Local News

Echoes of a time past

By Joshua Rosenstein, Assistant Editor, JTNews

    Throughout more

    than 5,000 years of Jewish history, time and again other

    peoples have oppressed, murdered and desperately attempted

    to convert Jews away from their religion.

   

    In the story of

    Hanukkah, the Syrians demanded that Jews abandon their

    faith. They looted the temple, martyred thousands and forced

    conversions. But Judaism survived — despite a rising tide of

    Hellenic customs and Jews who subscribed to them, the main

    body of Jews clung tenaciously to their code of beliefs.

    Even then, the tension between how much Judaism one can

    retain in times of oppression was a difficult one.

   

   

    History endlessly

    appears to repeat itself. During the Spanish Inquisition,

    the same kinds of oppression occurred. Yet among the

    communities of forced or willing converts living in Spain in

    the 16th century, a new attitude toward Judaism began to

    take root. This modern way of approaching the religion

    legitimated a pick-and-choose model of belief.

   

    The convert

    communities, even under strict observation by Inquisitionist

    neighbors, chose the aspects of Judaism that they were

    prepared to hang onto and which aspects they would abandon.

    The concept that one could choose how Jewish to be was

    revolutionary at the time. Today however, it is just as

    relevant as it was 500 years ago.

   

    Dr. David Gitlitz,

    a specialist on just this subject, was scheduled to speak at

    the Seattle Art Museum on Dec. 2 as a part of the Nextbook

    History, Culture and Ideas Series. His lecture, “Jews and

    Crypto-Jews: The Early Years in the Americas,” corresponded

    to the Seattle Art Museum’s new exhibition, Spain in the Age

    of Exploration 1492-1819. He is currently working on a book

    about the varieties of pilgrimage in Jewish tradition. 

    JTNews spoke with Gitlitz before his visit.

   

    Gitlitz,

    originally from New York, earned his Ph.D. in Hispanic

    literature from Harvard. He gradually became fascinated by

    the converts and children of converts in Spain during the

    Spanish Inquisition. He was intrigued by the ways that

    people navigated multi-culturalism during the oppressive

    times of the Inquisition by keeping one foot in two worlds.

    The Spanish Inquisition lasted from 1480-1835, but Gitlitz

    specializes in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries.

   

   

    “The people of

    16th-century Spain chose how much Judaism to accept as a way

    of legitimizing the degree to which they thought of

    themselves as Jewish,” Gitlitz said. “There were people that

    followed all of the traditions of kashrut, something

    almost impossible to do under the circumstances. Some chose

    to eat everything but pork, and some only refrained from

    eating pork for 40 days before Passover.”

   

    Historically,

    medieval Jews had been black or white about their religion:

    either they were Jews in appearance, belief, custom, ritual

    and behavior, or they were not. But the convert communities

    found themselves in a different world.

   

    “Today, Jewish

    identity is, to a large extent, an individual feeling. We

    feel we have a choice how much halachah to follow,

    how much of the belief system we want to subscribe to, how

    often we want to go to synagogue. We pick and choose from

    the wide range of Jewish beliefs that reinforce our identity

    and are comfortable for us. We feel we have the right, even

    the obligation, to do this,” said Gitlitz.

   

    Gitlitz teaches

    Hispanic and Judaic Studies at the University of Rhode

    Island. Though he is Ashkenazi by descent, he feels he has

    spent enough time immersed in Hispanic culture to be

    considered an honorary Sephardi. He has lived for long

    periods of time in Spain, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. He

    also served as the UCLA endowed chair of Sephardic history

    in 1994.

   

    Gitlitz’s

    research has a direct correlation to the modern,

    Jewish-American reality. “Here, we are not coerced, but

    rather seduced away from our Jewish heritage. In this time

    and place as well, people choose how much of their Jewish

    identity they want to hang on to. It is as much an issue now

    as it was in 16th-century Spain,” he said.

   

    Like most Jewish

    holidays, on Hanukkah we tell a story. It is a story that

    has handed down and repeated through the ages, and it

    generates difficult questions: how Jewish do we need to be

    to fulfill the responsibility of our heritage? How do we

    learn from our history and still be free to live our future?

    Gitlitz looks to history to find the answers to these very

    current questions.

   

    “The Inquisition

    preserved incredibly detailed data. Scribes took down

    verbatim testimony. The culture of peeping toms gave us a

    richness of detail about ordinary people that we usually

    don’t find in historical documents,” he said.