Sephardic Jews Research Articles

The (Mis)representation of Sephardic Jews in American Jewish Historiography

The (Mis)representation of Sephardic Jews in American Jewish Historiography

Emmanuel Levinas’s Talmudic Turn: Philosophy and Jewish Thought by Ethan Kleinberg

Reviewed by: Emmanuel Levinas’s Talmudic Turn: Philosophy and Jewish Thought by Ethan Kleinberg Annabel Herzog Ethan Kleinberg. Emmanuel Levinas’s Talmudic Turn: Philosophy and Jewish Thought. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2021. 220 pp. Levinas’s essays on the Talmud and other texts of the Jewish tradition (his “talmudic readings”) have been studied from various perspectives. Some consider them a mere illustration of Levinas’s phenomenology. Some try to fathom their philosophical meaning. Some read them in a purely Jewish context, as examples of modern midrash. Some emphasize their historical impact on the Jewish renewal that took place in intellectual circles in Paris in the late 1950s and in the 1960s. In his excellent book, Emmanuel Levinas’s Talmudic Turn, Ethan Kleinberg proposes a truly original twist: his historical account focuses on Levinas’s teaching and transmission of Talmud. In emphasizing primarily neither the French Jewish scene of the time, nor the midrashic relevance of Levinas’s endeavor, but the passages between them, Kleinberg asks how Levinas came to teach the Talmud and what this move meant. The answer is presented in two parallel discussions: one classically historical and one that delves into the arguments of some specific talmudic readings. This double strategy, appearing visually on the page as two columns of text, is influenced by Derrida’s writing in Glas and in Margins of Philosophy—which [End Page 213] is in its turn influenced by the Talmud’s page layout—and aims at opening the text and challenging the process of reading. Kleinberg’s project starts with the realization that, contrary to what is too often believed, Levinas never had formal talmudic training. While he was born and grew up in Lithuania, he did not study in a traditional yeshiva. This point is important and Kleinberg comes back to it several times, to emphasize that the centrality of Talmud in Levinas’s thinking is not the result of religious upbringing but of choice. The discussion that Kleinberg elaborates from this point forward, however, goes beyond the simple exposition of a biographical fact. Indeed, it is now well known that for many Jewish secular scholars and intellectuals in France and in other countries, Levinas’s idiosyncratic interpretations of the Talmud opened a way back to the Jewish tradition. This, I must add, is not a unique phenomenon. Buber, Rosenzweig, and Heschel also gave Jewish intellectuals a new taste for Jewish texts and sometimes Jewish practice. Yet, the question that Kleinberg asks is about the meaning and composition of tradition: If we acknowledge that Levinas began his talmudic investigations at quite a late moment of his life, can his teaching be considered tradition? Can a tradition whose thread has been broken be reconstructed? Is a talmudic commentary that includes insights taken from other realms of thinking (such as Western philosophy or French humanism) still talmudic, still Jewish? What did Levinas exactly do in suggesting that his universalist understanding of the Jewish tradition is the Jewish tradition? Should his endeavor affect our presumptions about that tradition? These are fascinating questions. Some of them have already been raised in Levinas’s scholarship, but not as the basis for such a far-reaching discussion. In addition, Kleinberg shows that Levinas himself formulated versions of these questions in his talmudic readings, which deal with the meaning of tradition and transmission beyond their specific topics. The argument of the book, therefore, is that Levinas “inserted himself” into the Jewish tradition (99). And this implies two things. The first is that he opened that tradition to make room for himself. This was made possible by the fact that tradition had already been transformed, shaken, or even broken by a series of processes and events: the Jewish emancipation, secularism and assimilation, Nazi rule, and the decolonization wars that brought Sephardic Jews to Paris and created a new Jewish conversation. In other words, Levinas used the crises of his time to find his way into the talmudic chain of transmission. The second is that entering tradition from outside, he would almost necessarily start a new tradition or reformulate the tradition in a new language reflecting that outside realm, and dialoguing with it. This is what Levinas meant when...

