expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492 following the Alhambra Decree, by the Spanish artist Emilia Sala y Frances was an illustration of much of what we had been studying. In one awesome image, we were able to bear witness to one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of Spain and the Jews.
Flying from Lisbon to Porto, we began studying and touring sites of the Jews of Portugal, before, during and after the Inquisition. We traveled to the mountains of east Portugal to Trancoso, where Jews lived after the expulsion from Spain. The old Jewish quarter with its medieval walls and gates, Caso do Gatos Preto, is still decorated with the Lion of Judah. The Isaac Cardozo Jewish Centre for Jewish Culture preserved the Jewish legacy of this region, including a replica of a small synagogue. We continued to Belmonte, home of a Jewish community of crypto Jews that hid their faith for over 400 years. What is so incredible, is that their Christian neighbors did not turn them into Inquisition authorities, but kept their identity a secret. In the 20th century, these Jews were able to openly practice their Judaism and establish a synagogue. Praying there and visiting the town’s new Jewish Museum founded in 2015 was also an extremely powerful experience.
As a final sojourn, touring the former 15th century Jewish district of Lisbon and then seeing the very modern Chabad house and the foundations of a modern Jewish community, now about 5,000 strong, gave us a sense of the past, the present, and the continuity and strength needed to build a Jewish community. The Chabad Rabbi, Eli Rosenthal, noted that we “traveled more as family than a group.” I delivered the final lecture, on Sousa de Mendez and The Righteous Diplomats, bringing home the message that the diplomats recognized Jews as worthy to be saved as a people and as individuals.
Helping our students grow and expand their knowledge by experiencing the history and culture of the Jews of Spain and Portugal was an important vision behind this trip and one that will long be remembered!