Academic literature on the topic 'Jewish communists – Spain'

This article looks at the changing significations of the word “fascist” within communist discourses in Iraq and in Israel. I do so in order to illustrate how fascism, a concept signifying a political theory conceptualized and practiced in Italy, Germany, and Spain, became a boarder frame of reference to many leftist intellectuals in the Middle East. The articles shows that communist discourses formulated in Iraq during the years 1941-1945 evoked the word “fascist” not only in order to discredit Germany and Italy but also, and more importantly, as a way of critiquing Iraq’s radical pan-Arab nationalists and Iraq’s conservative elites who proclaimed their loyalty to pan-Arabism as well. In other words, the article studies the ways in which Iraqi communist intellectuals, most notably the leader of the Iraqi Communist Party, Fahd, shifted the antifascist global battle to the Iraqi field and used the prodemocratic agenda of the Allies to criticize the absence of social justice and human rights in Iraq, and the Iraqi leadership’s submissive posture toward Britain. As it became clear to Iraqi communists that World War II was nearing its end, and that Iraq would be an important part of the American-British front, criticism of the Iraqi Premier Nūrī al-Saʿīd and his policies grew sharper, and such policies were increasingly identified as “fascist”. Within this context, Fahd equated chauvinist rightwing Iraqi nationalism in its anti-Jewish and anti- Kurdish manifestations with fascism and Nazi racism. I then look at the ways in which Iraqi Jewish communists internalized the party’s localized antifascist agenda. I argue that Iraqi Jewish communists identified rightwing Iraqi nationalism (especially the agenda espoused by a radical pan-Arab Party called al-Istiqlāl) as symptomatic of a fascist ideology. Finally, I demonstrate how Iraqi Jewish communists who migrated to Israel in the years 1950-1951 continued using the word “fascist” in their campaigns against rightwing Jewish nationalism and how this antifascist discourse influenced prominent Palestinian intellectuals

This article highlights issues pertaining to the Sephardim ([-im] is the masculine plural Hebrew ending and Sepharad is the Hebrew name for Spain. Sephardim thus literally means the Jews of Spain) in Sarajevo from the time of their arrival in the Ottoman Empire in the late fifteenth century until the present day. I describe the status quo for the Sephardi minority in post-Ottoman Sarajevo, in the first and second Yugoslavia, and in today's post-Communist Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The objective is to shed light on how historic preconditions have influenced identity formation as it expresses itself from a Sephardic perspective. The aim is moreover to generate knowledge of the circumstances that affected how Sephardim came to understand themselves in terms of their Jewish identification. I present empirical findings from my semi-structured interviews with Sarajevo Sephardim of different generations (2015 and 2016). I argue that while none of the interlocutors conceive of Jewish identification as divergent from halachic interpretations of matrilineal descent, they moreover propose other conceptions of what it means to be Jewish, such as celebrating Shabbat and other Jewish holidays, and other patterns of socialization. At the same time, these individuals also assert alternative forms of being Bosnian, one that includes multiple ethnicities, and multiple religious ascriptions. This study elucidates a little-explored history and sheds light on the ways in which historical conditions have shaped contemporary, layered framings of identification among Sarajevo's current Jewish population. This article is relevant for those interested in contemporary Sephardic Bosnian culture and in the role and function of ideology in creating conditions for identity formation and transformation.