Literary Istanbul

Literary Istanbul Buket Uzuner (bio), Erkut Tokman (bio), and Matt A. Hanson (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution A City of Two Continents by Buket Uzuner There are few cities in the world for which countless novels, monographs, poems, and memoirs have been written. Istanbul has always been one of those few cities that has changed human history with its multicultural self (entity) and geostrategical position. Istanbul is unique in being the only city in the world to be set on two continents with a sea passing through it by a natural strait. I chose Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul: Memories and the City, as he paints the poetic images of the city through his personal memories and emotions in a brave and literary living autobiogra phy. He talks about the Istanbul of his childhood in the back streets and waterways as if he were a fairytale teller; Pamuk tells the tales of both Istanbulian writers Tanpınar and Yahya Kemal, as well as those who've lived in Istanbul like Flaubert, Nerval, Lord Byron, Amicis, and Cavafy with the sadness (hüzün) of a paradise lost. The reader immediately understands that Istanbul is both Pamuk's home and the heart of his imagination. [End Page 36] I've many favorite bookstores in Istanbul. As you know, Istanbul is set on two continents, therefore I chose two bookstores, one from each. Minoa bookstore (Şişli, on the European side) is an independent bookstore with a wide range of books both in English and Turkish. Its café has lovely cakes and good coffee. Penguen bookstore (Suadiye, on the Asian side) is a five-story bookstore offering different books on each floor along with a cozy café. The City as an Unwritten Novel by Erkut Tokman As it is located at the very end of Istiklal Street (La Grand Rue de Pera) in the Tünel (Tunnel) district of Beyoğlu-İstanbul and considered the third oldest bookshop of the city, whenever I pass by Cohen Sisters Bookshop, it has always been a passageway of memories for me. It is in an old, historical, shady passage with charming cafés facing the Galata-Tunnel Funicular Station—considered the second oldest funicular underground system (after London)—through which one can travel between the Beyoğlu and Karaköy districts climbing up to the hill. Immediately exiting the station, you face the huge and splendid iron door of the passage and last stop of the old tram. The bookshop's owners were two sisters, Sephardic Jews: Mazalto Kohen and Elisa Kohen Benzimra. They established it in the garden of the Swedish Consulate to sell books on nursing and fashion; later, however, when the bookshop moved to Narmanlı Han and eventually to the Tunnel Passage, they sold a wide range of old and new books from different genres and subjects as well as gravures. I have met the owner from the third generation of their family, their cousin's son, Albert Sapan, who inherited the bookshop recently from Samuel Sapan. Although the bookshop's tattered wood frames give the impression of negligence, it reflects the epitome of Istanbul's derelict soul of minorities. With few customers inside, especially today, the shop resists the modern new bookshops near the tram stop, as if it was left alone at the end of a passage smelling of old books. Two old, round tables with a pair of facing chairs are often empty whenever I am there. They face the stairs to the suspended floor of the bookshop that stores books in abundance above the kitchen area. I've searched here for old books and some new, always wondering about the protagonists of other eras who would visit the bookshop as if they had come out of an unwritten novel on Istanbul. Over Orhan Pamuk's The Museum of Innocence or Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar's A Mind at Peace, I'd choose Peyami Safa's Fatih-Harbiye, set near the same old tram stop of the bookshop's Tünel district. Fatih depicts the "Eastern sprit and tradition of Istanbul"; Harbiye, the "Western sprit and tradition." The main protagonist, Neriman, faces an engagement dilemma between the...

Middle Eastern American Theatre: Communities, Cultures, and Artists by Michael Malek Najjar (review)

Reviewed by: Middle Eastern American Theatre: Communities, Cultures, and Artists by Michael Malek Najjar Sarah Fahmy MIDDLE EASTERN AMERICAN THEATRE: COMMUNITIES, CULTURES, AND ARTISTS by Michael Malek Najjar. London, England: Metheun Drama, 2021; pp. 256. Middle Eastern American Theatre: Communities, Cultures, and Artists offers a comprehensive overview of the state of Middle Eastern American theatres since the late nineteenth century. It articulates critical perspectives from the genre, including contentious debates, thematic analysis, play excerpts, and invaluable interviews with prominent Middle Eastern American directors. As a Middle Eastern theatre scholar this is a book I have long yearned for, and I can only imagine the impact it will have on shaping the next generation of Middle Eastern thespians, and for envisioning an equitable American theatre. To situate the theatres of the Middle Eastern American communities, Najjar succinctly describes the often overlooked “complex tapestry” of the region’s politics and histories. Offering the framework of “polyculturalism” (11), Najjar articulates the “vast and virtually limitless definition to the peoples, cultures, and religions that are present” (1). He asks readers to imagine the scope of a group that includes “Armenians, Ashkenazi Jews, Turks, Egyptians, Bedouins, Yemani Arabs, Muwahhidun/Druze, Qashqai, Baluch, Turkoman, Hazaras, Pashtuns, Tajiks, Iranians/Persians, March Arabs, Kurds, Lurs, Moroccan Arabs, Berbers, Haratins, and Sephardic Jews,” (1) and complicates the wide multiplicities of religious and ethnic groups of each of those communities: identifications that go beyond state lines and simple binaries. Starting with critiquing the common name itself—the Middle East, which “carries tremendous cultural baggage that includes colonialism, Orientalism, and perverse notions of the region that have been perpetuated through scholarship, popular entertainment, and the arts”—enables the reader to reflect on the historic and contemporary representations and Othering of these communities (3). Najjar encourages readers to situate the evolution of Middle Eastern American theatre within the context of generational trauma and impact of various socio-political events, from two world wars to the spike in anti-Semitic, anti-Arab, anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim, anti-Sikh hate crimes post 9/11, to the community’s lack of representation on the US Census since its inception in 1790 and their complicated relationship to whiteness and assimilation. Among many poignant remarks, he asks “Can one be a Middle Eastern American theatre artist and an accepted ‘American’ artist?” (18) Middle Eastern American Theatre: Communities, Cultures, and Artists is an essential read for all theatre makers from academic institutions to professional companies. Its accessible language and vast scope offer spaces for Middle Eastern Americans to see themselves represented in the theatre archive, and for non-Middle Eastern Americans to learn about the evolving field. Showcasing Middle Eastern American artists commitment to “telling stories of those who are often neglected, unseen, or omitted from American theatre cultural discourses,” (15) Najjar demonstrates their persistence to challenge their misrepresentations. This book, has the potential to become a canonical text, as it provides insight to the arduous, gradual progress required to establish a new genre—the same state that “other great theatre communities (such as African American, Asian American, Latinx, and Native American) were in decades ago” (xv)—and calls upon the necessity of publishing and producing more plays if this genre is to reach its “fullest potential.” The book is split into nine chapters, including an introduction. In the introduction, readers learn about the major groups producing Middle Eastern theatre: Arab American, Iranian American, Jewish and Israeli American, and Turkish American theatres. Najjar traces each to their unique cultural production legacies and range, from the oldest and largest genres such as Jewish American (1870s) and Arab American (1896) productions, to the least documented like Turkish American productions. He contends with the most pressing issues facing the community, the most controversial being casting (32), and references the formidable “Middle Eastern American Theatre, on Our Terms,” an open letter and Bill of Rights, published in American Theatre (30) as a call for action to equitable representation across all facets of theatre. [End Page 112] The first chapter pays homage to sixteen of the most notable Middle Eastern companies in the United States demonstrating their diverse structures. They range from longstanding theatres like Golden Thread Productions, “the first American theatre company...

