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Arab dominated region. Their
knowledge spread to France,
to North Africa, to Italy, to
Greece, to Turkey, to Egypt
and other lands. There were
multiple means for spreading
this early, yet fruitful human
knowledge: the troubador, the
clergyman, the student, the
conqueror, and the Jewish
exile. Wherever this knowl
edge went it left a deep im
pression. But, let us not forget
the men behind thig wealth.
The Jew—better still, the
philosopher, the moralist, the
poet, the medical man, the
governmental minister, the
financier, the rabbi — once
ejected from his home in 1492,
was received with open hands
by many of the other Euro
pean and Near Eastern coun
tries. Sultan Biazit the Second
of Turkey was indeed proud
to receive this wandering peo
ple as his own, because he
very well knew that Spain’s
loss would be Turkey’s gain.
The Sultan was indeed right,
for wherever the exile went,
there also went all of this
great knowledge that contri
buted to the development and
to the bettermen of his new
homeland.
By now, the great masters of
the Spanish ghettos were dead.
Yehuda Halevi, Ibn Gabirol,
Sem Tov, Chasdai ben Chap-
rut, Maimonides, Abravanel
were no longer among them,
but their work lived among
the people and gave them the
pride and the courage to per
sist living no matter the ob
stacles confronting them. The
Sephardim lived on and on,
not through one persecution,
but many. The jealously of the
people, the blindness of the
churchmen, the ignorance of
the masses in whatever land
the ex-Spanish Jew found him
self brought new memories
of the past; memories of the
Spanish dungeons, where a
Jew was no more than an in
dividual destined to rot in the
cellars, or end his life as a
human torch.
These inhumanities would
have broken many men, but
not now the Sephardic peo
ple. On the contrary they held
tied to their God, to their re
ligion, even to their tradition.
Their love of God and re
ligion is what kept the Span
ish exile united with his cor-
religionists of other nationali
ties. Yet, there was a stronger
bond uniting all Sephardim
the world over. This unshake-
able bond was their love of
tradition, which is a union be
tween the old Hebrew laws
and the Spanish customs and
culture.
In time, four and one half
centuries, in space, hundreds
or thousands of miles separate
Sephardic Jews from their
Spanish cultural origins.
Nevertheless, through these
years and across this space,
they have clung with remark
able tenacity to their Spanish
language and to the traditional
poetry and musical treasure,
which their forebears took
with them wherever they
went. One may seriously ques
tion whether this long stand
ing tradition can be preserved
any longer against the un-
precedently disrupting influ
ences of our levelling age; but
its preservation during so long
a period, even if it must cease,
certainly bears witness to the
vitality of the language and
the culture of Spain and to
the pride and love which the
exiles have felt for their form
er homeland. Among the many
factors of Sephardic culture—
factors which need to be
studied thoroughly in all of
their organic complexity—the
writer proposes to single out
some of the Judeo-Spanish lit
erary materials as preserved
by the communities with
which he is directly and in
directly familiar.
The cultural heritage of the
Spanish Jew can be divided
into two parts: the written
and the oral.
Although the written is well
known by the people of all
lands, it nevertheless is not
recognized to be of Sephardic
origin. We all have studied
the ideas of Spinoza without
realizing that this great philo
sopher was the son of Spanish
exiles. We of the Jewish faith
have read many a poem dur
ing our religious services with
out the least idea that they
were written by some of the
greatest lovers of God and Is
rael—the Sephardim Yehuda
Halevi, Chasdai ben Chaprut,
Izhak ben Levi. Today, more
than ever, the students of
literature read or hear of cer
tain literary material, with
out the slightest idea of its
Judeo-Spanish creation. This
great wealth of literary
knowledge is not only limited
to the writers that have re
mained faithful to the Law of
Moses irregardless of bodily
harm or cost of life. The in
fluence of their ancestors was
perpetuated even to those who
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