The author is challenging the Romanian outdated methodology of research of the well-known Dacian citadels from the late Iron Age excavated during the last 70 years. He is stressing the danger for the health of the Romanian society of the so-called “dacomania”, a trend originated from the communiste period which developed and became stronger and stronger. The duty of the academic community is to fight using the correct research methodology, otherwise it will be vulnerable in front of the irrationale propaganda.The first part of the study deals with the architecture of the Dacian citadels from the Șureanu (Sebeșului) Mountains from south-western Transylvania. The focus of the author’s considerations is concentrated on the building technique of the defense stone-walls. As stone walls are rare during the Iron Age on the territory of Romania, the massive fortifications found in the mountains mentioned above are spectacular. This evolution was explained as a consequence of the development of the Dacian political structures till to a state stage during the 1st century BC. Then Burebista, the first king established his residence at Sarmizegetusa and after conquered the Greek cities from the Black Sea shore, used Greek builders for his citadels. The influence of the Hellenistique building technology is obvious. But the structures were named by Romanian researchers in the field “murus Dacicus” a local original type of fortification wall. The main local feature was consider the using of the wood to link the stone blocks of the wall. The wooden beams were fixed in the blocks faces in some special cuts in the shape of dovetail. The author is offering examples from France, where at Mont Saint Odile and at Frankenbourg in Alsace, there are massive fortifications using the same technique of sticking together the stone blocks. Even their chronology is not well established, it is very probable that the technique arrived in northern Gaul from the Southern Greek cities, maybe by Etruscan intermediary. So he rejects the concept of “murus Dacicus”, the original local Dacian contribution being unrecognizable.The second analysis, more extended is dedicated to the so-called Dacian temples from Sarmizegetusa Regia (Grădiștea Muncelului). The author doubts concerning the identification as sanctuaries of the rows of round stone bases uncovered by the archaeologists. His first objection is based on the archaeological inventory recovered. There are only iron nails and iron elements used in assembling the beams of roofs. In prehistory the possibility of identification of a building as a sacred one is based on cult objects, or cultic structures (as ritual altars, hearths etc.), giving as examples the Neolithic sanctuary at Parța, or buildings from the Iron Age at Popești, or Cârlomănești in Southern Romania. In the reconstructions proposed by several architects and archaeologists as Dinu Antonescu, I. H. Crișan, I. Glodariu is starting from the idea of the using of columns on the stone round bases, resulting a roofed “forest of columns”. It is missing the essential element of a temple: cella, the sacred room. There are also missing any traces of rituals, no animal bones, or votive objects deposits being identified.The author is comparing the plan of the structures from Sarmizegetusa Regia with the plan of the earlier wooden structures identified by geophysical surveys at Mont Lassois (France). The conclusion is that the rows of stone bases are nothing but the bases of granaries elevated from the soil on short stone feet to protect the cereals from moisture and mice (so-called “staddle stones” in England). The European prehistoric sites the system was used. The Romans developed it in big buildings in stone, the horrea. In Northern Spain they are still called horreos and are still functioning, being the best analogies for the buildings vanished at Sarmizegetusa Regia. Some Roman, or Greek technical adviser offered this solution for stockpiling supplies at Sarmizegetusa. It seems normal to the author to exist huge public granaries in an Iron Age settlement which became almost a town, because of the geographical position in the mountains at high altitude with no possibility of local agriculture. The subsistence during the winter of the inhabitants was based on the cereals from the Mureș valley, at approximately 50 km away. The central power had the duty of organizing this supplying system for the community. Starting with the first Austrian researches from the 19th century in the area were reported finds of big quantities of burnt cereals.The Dacians used to have buildings on elevated bases, as are illustrated on Trajan’s Column.It cannot be identified at Sarmizegetusa Regia any temple, nor a “sacred area”, as buildings of the same type were identified at other citadels in the area, as at Costești, for example, where their topographical position is diverse (inside the fortification and outside). The interpretation of a Dacian state with a strong theocratic profile and the fanatical religious feelings of the Dacian warriors is rejected as with no documentary support. At the same time the author is rejecting the interpretation of the systematical destruction of the Dacian buildings by the Romans on religious grounds, giving as example the Latin authors’ different statements and attitude towards the Jews and the Dacians: hate for the Jews, sympathy for the Dacians.

Defence date: 10 September 2008
Examining Board: Prof. Heinz-Gerhard Haupt (European University Institute)-supervisor ; Dr. Helen Beer (University College London)-external supervisor ; Prof. Martin van Gelderen (European University Institute) ; Prof. Nancy Green (EHESS, Paris)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
In July 1936 a major part of the Spanish army revolted against the democratically elected Popular Front government.The resulting civil war raged on from 1936 to 1939,when general Franco’s troops secured victory, resulting in the establishment of the Franco dictatorship that lasted until 1975. The Spanish Civil War did not only pit a coalition of anti-left parties and groups against the ruling Popular Front coalition. The instant support of Hitler and Mussolini for the Nationalists, headed by general Franco, and subsequent support for the republican Loyalists by the Soviet Union and Comintern turned a civil war, that was deeply rooted in internal Spanish strife, into a conflict with significant international dimensions. Before long,the first foreign volunteers could be seen fighting in different militias on the Spanish battlefields. Most of them were delegates for the Workers Olympiad that was to take place in Barcelona in July 1936 and was organised in answer and opposition to the Olympic Games in Berlin. Instead of joining a sports event they ended up in the middle of a civil war and many decided to stay, volunteering to fight the revolters and subsequently serving in the different militias, anarchist, socialist and communist, that were organised in the early stages of the conflict. In September 1936 the Communist International (Comintern) decided to recruit an international army in aid of the Republic and its member parties began the recruitment of volunteers.