MEFV gene mutation spectrum in patients with familial mediterranean fever

MEFV gene mutation spectrum in patients with familial mediterranean fever

Serbo-Croatian as a Language of Sephardic Literature: The Cases of Isak Samokovlija and Jacques Confino

Abstract The early twentieth century saw a rise in Jewish writers in what is traditionally considered non-Jewish languages in the Balkans like in the rest of Europe. In light of this phenomenon’s significance, we pose the question why and how Serbo-Croatian became a language of Sephardic literature. The article questions the accepted narrative of ‘linguistic acculturation’ of Sephardic Jews in the Balkans and unearths the complex cultural, but also political background of this Jewish phenomenon using the examples of two prolific, recognized, and celebrated writers of Sephardic background, Isak Samokovlija and Jacques Confino. Through historicization of Sephardic multilingualism in Serbia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina from the 1890s to the 1920s, it argues that the adoption of Serbo-Croatian was motivated equally, if not dominantly, by Jewish political aims in the region rather than the pressures of emancipation only. Samokovlija and Confino’s biographies and cultural choices, therefore, illuminate an unlikely Sephardic history.

The Ladino Language in the Domain of World Intellectual History

In the domain of world intellectual history, the Sephardic language, otherwise called Judeo-Spanish or Ladino, occupies a special place. The article deals with terminological nominations corresponding to the language, accepted in the paradigm of modern philological studies; the concept of Judeo-Spanish which implies a heterogeneous dialect continuum, including various geographical varieties that formed outside the Spanish-speaking area and independently of the Spanish language; the multifaceted nature of the Jewish-Spanish in the projection on its history as a repository of collective memory and cultural heritage; the religious context of the appearance of Ladino; a certain tradition of understanding the Jewish-Spanish language as a place of memory and a metaphor for a lost home, which has developed in the ethnic mentality of the descendants of Sephardic Jews and has been fixed in the artistic and documentary narrative; conventional and institutional status of the Hebrew-Spanish language; modern formats and strategies for its promotion, as well as features of its positioning in the ethnic mentality of the descendants of Sephardim expelled from Spain and Portugal in 1492/1496. Currently the language of Sephardic Jews, transmitted to different continents along with its native speakers, continues to be a powerful means of legitimizing the symbolic unity (based on maintaining a sense of secondary identity) of representatives of this traditional community. Despite active divergent processes, Judeo-Spanish or Ladino has a special status in the world intellectual history in accordance with its historical, social and cultural context and serves as a traditional basis in the structure of historical ethnic memory.

Differences in Toxicity Between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews With Colon Cancer Treated With Adjuvant Chemotherapy: A Prospective Study.

Ethnicity of cancer patients is increasingly being recognized as an important factor that may influence intergroup variation in toxicity and efficacy of chemotherapy. Data from our institution suggested that differences in chemotherapy-associated toxicity are not limited to distanced ethnic subgroups, such as Caucasians, Afro-Americans, or Asians, but may exist even between two closely related Caucasian ethnic subgroups, such as Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. This study aimed to explore differences in severity and frequency of various side effects, including neurotoxicity between patients from the two Jewish subgroups receiving oxaliplatin-containing adjuvant chemotherapy for colon cancer (CC). We recruited 75 patients, with performance status 0-1 and no background of neuropathy between 2012 and 2016. All patients completed a neurotoxicity questionnaire (NQ) and a QoL questionnaire (QoLQ) at baseline and the NQ also at each treatment cycle; during follow up, patients filled out the NQ and the QoLQ every four months for a total of one year. Of the 75 participants, 66 were evaluable for the study including 34 (52%) Sephardic and 32 (48%) Ashkenazi Jews. Grade ≥2 vomiting and diarrhea occurred more often in Sephardic than in Ashkenazi patients (p=0.008 and 0.012, respectively). Of the 66 evaluable patients, 11 (17%) developed grade 3 neurotoxicity; of these, 9 were Sephardic and 2 were Ashkenazi (p=0.028). There were no significant differences in the dynamics of QoL between both subgroups. Sephardic patients receiving oxaliplatin-containing regimens are at an increased risk for neurotoxicity and other side effects as compared to their Ashkenazi counterparts.

