Sephardim invited back to Spain

Several friends have sent me the BBC report on Sephardim being invited back to Spain. The official regulation was published by Spain's Los Angeles consulate in December.

The BBC article gets our history wrong, but that's forgiveable. It hugely complex and subtle. It gives a couple of plugs for Doreen Carvajal's new book. All fine.

What irritates me is that the article alleges that we are some sort of historic remnant yearning for Spain. Er, no. This is as silly as suggesting that ethnic English people are pining for the German forests. Spain is part of the European Union. So too Britain, Holland, Greece, France and Italy which all have Sephardic populations. Has there been a stampede? Has ANYONE "returned" to Spain out of historic nostalgia? Not that I know of. 

The journalist found someone in Turkey (outside the EU) who has got a Spanish passport. An anonymous British Sephardic Jew is reported as saying: "I'm still Spanish in my soul and in my heart", which is surprising as (if he exists) his family probably came from Portugal via Amsterdam or Brazil via Barbados.

I think it is kind of sweet - in a ridiculous way - that some people in Spain want to apologise to us for what one group of people did to another several hundred years ago. As a once Visigoth state, no doubt they will also apologise for the destruction of the Western Roman Empire.

I suppose the Spanish government feel it is a nice gesture - which it is. I wonder if they realise that up to 17 million Brazilians have been estimated to be of Sephardic origin, and I would guess millions more in Mexico and Spanish America.

British cloth trade with Turkey, 1753

The piece below shows the mistrust the Christian English merchants had for the their Jewish opposite numbers. My impression is that the underlying fear is that the Jewish merchants in London and those in Constantinople would cooperate to squeeze out the Christians.

I don't know about the claim that the Jews might supply French rather than English cloth to the Turks. The English merchants fancifully suggest that the Jews might actually replace the French as competitors of the English. They are at pains to say that being of a different religion should not be a bar to doing business, but this is hardly surprising if they are planning to trade with Muslim Turks through the agency of Sephardic Jews and Armenian Christians.

The JEWS now desired to be admitted into a share of the trade, and the demand of the generality of the people was for an open commerce, or a limitation of the charter granted to the TURKEY company: the JEWS were strongly objected to, particularly by those members of the company who had most experience in the trade. The consideration of difference in religion among people subject to one common government, does not seem essential in commercial affairs, nor is it regarded much in our EUROPEAN trade; but the great influence they are supposed to have in ASIA, created an insuperable difficulty to their admittance. It seemed natural to believe, that by admitting no other JEWS than those of LONDON, and placing these under the fame common restrictions as other subjects, .that they would employ their power in favour of this nation, under whose government they are happy. It appeared however on this occasion, as if they were doomed to be excluded on account of their religion, at least it seemed a hard supposition, that EUROPEAN JEWS mould be at the bottom of all schemes against EUROPEAN trade with ASIA, as was then alledged. It was further objected, that the JEWS in CONSTANTINOPLE would promote a monopoly of the TURKEY commodities with the JEWS in ENGLAND, to the prejudice of the other subjects of this nation, and that the JEWISH factors abroad would underwork the CHRISTIANS: it was also urged, that the influence of the JEWS, arising from their great riches, would have too great a weight in the commercial scale. But was not this an acknowledgment that they were bold traders, possessed of large capitals, and would be contented with small profits? if it was, and that the trade was really in danger of being loft to this nation, were not these the very people who bid fairest to rival the FRENCH? There was yet a further objection, that they might go to market to MARSEILLES for their cloths, and only bring their silk here: even this might be preferable to the loss of the trade, for all commodities which we manufacture at home, are certainly great national benefits: but it was reasonable to imagine, that the JEWS under the protection of the BRITISH crown, might be restrained to a subjection to BRITISH laws, as well in commerce as in civil society in general.

It was however allowed, that the JEWS who reside in TURKEY are, for the most part, an immoral people, and have by a kind of confederacy established an exorbitant brokerage of i or more per cent. as it were by inheritance; and this reason, joined to others of the like nature, induced the FRENCH to stipulate with the TURKS, that they might not be obliged to employ JEWS. The debate, which at this time ran high, was at length reduced to this issue, viz. whether the liberty of trading to TURKEY should be granted to all his majesty's subjects, or to all his christian subjects only; and whether it should be made an open trade, or continue exclusive under the restrictions the legislature might judge necessary. Upon this occasion the following bill for enlarging and regulating the trade to the LEVANT seas was proposed to the parliament.

Source: Jonas Hanway. An historical account of the British trade over the Caspian sea. 1753.

Jews in the Ionian Free States, 1850s

The Ionian Islands had been a Venetian outpost for almost five hundred years. They fell to France when Napoleon occupied Venice in 1797. They were briefly occupied by the Russians before being returned to France in 1807. The British took the islands in 1809. Once Greece became independent in 1830 the Greek islanders wanted to join that country, which did not actually happen until 1862.

The report below is from the last days of British rule. No longer on one of the world’s major trade routes, between Venice and the Ottoman Empire, bullied by the majority Greek population and perhaps aware the British are leaving, the small Jewish community was in a sorry state.

Mr. Chazan spoke of the very sad condition of the Jews in the Ionian Free States. There were four thousand of them in Corfu, and two thousand in the Island of Zante. Most of them are engaged in trade; only a few support themselves as mechanics. Scarcely any of them are in comfortable circumstances, and notwithstanding the proud title, Ionian Free States, and the Protectorate of England, they neither enjoy liberty not are they free from oppression.

Jewish children are mocked at in the schools, girls altogether excluded. The Jews of Zante had just drawn up a representation to the Government, begging that their deplorable social condition might be ameliorated.
…

“Better a learned heather than a high priest who is an idiot,” quoted Mr. Chazan, from the Talmud.

Source: The Jews of the East, written by Dr. Ludwig August Frankl, an Austrian doctor, and translated by Rev. P. Beaton in 1859