Sephardi Jews

As Sephardim (Hebrew: סְפָרַדִּים, Sfaradim; German Sephardim ) the Jews and their descendants, the 1492 and 1513 lived until their expulsion in the Iberian Peninsula and after their escape, for the most part in the Ottoman Empire (Bosnia ) and describe themselves Northwest Africa ( Maghreb ) settled. A small portion also settled in northern Europe, particularly in the maritime trading in the Netherlands (including Amsterdam), and northern Germany (mainly in Hamburg), but also in France (Bordeaux, Bayonne ), Italy (Livorno, Ferrara ) in America, India and Africa. Their culture was based still on the Iberian culture. In it Sephardim differ from the Central and Eastern European Ashkenazim embossed.

In Thessaloniki, Greece was located until the occupation by German troops in 1941, the biggest European Sephardic community; it was therefore Jerusalem of the Balkans.

Origin of the name

The name is derived from the Sephardim referred to in Obd 1.20 EU place or landscape Sefarad ( ספרד ), where at that time members of the lost tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel lived. The name was rendered in medieval times on the Iberian Peninsula and the Jews originating from there.

History

In the Iberian Peninsula AD Jews were already settled before the 1st century.

The beginning of the " Golden Age " for the Jewish population in the Iberian Peninsula is normally recognized on the effect time of Hasdai ibn Shaprut, a Jewish diplomat who in the 10th century in the service of residing in Cordoba Umayyad caliph Abd al-Rahman III. stood. In the following centuries worked in Spain and Portugal significant Jewish scholars and artists, such as Moses and Abraham ibn Ezra, Judah Halevi and Isaac Abrabanel.

In 1391 there were at Sevilla Ferrand Martinez to a pogrom. After completion of the Reconquista of Spain presented the " Catholic Kings" Ferdinand II and Isabella I with the Alhambra Decree of 31 March 1492, the Jews of Spain to choose between exile or conversion to Christianity. After the expulsion from Spain, part of them settled in North Africa, especially in Morocco in the cities of Fez and Casablanca. Another part was brought by personal decree of the Sultan in the Ottoman Empire, particularly after Thrace and Macedonia, whose capital Thessaloniki still in the interwar period had a Jewish population of about 20 percent. As centers of the Sephardic rite next to Fez and the cities of Thessaloniki Istanbul, Jerusalem, Safed, Cairo, Ancona, Venice and Edirne apply.

After the introduction of the Inquisition in Portugal in 1531 began the second wave of persecution against the Jews in Portugal and Spain. Besides Jews who had remained in their faith, also walked many converts and Marranos from ( forcibly baptized Jews ). Objectives of emigration were still harbor towns, as many refugees in wholesale worked. These cities include Fez, Casablanca, Bayonne and Bordeaux, Livorno, and later Amsterdam, Hamburg and London. In Amsterdam, the Portuguese Synagogue was consecrated on August 2, 1675. In contrast to the earlier emigrants they mostly spoke Portuguese or Spanish, not Spanish Jews.

The last major wave of immigration reached Morocco during the Holocaust in World War II, often as a way station to the overseas exile, but sometimes also as an aim of the emigration. Sultan Sidi Mohammed Ben Yussef ( King Mohammed V. ) refused to sign the " emergency laws " of the French Vichy regime about the " treatment of the Israelites ." The North African Jews had in 1880 received the French citizenship and presented, among others, in Algeria a significant part of the European population, but were exposed to 1944 anti-Semitic persecution in 1940.

After decolonization began, also because of the increasing anti-Semitic attitude of the Muslim population, a hike in the reverse direction: Many Sephardic Jews left North Africa toward Israel or toward the French mother country. Thus, there is a large Jewish community of Paris (about 200,000 members) today largely of Jews from North Africa.

In February 2014, the Spanish government presented a bill to the reintroduction of descendants of Sephardic Jews.

Other well-known Sephardic Jews

• The most important Jewish scholar of the Middle Ages Moshe ben Maimon, called Maimonides (ca. 1135-1204 ), came from Cordoba.
• Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), Dutch philosopher, came from a family of Marranos from Portugal.
• David Ricardo (1772-1823), British economist, came from Portugal. His family emigrated to London via the Netherlands a. He developed the theory of comparative advantage.
• Moses Montefiore (1784-1865), English entrepreneur and philanthropist, was born in Livorno in Tuscany.
• The Christian baptized Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), writer and British Prime Minister ( since 1876 1st Earl of Beaconsfield ), came from a Sephardic family that had emigrated from Italy to England.
• Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), one of the most important French painter of Impressionism, was a Sephardic Jew.
• Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920), Italian painter and sculptor, came from a Sephardic family from Livorno.
• Elias Canetti (1905-1994), Austrian- British writer and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, was descended from Bulgarian Sephardim.
• Rita Levi Montalcini, (1909-2012), American- Italian neurologist and neurobiologist, comes from a Sephardic family from Turin. In 1986, she got together with Stanley Cohen received the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology.
• Baruj Benacerraf (1920-2011), Venezuelan immunologist and Nobel Prize winner for medicine.
• Edgar Morin ( born 1921 ), French philosopher.
• Carl Djerassi (* 1923), Austrian-American chemist who is considered the inventor of the contraceptive pill, paternal comes from a Bulgarian Sephardic family, the mother of an Ashkenazi.
• Raimundo Saporta (1926-1997), Spanish sports official, who was born in Paris. Came from a Sephardic family from Thessaloniki.
• Vidal Sassoon (1928-2012), known hair stylist, entrepreneur and philanthropist, was born into a London Sephardic family. His father came from Thessaloniki.
• Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), French philosopher, born in Algeria.
• Edmond Safra (1931-1999) was a Lebanese- Brazilian banker, who was born in Lebanon.
• Paul Benacerraf ( born 1931 ), American philosopher.
• Georges Moustaki (1934-2013), French composer and singer.
• Shlomo Ben Ami (Hebrew שלמה בן עמי; born 1943 ) is an Israeli historian, diplomat and politician of Moroccan descent. He was the 15th Secretary of State of Israel.
• Murray Perahia ( b. 1947 ), American pianist and conductor, comes from a Sephardic family from New York.
• Bernard- Henri Lévy ( born 1948 ), French philosopher, from a Sephardic family in Algeria.
• Sean Paul (born 1973 ), Jamaican musician, his grandfather came from a Sephardic family from Portugal.
• Yasmin Levy ( born 1975 ) is a singer from Jerusalem, who has revived the Ladino songs.
• Can Bonomo (* 1987) is a singer from Izmir, Turkey, Turkey has represented the Euro Vision Song Contest 2012.

Sephardic Hebrew

The Hebrew language follows in the pronunciation of vowels in terms of the Masoretic Text of the Sephardic tradition. The Sephardic pronunciation is characterized by the realization of the Qames as long a while is a short o in the Ashkenazi.

In spoken Modern Hebrew ( Ivrit ) follows the pronunciation of vowels of the Sephardic tradition, while the pronunciation of the consonants is highly Europeanized, that is waived in part to the emphatic sounds.

Sephardim in Israel

The religious Shas party in Israel is understood in particular as a guardian of the Sephardic religious expression. In addition to the Ashkenazim are the Sephardim in Israel its own Chief Rabbi.

Spanish nationality

Spain awards 2014, the Spanish nationality to the descendants of the Sephardim.