The Image of the Jews in the Travel Book Orient by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

In this article we study the image of the Jewish people in Vicente Blasco Ibáñez's travel book Orient. The book describes the author’s journey from France to the Orient, more specifically Istanbul, in 1907. The first descriptions of the Jews already appear in the first text of the book, in which the author depicts the small spa town of Vichy in France. The author describes different nationalities gathered in Vichy, remarking on its cosmopolitan atmosphere. In Vichy, he identifies a few Jewish nationals as paradigmatic characters - stereotyped visions of beautiful cocotte or good Rebecca/Miriam in the company of her husband, who is marked by greed and stinginess as racial characteristics, thus expressing his prejudiced views towards the Jews. Later on, on his journey to the East, Blasco Ibáñez spends two days in Serbia, leaving a testimony about the Serbian people, but also about an encounter with some Sephardic Jews in Belgrade. A similar meeting will take place in Istanbul, prompting the author to express his wish to continue writing about this nation in the future. In the travel book Orient, Blasko Ibáñez presents the Sephardim and discusses their language and nostalgic need to reconnect with Spain. Through the author’s presentation and selection of Sephardic attributes we can draw some conclusions about his personal attitude that preserves some Judeophobic elements
 We will start from Ibáñez's contradictory judgments about the Jews, expressed in several articles and literary works, and then, following the principles of imagology, we will examine how the image of the Jews, the Sephardim, is constructed within the cultural spaces of Belgrade and Istanbul. We will try to connect these images with the general panorama of the Jewish question and the frequently cited anti-Semitism in the work of Blas Ibáñez. We will pay special attention to Judeophobia, as well as the economic aspect of this problem.

Language Contact and Phonological Innovation in the Voiced Prepalatal Obstruents of Judeo-Spanish

This article traces the development of voiced prepalatal obstruents /dʒ⌢/ and /ʒ/ in Judeo-Spanish, the language spoken by the Sephardic Jews since before their expulsion from late-15th century Spain. Using Medieval Spanish as a comparative starting point, we examine diachronic innovations in the phonological status and distribution of affricate /dʒ⌢/ and fricative /ʒ/ in Judeo-Spanish during the diaspora, focusing in particular on the effects of lexical borrowing from Turkish and French in territories of the former Ottoman Empire. In contemporary Sephardic communities that are in contact with non-Sephardic varieties of Mainstream Spanish, some speakers occasionally replace syllable-initial /∫/, /dʒ⌢/, and /ʒ/ in certain Judeo-Spanish words by a voiceless velar /x/ in efforts to accommodate the pronunciation of the corresponding Mainstream Spanish cognate form. We provide a novel analysis of Judeo-Spanish voiced prepalatal obstruents, including their diachronic and synchronic variation under language contact. The analysis combines a constraint-based approach to phonological alternations, as formalized in Optimality Theory, with a usage-based representation of the mental lexicon, as proposed in Exemplar Theory, to account for speaker- and word-specific variability. A hybrid theoretical model provides a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between lexicon and grammar in Judeo-Spanish phonology than is available in previous structuralist descriptions.

Puzzle of Rabbinic Identification at the End of Chapter Five in the Ladino Translations of Pirke Avot

Pirke Avot known as the “Ethics of the Fathers”, a Mishnaic compendium of rabbinic sayings, is comprised of six chapters, which Sephardic Jews read one chapter a week with the Ladino translation on the Sabbaths between Pesaḥ (Passover) and Shavu'ot (Pentecost). The end of chapter five and chapter six were appended to this Mishna after 200 CE. The final paragraphs of chapter five list either three or four sages by their names, while one is referred to by hu haya omer (‘he used to say’), translated as él era dizién. Because the order of the paragraphs varies in different Ladino editions, the identity of the Rabbi is unclear. The translation of Vienna 1857 adds to the confusion because the Hebrew text represents one order and the translation another. The article presents the paragraphs and the orders in which they occur in the various Ladino editions and concludes with the possible identity of the unnamed rabbi.

Afro-Hispanic Linguistic Remnants in Mexico: The Case of the Costa Chica Region by Norma Rosas Mayén

