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JEWS ON THE ROCK
OF GIBRALTAR
A Famous Author-Traveller Discovers New-Old Jews
By MARVIN LOWENTHAL
O NCE George Borrow left his Bible there
Gibraltar disappeared from English letters.
Literature is probably the loser, for Gibral
tar could be richly mined by a young novelist in
search of exotics and irony, who feels, or ought
to feel, that Capri and such localities are over
crowded. But it is all gain to the tourist who can
now expend his stock of literary sentimentality on
a few pages of one book. Most of these pages need,
moreover, no modern gloss. The trumpery stone
gate is still there, the flimsy carriage Borrow used
to drive through it, and the hotel that lodged
him. The Rock is still to be found, and quite as
impregnable and prudential, and much as he met
them, the Jews.
Without recourse to Burrow’s bad Hebrew, I
enjoyed a welcome he would gladly have lied to
appropriate. When I recall it, I feel I am lying,
too—so seldom, in truth, has the birth brought
me consideration from brethren in far lands.
Crossing the bay to Gibraltar, admiring the
“lion’s leap” that Borrow, even more than nature,
rendered veridic, I was recommended a moderately
priced hotel by a Bland shipping agent (the pun is
not obligatory—we paid the Bland’s line full
tariff). When we reached shore, however, we
found ourselves preceded by the British North
Atlantic fleet, which quartered scores of officers,
visitors and what-not on the scanty resources of
the town.
We proceeded dubiously to the recommended
hotel. There we were offered nothing but an at
tic closet at a Barbary Coast ransom. With the
Bland agent’s word behind me, I protected and
cajoled. Supported by His Majesty’s fleet, the
hotel manager budged not. As a last resort, won
dering if the pen were mightier than twelve-inch
guns, I flashed a correspondent’s card of the Jew
ish Telegraphic Agency.
“What!” exclaims the manager, withdrawing
a step, “you are a Jew?” Then a wild rush. “1,
too!” he cried as his arms swung upwards under
my shoulder-blades and my legs dangled in air.
By a neat gesture, perfected during some years of
residence in Paris, I dodged both kisses. When
I had regained my feet and got my brother safely
at arm’s length, I learned 1 already had a choice
of rooms at mv own price. 1 was to meet the
parnas and notables of the community, and Gibral
tar was mine for the carting away.
It did not end there. 'Pen minutes later, as I
sauntered up the main street, vaguely calculating
the number of pubs, tobacco shops, and clothing
stores, I was spied by the Bland agent. He made
a run for me. “So am I, so am I!” he shouted,
and between embraces presented me his little son,
and something that sounded as imposing as the
courtesies of the port.
Where, I wondered, do Cook’s Tours keep
themselves? And Hapag? Are Jews so rare in
Gibraltar?
Actually they are not. But Gibraltar is rare,
rarer than the guide books say or most tourists
learn. Although we did not altogether recognize
it at the time, the Rock is an outpost of the Middle
Ages which, crossing the Straits, we were grad
ually to penetrate, the last Middle Ages within
[8]
Marvin Lowenthal, distinguished Jewish au
thor ami traveller, and translator of “Memories
of Gluckcl of Hameln,” who has just concluded
a lecture tour in this country, tells in his own
inimitable way of his meeting with the Jews
of Gibraltar
reach of a European traveler. The pivot of
Morocco and Spain, though no longer either, Gi-
bralter still harbors a flavor of the medieval hos
pitality which once cheered Benjamin of Tudela
on to his inquisite way.
I sat in the offices of Mr. D. Bennaim, a dis
tinguished citizen. 1 learned that the Jews of
Gibraltar are newcomers, compared, that is, to
such venerable communities as the Jews of New
York. Sephardim from North Africa and the
Eastern Mediterranean, they settled on the Rock,
like homing pigeons, shortly after the English con
quest in 1704. They now number little more than
700 out of a total population of 25,000. They
speak Spanish, Ladino, and English, maintain four
synagogues, and appear almost as modern as last
year’s hats.
I could have remained at home to glean these
simple encyclopedic facts, but then I should never
have learned that these unpicturesque Gibraltar
Sephardim are older in the essentials of their Jew
ish life than the Talmud they are beginning to
neglect, older likely than the Torah I heard their
little boys babbling in the Cheder—perhaps, like
the Gioconda, older than the rock they sit on.
