Why
Jewish Blood Runs in Modern Spaniards
By
Shelomo Alfassa
Syndicated: Israel National News & History News
Network (December
7, 2008)
Note:
This is ironic as a spring 2008 survey by the Pew Research
Centers
Pew Global Attitudes Project found 46% of the Spanish
population rating Jews unfavorably.
On
December 5, 2008, the New York Times reported
that 20% of the population of the Iberian Peninsula
(modern Spain and Portugal) had Sephardic Jewish ancestry
and 11% had DNA markers reflecting Islamic ancestors.
To those familiar with the long and dark history of
the Jews of Spain and Portugal, this is not of tremendous
surprise. To understand the history of the Sephardic
Jews is to understand why the genetic testing returned
such results.
Jews
most likely arrived in what is today Spain, sailing
from the holy land with both the Phoenician sea traders
and later with the Greeks. Prior to the Phoenicians
arriving on the shores of Iberia, many different groups
inhabited the peninsula. The Greeks took up sea going
trade, much like the Phoenicians, sometime between 500
and 800 BCE. The potential for the Greeks, much like
the Phoenicians, to have carried along Ioudaios (Jews)
on their sailing vessels is quite plausible. The Greeks
set up emporiums (trade centers) in Iberia and traditional
Greek-style colonies in at least one city as early as
800-700 BCE. Among these Hellenistic city-states, it
is known Jews made up a considerable portion of the
population.
Long
before the Spanish language came into being or before
the Catholic religion ever came to the Iberian Peninsula,
Jews existed there. Jews lived under oppressive and
successive dominant societies, including the Romans,
the Germanic tribes (Vandals, Visigoths and others),
the Islamic tribes consisting of Arabs and Berbers,
and eventually under the Catholic Kings, the ancestors
of the modern monarchy of Spain.
The
Jews in Spain, prior to the Expulsion of 1492, were
a successful people, many were part of the aristocracy
of the country. If we look at a comparison, the Spanish
Jews of 1340, were no less influential and vital to
cities in Spain as were the Jews to New York City in
1940; the same can be said of the Jews of Baghdad of
the same year. They were judicial and political leaders,
heads of government, they held legislative power, and
they either controlled or could at least influence those,
which were in charge of communal infrastructure. Like
the Jews of Baghdad and New York City of 1940, the Jewish
community in Spain some 600 years earlier possessed
many wealthy and powerful individuals, both serving
in the private sector as well as for the government.
The
events leading up to the final Expulsion of the Jews
from Iberia between 1492-1497 are written in the book
of the darkest days of the Jewish people; this period
was the worst period for the Jewish people since the
destruction of ancient Jerusalem and prior to the Holocaust.
If they did not leave by threat of expulsion, those
Jews which did not straightforwardly welcome Christianity
into their lives (and those that were accused by the
Catholic Church of being heretics) were often sentenced
to lifelong punishment and occasionally sentenced to
death by burning or asphyxiation. Burning and looting
Jewish homes, property, stores, community buildings
and houses of prayer were common place for hundreds
of years. These attacks were often brought about by
Catholic clergyman which preached fire and brimstone
against the Jewish communities. Not being able to observe
their religion, scores of Jews fled, many others converted
to Christianity, ahead of and during the Spanish and
Portuguese Inquistions. Near 50,000 or more were said
to have outright converted in Barcelona alone during
the pogroms of 1391-this-in a city which a couple hundred
years earlier was the Western center of all Diaspora
Jewry!
The
late editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia Judaica,
the Oxford historian Prof. Cecil Roth, said that in
Spain, on some occasions, entire Jewish communities
led by their rabbis, converted to Christianity instead
of facing punishment and surrendering everything they
possessed. In Portugal, Roth indicated that Jews made
up such a large population, that to be called a "Portuguese"
meant that you were a Jew. Roth made a proclamation
in the 1930's indicating that there was probably no
one in present Spanish society of which a tincture of
Jewish blood did not run.
In
addition of conversion of Jews (and Muslims) to Christianity,
centuries of rape and intermarriage certainly have clouded
the gene pool of those living on Iberia. Genetic research
technology is evolving at an exponential rate. The science
of genetics remains a subject which continues to develop
rapidly in both scientific terms as well as societal.
In this branch of biology that deals with heredity,
especially the mechanisms of hereditary transmission
and the variation of inherited characteristics among
similar or related organisms, the genetic constitution
of an individual, class, or group (in this case the
Sephardim) is being increasingly explored. The report
that 20% of the population of the Iberian Peninsula
has Sephardic Jewish ancestry is not surprising. Sephardic
and Ashkenazic Jews were geographically and religiously
separate populations, these two populations often display
significant differences in the incidence of genetic
diseases and medical conditions, as well as markers
which can be isolated through testing of their blood
groups, chromosomal testing and through the examination
of maternal mitochondrial DNA.
The
Sephardic Jews make up the second largest division of
the Jewish population; they have their historic roots
in Spain, Portugal, as well as due to migrations, in
North Africa. Sephardic Jews comprise the second largest
group in the worldwide Jewish population after Ashkenazic
Jews that stem from Central and Eastern Europe. They
have developed and possess a shared relationship based
upon unique religious traditions, collective ideals,
customs and ethnicity. Today, Sephardic Jews inhabit
all corners of the earth, with large populations living
in North and South America as well as France, Turkey
and Israel. Smaller populations exist in The Netherlands,
Britain and the Balkans.
Shelomo
Alfassa is a historian and writer concentrating on Sephardic
Jewry.
He has written several books, including: "Ethnic
Sephardic Jews in the Medical Literature."
www.alfassa.com