Reviewed by: Afro-Hispanic Linguistic Remnants in Mexico: The Case of the Costa Chica Region by Norma Rosas Mayén Álvaro Ramírez Rosas Mayén, Norma. Afro-Hispanic Linguistic Remnants in Mexico: The Case of the Costa Chica Region. Iberoamericana-Vervuert, 2021. Pp. 189. ISBN: 978-84-9192-170-7. The Afro-Mexican population of the Costa Chica region of southern Mexico, that unjustly remained invisible since the end of the colonial period, has lately drawn the attention of scholars, generating many ethnological and anthropological monographs. Norma Rosas Mayén’s Afro-Hispanic Linguistic Remnants in Mexico: The Case of the Costa Chica Region is the latest study that brings to light the rich cultural landscape of this geographical area. She, however, shifts the focus to the linguistic heritage found among the Black population of Collantes and La Boquilla in the state of Oaxaca, two of the nearly thirty-seven Afro-Mexican towns of Costa Chica which straddles the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca. The book comprises six chapters and an appendix. The first three chapters center on socio-historical, theoretical, and methodological matters. While the last three take up the analysis of linguistic data the author gathered during her field work. In the opening chapter, Rosas Mayén lays out a brief history of the presence of Afro-Mexican Spanish in Mexico, emphasizing our lack of knowledge concerning the language of the slave population due to their oral tradition and illiteracy. The few written examples that exist come from colonial legal documents and literary texts such as “villancicos” written by writers from the dominant class, perhaps as imitations that ridiculed the language of the slaves. Nonetheless, the author is interested in exploring the degree to which a creolized variety of Spanish existed and whether there are remnants in Mexico. Additionally, Rosas Mayén cites the urgency of researching and recording this Spanish dialect as globalization and migration are quickly transforming the linguistic characteristics that define “el español negro de la Costa Chica.” Like many other Indigenous languages in Mexico, she believes this Afro-Mexican Spanish is in danger of extinction. In Chapter 2, “Creole Genesis and the Rhizomatic Linguistic Model,” the author briefly reviews seven theories of the etiology of Creole languages highlighting their theoretical advantages and disadvantages. She underscores the lack of agreement among scholars on the genesis of Creole; then, moves on to postulate theories that explicate the absence of creolized Spanish in the colonies. Next, she traces the socio-historical trajectory of Papiamentu in Curaçao concluding that it is a Creole language that emerged from a mixture of Portuguese and other languages in West Africa. From there, it migrated to Curaçao with the slaves, New Christians, and Sephardic Jews, where it was lexified toward Spanish. Rosas Mayén finishes by positing a view of language based on Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s rhizome theory. She proposes that languages exist in a rhizomatic ecological system that privileges a horizontal structure of connections linking them all together. Thus, allowing for linguistic development with multiple points of connection. Rosas Mayén proposes that this model can best help appreciate the multilinguistic origins of Papiamentu and other Afro-Spanish varieties such as those found in la Costa Chica. [End Page 641] In the following chapter, “Methodological and Historical Remarks,” the author refers to the scarcity of studies of Afro-Mexican Spanish in the Costa Chica. Then she presents a thorough explanation of the methodology she employed in her study and a description of the subjects and geographical area where she conducted her research. She closes by giving a brief history of the Afro-Mexicans in Oaxaca. Interestingly, Rosas Mayén contrasts the folkloric version the people tell of their arrival on a ship from where they claim to descend, and the quasi-historical information known. In this point she appears to contradict herself when she asserts Blacks arrived from West Africa, yet later she posits that scholars have not been able to specify exactly from where Afro-Mexicans of this region originate. Chapter 4, “Phonological Characteristics of Costeño Spanish,” details the sounds that distinguish this costal variety of Spanish. Rosas Mayén notes an...

Multilingualism in Sarajevo through the Lens of the Sephardim

Summary This paper is a diachronic sociolinguistic analysis of the multilingual repertoire of Sephardic Jews in Sarajevo used in out-group communication, especially among men. I reflect on the language repertoire of the Sephardim during Ottoman (ca. 1565–1878), Austro-Hungarian (1878–1918) and Yugoslav (1918–1941) rule and with respect to inter-Jewish contact with the Ashkenazim, who migrated to Sarajevo during the Austro-Hungarian occupation. The change from Ottoman to Austro-Hungarian and then to Yugoslav regimes resulted in an ideological upheaval and change to the language repertoire. The enduring and stable multilingualism in popular use during Ottoman rule was replaced by languages dominant in Austro-Hungarian Sarajevo, namely Serbo-Croatian and German. Later, in the new South Slavic state, the use of Serbo-Croatian prevailed in public life.

“A Privilege That Cannot Be Bought”: Jews of Turkey and Citizenship Restitution from Portugal and Spain

Abstract Jews of Turkey have been applying for citizenship restitution from Spain and Portugal through processes formalized in 2015. Using 29 interviews, I analyze applicant motivations and find that cultural connections play a minor role in applicant decisions. The citizenship application process did not lead to self-questioning of identity for these applicants, unlike Sephardic Jews in other contexts. The more important motivators were Jewish fears about the future of Turkey, the practical benefits of easy travel on a European Union passport, and the desire for global mobility, allowing individuals to chase prosperity wherever it may go. While Jewish fears are mostly in the background, the other two motivations were more pressing. I place these motivations in the context of changing conceptions of citizenship in Europe and the global inequality of citizenship, crystallized in a hierarchy of passports. I find that after acquiring Iberian citizenship, Jews from Turkey relate to their new citizenship solely in practical ways.

