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By Dolores Sloan
 SANTA MONICA, California--In 1996, I decided to make that long awaited trip to Spain. I had earned enough mileage points to fly free on Air France. With a summerbreak from work, off I went for a five-week journey.
I had heard about the Sephardic Jews and the remarkable culture they had established in the Spain of the Middle Ages, but knew no details other than the fragmentary knowledge I had gained as I scanned hurriedly through Jane Gerber’s The Jews of Spain, bought just before departure, too late to digest. Today, the Spanish and Portuguese Tourism
Offices have available brochures for tourists such as me about
sites related to Jewish history in their country, but there were none in 1996.
Much earlier in life, when I was eight or nine years old, my
mother had given me a book called The Little Spanish Dancer and said that my grandfather had shared with her his belief that the family came originally from Spain. The book she gave me had a chapter telling of the Jewish people in Spain from their Golden Age to their persecution and subsequent expulsion from the land in 1492, but the eight-year-old child was more interested in the fictional story of Pilar and her magic castanets than in the sad background information. It was stored in residual memory, to be remembered many years later.
I traveled casually, deciding spontaneously where to go next as I
looked through guide books or talked with other travelers. My journey began in Madrid, from whence I took a day trip to Salamanca, attractedby what I had heard of the university so well regarded from the Middle Ages to today. There, I saw the name Abraham Zacuto for the first time. It was on the front of a library of the University in large, decorative letters. Inquiring within, I learned that he was a Jewish astronomer who had once been a professor at the venerable university and that his work had advanced the science of navigation. I made notes to find
out more later. I could not know that, four years later, I would be
holding a 1502 edition of his celestial almanac in my hands in the archives of the library.
Then I went on to Toledo, where the narrow streets of the former
Jewish quarter and the bridges over the public passageways from
building to building resonated with my romantic spirit. It was in
Toledo that I first saw the name Isaac Abravanel, and learned that he came from a most distinguished family, had been financial adviser to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, and was remembered for his service to his people. In the dimly lit, wide-open space of the El Transito Synagogue, I visualized Abravanel and others like him praying at Sabbath services, seated along the sides of sanctuary around the bima, where the cantor stood. I could not enter the other Jewish site in Toledo, the twelfth century synagogue now called Santa Maria la Blanca, as it was reserved for a wedding party the day I arrived.
In Toledo, my lodging was only one-half block from the Plaza
Mayor, the great square of the city. I would enjoy gazpacho or lunch at the restaurant of my choice, unaware that it was here, and in plazas like this throughout Spain, that auto de fés were carried out between the late 15th and the early 19th centuries. Here, Jews and others, tried by the Inquisition and declared heretics, were strangled or burned at the stake. Although ignorance allowed me to enjoy my wine or the entertainment of performing artists in the lovely, open plazas duringmy first visit, enlightenment would prevent an innocent diversion in
the journeys to follow.
Next, I found myself in wonderful Cordoba, with its great mosque from the days of the ruling Umayyads, the people of mixed Arab and Berber ancestry, who had built a city where thousands of books and many libraries spoke volumes about the
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values of its rulers. I was thrilled by the statue of Maimonides in the old Jewish Quarter, by a restored synagogue on the Calle de los Judios, and by the nearby streets which bore Sephardic Jewish names.
I was seeing, in each step of the journey, the remnants of the culture of the Sephardim, and I was eager to know more. In Granada, for example, I came upon a monument to Columbus. There was the name Luis de Santangel carved on the base, along
with others who had contributed to the success of the navigator’s voyage. Walking around the monument, I noticed a statue with Santangel’s name appended. It showed the man who, I would learn later, was the influential converso courtier to the Catholic rulers, placing a box in the hands of a page. I would learn later that it contained the funds he was loaning the monarchs
to enable the voyage—and Spain’s vast empire-to-be in the New
World. Later I would learn he was of a prominent mercantile family from Valencia who had converted to Catholicism during the early 15th century, when mob action and persecution often gave Jews the choice of “convert or leave.”
And so it was, throughout my journey, coming across sites and
reminders of a glory that was, a glory of the Jewish people—my people— that I had never been told about, not in Sunday school, nor from family conversations about Judaism. I did remember, then, my mother’s words about our possible Spanish heritage, which made me all the more interested in finding out more.
I returned to Santa Fe and went to the library to find books. I
scoured local book stores and searched Books in Print. It was not yet time for the Internet to make instant encapsulated information available to me at the click of an icon. I found nothing other than brief biographies or narratives in encyclopedias. I had not yet discovered that an organization named Kulanu was carrying much information on the subject in its newsletter. If there were no books available in English
for the general reader to learn about the Sephardic Jews, well then, perhaps I should write one. I’d learn through the research and write about it as I went along.
I scrawled the first words of that book on the back of a book festivalprogram in March of 1997. Somewhat edited since first penned 12 years ago, those words began what would become my Preface to The Sephardic Jews of Spain and Portugal.
At a conference during the summer of 1998 on Luis de Santangel
and the Sephardic Jews, I met scholars from Spain, Israel, and the United States who presented papers and discussed sources with me.
Also, the Internet was offering more resources from researchers and universities. I found Kulanu and its newsletter, with articles by writers such as Karen Primack, Michael Freund, and Rufina Bernardetti Silva Mausenbaum, that would serve as resources for my final chapter.
Finally, the book was completed after delays in research and development made necessary by my teaching at a local college. Then I faced a new kind of delay, from publishers not ready to accept what they considered a niche book. Finally, ten years after the initial effort, an editor from McFarland & Company showed interest and guided me toward a simple rewriting that resulted in The Sephardic Jews of Spain and Portugal.
The original title was Love Song for Sefarad, as the book was
intended as homage to the Sephardim who gave Iberia that name.
Indeed, the most important reason for writing The Sephardic Jews of Spain and Portugal is to honor a resourceful and resilient people.
Resourceful? Resilient? Read the evidence in my book!
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