For Mr. Bennaim explained to me that he was
a commission merchant. He sold European goods
in Morocco, and bought Moroccan products for
Europe. His correspondents, it appeared, were
scattered from the Great Atlas to the Cotswold
Hills, from the River Dra’a to the Rhine. More
over he was not (alas!) alone. There were, to
say the least, Messrs. Serfaty, Serruya, B :.
Lopez, Benhayon, Beniso and Diaz Leon
dano. From their shabby offices on this d'
rock, I saw continental trade-lines corner
disperse, uniting remote lands, feeding and ff \ z .
ing their needs, I saw the Rodanites on the
and the singing prows of Tyre.
Even in their rivals these Semites had not
changed. 1 enjoy copying from the Comm- i a l
Guide to Gibraltar the names of their com pc r>
Artesani, Baglietto, Faeio, Risso, Bellotti—
is still at war with an undeleted Carthage.
Who will ever write the epic of Jewish ,,m-
merce? Of money lending we have heard more
than enough. But the breaking of paths thi ugh
new waters, the trajects of the desert an u the
traffic with the isles, the enrichment of coui
peoples not alone with prayer and hope- hut
with the bounties of far places, Indian chutm
Flanders and Gillette blades in Soudan, tin was
the ancient burden and gift of Israel.
It is significant that on one of the few oc
casions a Hebrew prophet turned earthy and al
most statistical commerce was his theme- the
“beauty,” Ezekiel calls it, of Tyre. King Chilperic
of sixth century Poland, like the Kaffir savage of
today, depended on the Jew, as Saint Gregory
says, ad species coemendas—“to procure the orna
ments of life.”
An impressive number of the Gibraltar mer
chants supplying local needs were also Jews. I he
number, commented Mr. Bennaim was too im
pressive. Gibraltar is a free port (w r ell 1 knew,
with my pockets stuffed with Camels at six-pence
and a Dunhill lighter for less that a pound),
which means that it costs little to acquire a stock
of goods and the merchants lack for nothing—ex
cept customers. “Too many Jews,” sighed Mr.
Bennaim, “imagine they are chachomim.” They
discover, however, their mistake, and the com
munity has lost two-thirds of its members in the
last ten years.
Unhappy Ben Attar, unhappy Maimaran!
Who booted it, two centuries ago, when Malay
Ismail sat beneath the green umbrella, that you
were Mulay Ismail’s favorite Jews, that Britain
won the Rock and you wrung from her free trade
as part of the price of victory? What served it,
Maimaran, that your father had been trampled
to death beneath the hoofs of a Sultanic horse and
you had ridden to power as part of the price of
indemnity ?
There is, as the reader may guess, Jewish ro
mance behind the free trade of Gibraltar; but the
thought of being able to buy cheap with no one
to sell to, is too distressing for further contempla
tion. “The merchants among the people, ob
serves Ezekiel, “shall hiss at thee.’
Broad palms rise above a great high gate on
Line Wall Road. Behind the gate a garden smile*,
and behind the garden lies the chief synagogue,
one of the few in the Old World, except for vu
gar newcomers, to witness by T its surroundings a
sense of security, and the dignity of being. “ not
among friends, at least free from enemies. \> ^
ever recalls the old synagogue of London
their portals fearfully hidden from the street, or
the eighteenth century synagogue of Berlin
early nineteenth of Vienna slinking in its m
courtyard, will rejoice with me in the brax
of Gibraltar.
It was pleasant, too, to hear the Sephaid.-- !lt( j
for once unmarred bv the unhappy effo: '
boy’s choir. Lacking this, the congregatio ’
bering at least a half hundred, chanted
and practically in tune. By a curious con
(no question of minhag), the women!-
absent. I found them later, curtained oti
rear of a Talmud Torah, listening xvi
gratification to their children conducting a
under the guidance of the melammad.
But I confess I paid small attention to * 1
ness of the Sabbath day. I hardly rema _ ^
stately parade of the Torah around the a
the synagogue. Or the (Please turn to
if, the southern ISR 11 e