Bellek Kavramı Bağlamında “Kulüp” Dizisinin Hatırlattıkları ve Toplumsal Yansımaları

Başlangıç ve bitişlerin tarihin seyrine yön vermesi gibi bireysel ya da toplumsal belleğin katmanlarında da izler bırakmaktadır. 20. Yüzyıl bellek çalışmalarının önemsendiği, disiplinlerarası araştırmalara konu edildiği ve bu araştırmaların sonuçlarına dayandırılarak insanın temel unsur olduğu tarih yazımının yeniden şekillendiği bir zaman dilimidir. Belleğin bir tür hatırlama mekanizması olarak ele alınışı, diğer bir ifadeyle oluşan arşiv sistemi, sözlü kültürden yazıla kültüre geçişin emarelerini taşıdığı gibi, soyut olanın somuta dönüşerek adeta görünür kılınması belleğin daha da canlı tutulmasını sağlar. Görüntünün ardındaki gerçeklik bireysel bellek çıkarımlarının öznelliğini ifade ederken, kolektif belleğin nesnel birikimlerini de sergiler. İnsanlık tarihi, gelecek zamanlara ve kuşaklara kapılarını aralar adeta. Sözlü kültürün izlerini taşıyan mitler, masallar ve destanları, yazılı kültüre geçişle birlikte mekânlar, buluntular, el yazmaları, sanat eserleri takip eder bellek ayrıntılarında. Teknolojinin olanakları, belleği dijital boyuta taşımış, görüntü dilini kullanan arşivler yaratılmıştır. Fotoğraf karelerinden sıyrılan insan ifadeleri beyaz perde de vücut bulmuştur. Sinema sanatının geniş kitleleri kısa sürede etkileyebilme gücü ve popülerliği bellek oluşumlarında sıkça tercih edilen bir araç olarak kullanılmasına neden olmuştur. Sinemanın anlatım dilindeki zamansızlık izleyiciyi bellek katmanlarında yolculuğa çıkartabilmektedir. Sinemanın gücünü kullanan televizyon ve günümüzün dijital yayın platformları da toplumdaki farklı bakış açılarını belleğe gönderme yaparak özgün yapımlar üretmektedirler. Dünyada ve Türkiye’de en çok izlenme payına sahip dijital yayın platformu Netflix’in orijinal yapımları arasında yer alan “Kulüp” dizi, 1950’li yılların Türkiye’si ve özelde İstanbul’un ağırlıklı olarak gayrimüslimlerin yaşadığı Beyoğlu semtine ışık tutarak, dönemin belirleyici özelliklerini, Sefarad Yahudileri’nin gözünden aktarmaktadır. Çalışmanın örneklemini oluşturan Kulüp dizisinin 10 bölümü, nitel araştırmada kullanılan amaçlı örnekleme yöntemlerinden biri olan tipik durum örneklemi yöntemine göre incelenecektir. Tipik durum örneklemi için belirlenen “zaman”, “mekân”, “azınlıklar” ve “inanç” faktörleri, ele alınan araştırma konusunda bellek oluşumunun toplumsal yansımalarını ortaya koymamızı sağlayacaktır.

Italya. Jewish Stories, Italian History by Germano Maifreda

Reviewed by: Italya. Jewish Stories, Italian History by Germano Maifreda Elena Lolli Germano Maifreda, Italya. Storie di ebrei, storia italiana [Italya. Jewish Stories, Italian History]. Laterza: Bari-Roma, 2021. 341 pp. €24.00. ISBN: 9788858143896 A melting pot of cultures in the heart of Western Christendom, Italy, or the "island of divine dew," as described by the creative Hebrew etymology I-tal-ya, has seen a diversified presence of native, Ashkenazi, and Sephardic Jews for over two millennia. The Italian-Jewish coexistence and interaction has had a great historical impact on society that contributed to the identity-making and evolution of the country. However, despite an exceptionally long Jewish existence in the peninsula that dates back to Roman times, most Italians still think about Jews' vicissitudes as something apart from the nation's mainstream history. Jews have always been seen as an isolated, passive, and persecuted minority, and thus, their history is usually considered separate from the general one. As the title underlines, Germano Maifreda aims to dismantle such historiographical misconceptions, which are principally due to the fact that for many years the events relating to Italian Jews have been mainly reconstructed by scholars through the documentation produced by the majority society, thus leading to the emergence of fallacious metanarratives. The author argues that without taking into account the sources produced within the Jewish communities, the historical process of assimilation between Jews and Christians may appear distorted, like the one described through the medium of "pink spectacles" by eminent historians such as Jacob Burckhardt and Cecil Roth, or merely reduced to a histoire larmoyante, whose partiality was denounced by Salo Baron's famous thesis. In order to understand Italian history as inclusive of the Jewish experience, Maifreda suggests going beyond the antisemitism parameters and reflect on how the Jews have systematically negotiated their own position within the Italian authorities over the centuries. With the art of diplomacy, Jewish mediators operated discreetly through trying to use their influence and various expedients to moderate rulers' decrees. Yet, the history of Jewish diplomatic efforts contradicts the myth of Jewish passivity, because in reality, their efforts involved a much broader web of interactions than just the "vertical relationship" between sovereigns, communities, and Court-Jews. According to the author, it is necessary to develop an overall approach devoted to articulating the meaning of "identity" in the history of Italian [End Page 263] Jewry, taking into account the reciprocal influence between Jewish communities and their Christian counterparts. Also, thanks to newly discovered documents, Maifreda proposes some case studies that cover multiple relationship issues and environments that occurred over the course of several centuries. In 1516, the governor of Venice declared that Jews had to live in a ghetto, which was the first of many Jewish enclosures ordered by political powers in the Italian peninsula. The Jewish community became an important cosmopolitan center of the Republic, bringing significant economic growth for the city, including nuanced networks with Christian neighbors. In the first chapter, the author sheds fresh light on this complex interfaith encounter by showing us different types of integration, or even prohibited unions, such as the forbidden love between the Christian sailor, Moretto, and the Jewish woman, Rachel, a story that reminds us of Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, but in an early-modern Venetian ghetto. In the court of Ferrara, Jewish refugees from the Iberian peninsula, invited by the Duke of Este, played a fundamental role, thanks to their financial skills. Most of the conversos in Ferrara were wealthy bankers and traders, with international relations with partners based in Middle Eastern markets or in various ports located in the Mediterranean. An emblematic figure of the complex social stratification experienced by Ferrarese Judaism after the arrival of Portuguese Marranos is that of the influential Gracia Nasi, alias Beatriz de Luna. She openly professed the Jewish religion, financing, among other things, a translation of the Bible in Judeo-Spanish printed in Ferrara between 1551 and 1553. In Chapter 2, the story of Gracia Nasi demonstrates that there was not one single Italian-Judaism model, nor a single way of living as Jews. At the start of the sixteenth century, we witness the birth of...