Structured around the stories of five prominent Moroccan Jewish Communists (Léon René Sultan, Edmond Amran El Maleh, Abraham Serfaty, Simon Lévy, and Sion Asssidon), The Sultan’s Communists examines how Moroccan Jews envisioned themselves participating as citizens in a newly independent Morocco. It also explores how Communism facilitated the participation of Moroccan Jews in Morocco’s national liberation struggle with roots in the mass upheavals of the interwar and WWII periods. Alma Heckman describes how Moroccan Communist Jews fit within the story of mass Jewish exodus from Morocco in the 1950s and ’60s, and how Communist Jews survived oppressive post-independence authoritarian rule under the Moroccan monarchy. These stories unfold in a country that, upon independence from France and Spain in 1956, allied itself with the United States (and, more quietly, Israel) during the Cold War all while attempting to claim a place for itself within the fraught politics of the post-independence Arab world. Heckman’s manuscript contributes to the growing literature on Jews in the modern Middle East, filling in the gaps on the Jewish history of 20th-century Morocco as no other previous book has done.

This article begins in the early Middle Ages, and specifically addresses questions concerning the economic and political situation of Jewry in Western Europe. The period of the high Middle Ages follows, with a focus on developments in community life and the character of Jewish society. The discussion considers the Jewish foundation myths that were born in the twelfth century in an attempt to explain and interpret the social and cultural changes of the time. It examines the nature of the interaction and the form of discourse that characterized the medieval relations between a Christian majority and a Jewish minority culture. It also describes the legal status of the Jews in Western Europe and the Byzantine Empire. The article also discusses Jewish life in Spain, since, for a significant segment of the period under study, Spain was under Muslim rule.

This chapter studies the poetry of Moses Ibn Ezra. Moses was born not later than 1055 and was one of four distinguished brothers from Granada. There is no record of what became of him during the persecution of the Jews in Granada in 1066, but it may have been at this time that he went to Lucena to study under Isaac ibn Gi’at. At all events, one finds him in Granada again when the Jewish community was re-established there, and he gathered round him a circle of scholars and poets, both Jewish and non-Jewish, among whom was the young Judah ha-Levi. His early poetic achievement in Granada received great acclaim. Moses died between 1135 and 1140, and he spent his last years in Christian Spain, longing for the physical and intellectual environment of his birthplace. In addition to his poetical work, Moses ibn Ezra wrote a comprehensive treatise on poetry, and a philosophical work, called ‘The Bed of Spices’

This chapter details the Jewish movement eastward. Toward the end of the thirteenth century and on into the fourteenth, the more advanced polities of the northwest began to limit and then expel their Jews. The Jews expelled from England and France did not opt to return to the Mediterranean Basin, from which their ancestors had originated. The migration of these banished Jews eastward across northern Europe reflects the extent to which the one-time Jewish newcomers had come to identify with their adopted ambience. Jews were also expelled from Spain in 1492 and Portugal in 1497, following the banishments from England, France, and multiple locales in northcentral Europe. However, the Spanish expulsion had enormous impact on Jewish thinking, and the reason is simple. This was the banishment of an age-old Jewish community, one that saw itself and was seen by non-Jews as profoundly rooted in European soil.