Vienna—The Cradle of Sephardic Sephardism

Abstract This article explores the rise and development of ‘Sephardism’ among Sephardic Jews in Vienna. Sephardism was originally a cultural phenomenon among the Ashkenazic Jews of Germany and Austria in the early nineteenth century. Based on the ‘Myth of Sephardic Supremacy’, they used it as a paradoxical emancipatory attempt to simultaneously stand out and integrate within the non-Jewish majority culture. Sephardic intellectuals in Vienna, living in a predominantly liberal Ashkenazic milieu, turned out to be highly receptive to some of the variants that German-Jewish Sephardism had to offer. Thus, during the second half of the nineteenth century, the Viennese Sephardim developed their own ‘Sephardic Sephardism’ with the aim of celebrating their own Sephardic (i.e. ‘Spanish’) heritage within a predominantly Ashkenazic environment. In the process, Sephardic Sephardism redefined the Viennese Sephardim’s self-image as Sephardic Jews, especially within the Eastern Sephardic Diaspora, where most Jews previously had little to no awareness of their Spanish origin.

Spain, the Second World War, and the Holocaust. History and Representation ed. by Sara J. Brenneis and Gina Herrmann

Reviewed by: Spain, the Second World War, and the Holocaust. History and Representation ed. by Sara J. Brenneis and Gina Herrmann Ellen Mayock Brenneis, Sara J. and Gina Herrmann, eds. Spain, the Second World War, and the Holocaust. History and Representation. U of Toronto P, 2020, 913 pp. ISBN: 978 1487505707. With their co-edited collection titled Spain, the Second World War, and the Holocaust, Sara Brenneis and Gina Herrmann have compiled an outstanding body of work that addresses important gaps and lags in Spanish historiography caused in part by the comparatively late passage of the Law of Historical Memory (2007) and in part by the significant archival discoveries that were yet to be made. The subtitle, History and Representation, signals the deep dive Brenneis, Herrmann, and their contributors take to provide full historical accounts of Spaniards’ involvement in the Second World War and the Holocaust and to examine with a critical eye cultural products (memoirs; novels; newspaper articles; documentary and fictional films; posters; etc.) from the 1930s through the 2010s. The cover photo, featuring Francisco Franco at his desk, telephone and a framed photo of Adolf Hitler to his right, invites readers to rethink the snarled entanglements of the Franco regime with Hitler and Nazi Germany, a point reinforced in the volume’s numerous considerations of Spain’s political involvements in the early part of World War II, when the Axis powers appeared to be moving towards victory. In the introduction, Brenneis and Herrmann state their aims for the book: “This book is the first to engage critically with the interdisciplinary implications of the two key paradoxes that mark our understandings of Spain during the Second World War and the Holocaust: that Spain declared itself neutral yet played a role in the Second World War; and that Spain has long promulgated the myth of the Franco regime as saviour of Jews, when in fact Spain also hastened the destruction of European Jewry” (3). The editors cite Haim Avni, who invokes the infamous Expulsion of 1492 and the long centuries of Inquisition as important touchstones for understanding the history and representation of Sephardic Jews. The volume offers nine sections, or “parts,” that contextualize the history of antisemitism in Spain, Spain’s links to Jewish communities, Spanish exiles in France, Spanish Republicans in the Nazi camps, propaganda, the Blue Division, Nazis in Spain, representations of the Holocaust in contemporary Spanish and Ladino culture, and Holocaust appropriation in Spain. Brenneis and Herrmann guide readers through these major themes by usefully conceptualizing them as “a series of interlocking dramas that develop simultaneously on different stages” (14). In fact, while the volume’s 711 pages might suggest the need for some skimming, each one of the “stories” (14), or chapters, is so compelling that readers will want to absorb every word. Doing so yields an enhanced understanding of the history of Spanish Jewry and of the vexing reasons for the long silences on the topic. The Prologue, by Haim Avni, sets the stage for understanding the “points of convergence” (31) of Jews and Spaniards and highlights in particular Francoist Spain’s complicity in the bombing of Guernica, the nation’s geographical stretch in Morocco and Tangier, and its connections to Germany and Italy (44). Each section and chapter offers a compelling historical overview of the theme and, for this reviewer, new information and analyses that have greatly complemented [End Page 143] my research and approaches to questions of historical memory in Spain. Particularly illuminating chapters include but are not limited to: Jacobo Israel Garzón’s examination and archival review of Spain’s treatment of Jews from the mainland peninsula, Northern Africa, and Nazi Europe; Tabea Alexa Linhard’s “Routes of the Renowned and the Nameless: Clandestine Border-Crossing at the Pyrenees, 1939-1945,” with its references to Anne Frank, Mercè Rodoreda, Walter Benjamin, and “stateless” Jewish refugees (the “stateless” are also examined in many other chapters, including Juan M. Calvo Gascón’s on Mauthausen); and Geneviève Dreyfus-Armand’s chapter, which studies Spanish Republicans exiled in France and highlights Neus Català’s work on Spanish female resistance fighters, a topic examined in careful detail in Gina Hermann’s essay on Ravensbr...