This chapter examines the poetry of Joseph Ibn Abithur. Joseph was born in the middle of the tenth century in Merida and lived in Cordoba, which was the centre of Muslim and Jewish civilisation in Spain at this time. There is a tradition, preserved by Abraham ibn Daoud, that he gave an Arabic explanation of the Talmud to the Caliph al-Hakim II. Joseph was surrounded by controversy. He was forced to leave Spain after making an unsuccessful bid for the intellectual leadership of the Jewish community, and he spent the latter part of his life journeying in the lands of the Middle East. He is known as a poet mainly for his liturgical work, much of which was adopted into the prayer-books of the Provencal, Catalonian, and North African Jews. Ultimately, his poetry is more akin to that of the piyyutim of Eastern Mediterranean Jewry than to the ‘new’ poetry beginning to flourish in Spain. The chapter then looks at three of his poems: Sanctification, A Song for the New Year, and Lament on the Devastation of the Land of Israel (1012).

The conversion of Jews to Christianity in late medieval and early modern times was often accompanied by acrimony, and in several cases by violence. Less acrimonious conversions of Jews from the same periods have tended to escape scholarly attention because of their relatively quotidian and private nature, and because the converts in such cases have often been women, and thus were not expected to assume significant public roles as Christians, let alone to lead campaigns against Judaism. This chapter explores one such ‘quiet’ conversion, that of Carlota Liot, a Jewish woman and a merchant from Hesse-Kassel who resided in Consuegra (in Castile-La Mancha) and was baptized in Toledo in 1791 after voluntarily submitting to inquisitorial scrutiny. By comparing her case with those of other Jewish transients, the chapter assesses the degree to which gender shaped the manner and substance of these Jews’ socio-religious transformation in Spain, and shed a fuller light on the history of Jews’ Christianization. This chapter traces Liot's journeys and relocations in detail, to understand the connections between acts of border-crossing and settlement, and the performance of gender as a passport to social and community identity.

This chapter assesses the poetry of Samuel ha-Nagid. Samuel ha-Levi hen Joseph ibn Nagrela was born in Cordoba in 993. After the invasion of the North African Berbers in 1013, he was forced to leave Cordoba, which was sacked, and he settled in Malaga, which was, at this time, part of the Berber province of Granada. The story goes that, while in Malaga, his skill as an Arabic calligraphist came to the attention of the vizier Abu al-Kasim ibn al-Arif, and he was appointed the latter’s private secretary. Before the vizier died, he recommended Samuel to Habbus, king of Granada, who made him vizier in 1027. The Jews henceforth called him Nagid (Prince) as a mark of his eminence within the Jewish community. Samuel was, at one and the same time, poet, rabbi, statesman, and general, and distinguished in each one of these fields. His poems are some of the finest in the whole range of Hebrew literature, and his expertise in the elucidation of Biblical and rabbinic literature was acknowledged by all. His poems are noteworthy for the way in which he was able to inform the artificiality and occasional preciosity of construction with deep and obviously sincere content. Ultimately, his long martial poems are unique in the poetic output of the Spanish Jews.

This chapter describes how many Jews there were, where they lived, and how they earned their living from the time of the destruction of the Second Temple to the mass expulsion of the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula. During the six centuries between the time of Jesus and the time of Muhammad, the number of Jews declined precipitously. Throughout these six centuries, most Jews earned their living from agriculture, as farmers, sharecroppers, fixed-rent tenants, or wage laborers. During the first century, the largest Jewish community dwelled in the Land of Israel. By the mid-twelfth century, Jews could be found in almost all locations from Tudela in Spain to Mangalore in India. By then, their transition into urban skilled occupations was complete. Their specialization into these occupations remains their distinctive feature until today.

Abstract This chapter reviews three collections of essays on the history of antisemitism. The 19 essays in Antisemitism: Historical Concept, Public Discourse (2020) were written as responses to David Engel’s article of 2009, “Away from a Definition of Antisemitism: An Essay in the Semantics of Historical Description.” In it, Engel recapitulates his lingering frustration with the unclear nature of the term “antisemitism.” Meanwhile, the 17 essays in Jews, Liberalism, Antisemitism: A Global History (2021) deal with the complex links among Jews, antisemites, and liberals, not only in Italy, Spain, and Vienna, but also in the United States, Turkey, the Middle East, and even the Caribbean. In Key Concepts in the Study of Antisemitism (2021)—an alphabetical compendium beginning with anti-Judaism and ending with Zionism—the essays discuss emancipation, the Catholic church, nationalism, gender, orientalism, and postcolonialism.