The use of clinical impact of the breast cancer intrinsic subtype-Prosigna assay for adjuvant treatment decision in early breast cancer with hormone receptor positive and HER-2 negative Middle East women.

e12527 Background: Clinico-pathological evaluations of intrinsic subtypes by immunohistochemistry (IHC) are routinely used for treatment decision in patients with early-stage breast cancer (EBC). The Prosigna (PAM50) gene signature, is validated test measures the expression levels of 50 genes from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tumor samples. It permits intrinsic subtype classification of tumor and prognostic test of risk of recurrence (ROR) score. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the impact of Prosigna results on type of adjuvant treatment in EBC, to overcome disparities by comparing the results on different ethnicity groups in Israel and to asses physicians treatment decision before and after Prosigna results. Methods: This prospective, observational study was carried out in 7 Medical Centers at Northern Israel. Postmenopausal women with hormone-receptor–positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)–negative invasive EBC were enrolled. Physicians completed treatment confidence questionnaires prior to and after receiving Prosigna test results. Only EBC : T 1-2, N0 and N1 were included. Results: Between May 2018 and April 2021, 238 women were enrolled, 204 patients are eligible for this analysis. Ashkenazi Jews were 38%, Sephardi Jews 32% and 30% were Palestinian Arab women. Mean age was 65.28 years. T1 was diagnosed in 82.3%, T2 in 17.3% and N1 in 22.4% of pts. At time of diagnosis tumor subtypes were categorized based on IHC as Luminal A in 50%, 54.4%, 59.5% and Luminal B in 50%, 44.6% and 40.5% of Sephardi, Ashkenazi and Arab patients retrospectively. Intrinsic tumor subtypes detected by the Prosigna test were Luminal A in 63.8%, 71%, 74.3% and Luminal B in 34.5% (+1.7% basal like), 29% and 25.7% respectively. No significant different between these groups. Overall 50.5% of pts were low risk, 26% intermediate risk and 23.5% high risk due to Prosigna results. Following Prosigna results 23.4% of the physicians changed their treatment recommendation. Conclusions: To our knowledge this is the first study using Prosigna test in Middle East women with early breast cancer. The use of Prosigna results led to a 23.4% change in adjuvant treatment decision. The results of this prospective study is similar to the data published in other studies in the literature. The intrinsic tumor subtypes and risk of recurrence detected by Prosigna adds to the physicians' confidence in the choice of treatment type. Prosigna test was additive for understanding the biology and for adjuvant treatment choice in both Jewish and Palestinian women in Israel.

Botánica Sephardica

AbstractThis article traces the genealogy of a Jewish-owned botánica located in East Harlem in the 1930s and 1940s. Botánicas are understood to manifest an intricate, transatlantic religious, spiritual, and healing world, offering herbal products, sacramental goods, ritual implements, and counseling to Italian, Latinx, Black, and Caribbean practitioners of folk Catholicism, herbalism, hoodoo, Vodou, Santería, Espiritismo, Curanderismo, Òrìṣà worship and other ethnomedical and spiritual systems. Yet this botánica was owned by an Eastern Mediterranean Jew from the Ottoman/Italian island of Rhodes, and it integrated Sephardic and Mediterranean histories and sources of inspiration. Extraordinarily, this history stands for a greater whole. Jews were pioneering spiritual merchants in the United States. Restoring their history requires journeying globally, beginning with Ottomans’ fidelity to herbalism; tracing émigré Sephardic Jews’ uneven dialogue with Black African men and women in colonial Central and Southern Africa; and delving into the commercial, spiritual, and racial interplay furthered by Jewish-owned pharmacies and botánicas in New York City, Baltimore, Atlanta, Memphis, Charleston, Chicago, and Los Angeles and by Jewish spiritual merchants and their Caribbean, Latinx, and Black patrons. All this introduces an unexpected Jewish and Mediterranean history to the botánica, and an unexpectedly multifarious spiritual, mercantile, and racial dimension to Jewish history.