Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 46, No. 15, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 9, 1992 Page: 2 of 32
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Feature 2
TEXAS JEWISH POST, THURSDAY, APRIL 9, 1992, PASSOVER ISSUE-IN OUR 46TH YEARI
Street in Old Toledo, Spain, during the time of Jewish residence there-abruptly
banned 500 years ago as of March 31.
By Aliza Marcus
MADRID, (JTA)—In a ceremony redo-
lent of the pomp and flourish that befits
royalty, King Juan Carlos of Spain and
Queen Sofia righted a 15th-century wrong
on Tuesday, March 31.
In the presence of Israeli President Chaim
Herzog; his predecessor, Yitzhak Navon;
and hundreds of others at Madrid’s Beth
Yaacov synagogue, the Spanish regents
honored the Jews whose ancestors another
Spanish royal couple expelled 500 years
ago.
On March 31,1492, King Ferdinand and
Queen Isabella signed the edict ordering
Spain’s 200,000 Jews to either convert to
Catholicism or leave.
It was an act that profoundly affected not
only Jewish history but the histories of
Spain and the many countries of Europe,
Africa and the Americas where the descen-
dants of Spanish Jews live.
For Moises Bengio, who arrived in Spain
from Morocco 30 years ago, Tuesday’s
ceremony brought tears of joy.
"I wish that my ancestors could come
out of their graves and see the king in the
synagogue,” said Bengio, one of the par-
ticipating cantors
"I am filled with emotions that border on
crying.” the 68-year-old chazan said.
‘Twenty years ago we could never imagine
this day would come. Even 30 years ago,
we were barely tolerated,” he said.
Dignitaries representing Spain’s esti-
mated 12,000 Jews and Jews worldwide
attended the 90-minute ceremony. This is
“a sacred hour," Salomon Gaon, the former
Sephardic chief rabbi of the Brithish Com-
monwealth, told the assemblage.
The king, who was visiting a synagogue
in Spain for the first time, was visibly
moved as Gaon cited things both he and
Herzog had done as an example to all
nations to live together in peace.
"This is the moment each of us must bow
to God in the heavens, who in his grace
made us witness to an act of reconciliation
that finds its expression in the presence in
this sanctuary of the king of Spain,” Gaon
said.
The king and the Israeli president were
blessed by the Sephardic rabbi in Ladino,
the language of old Spanish Jewry.
The ceremony in the 24-year old syna-
gogue star ted at 6 p.m. local time, when the
king unveiled a plaque commemorating “a
solemn act of re-encounter with Spanish
Judaism.”
The king, wearing a white yarmulka,
and the queen, her hair partly covered by a
lacy black kerchief in line with Jewish
custom, sat on plush red velvet chairs on
one side of the Torah Ark. President Herzog
and his wife sat on the other side.
The king, speaking in Spanish, cited the
many contributions Jews made to Medi-
eval Spain and thanked those countries that
gave haven to the Jews after the 1492 edit.
Some in the audience wept
The king paid tribute to the “strength of
spirit” of Spanish Jews, forced to leave
because the state demanded “religious uni-
formity.”
"We have known moments of splendor
and of decadence,’ ’thekingsaid.“We have
lived through periods of great respect for
political and ideological freedom, as well
as periods of intolerance and persecution
for political, ideological or religious rea-
sons,” he said.
"But what matters is not the accountabil-
ity of our mistakes or our successes, but
rather the will to project and analyze the
past with a view to our future, the will to
work together in the pursuit of a noble
undertaking,” the king said.
Juan Carlos did not, however, apologize
for the expulsion edict, nor did the Jewish
community expect him to.
"We don’t think an apology is in order
since you cannot blame Spain today for
what happened,” said Samuel Toledano,
secretary-general of the Federation of Jew-
ish Communities of Spain. “It has a highly
symbolic significance that he comes to us,
to our synagogue, to extend his welcome
and sympathy.”
An Israeli official attending the ceremony
echoed Toledano’s feelings, saying that if
Jews started demanding that everyone
apologize for things that happened in the
past, “we’d never have time to get anything
else done.”
The ceremony, which was written about
in Spanish newspapers days before it took
place, was part of Sepharad ’92, a series of
events sponsored by the government and
Jewish organizations to commemorate Jew-
ish life in Spain.
The Jews now living in Spain arrived
relatively recently. The majority came from
Morocco in the 1950s and 1960s, when
they began to feel nervous about their fu-
ture in a Moslem country.
Thousands of others have since come
from Latin America, many came from
Argentina during that country’s tumultu-
ous years of the “dirty war” of the 1970s
and early 1980s.
Although Jews did not have full rights
under Spanish dictator Francisco Franco,
his death in 1975 began the slow process
toward full recognition of Jewish and other
religious minorities in the overwhelmingly
Catholic country.
In 1978, the government approved a
new constitution that guaranteed freedom
of ideology, religion and worship and did
much to equalize the status of religious
minorities.
A few years later, the Jewish community
started working on a set of accords that
would assure them the freedom to practice
Judaism freely. The accords were signed
by the government in 1990, and are due to
be ratified by Parliament this year.
The accords formalize various rights
such as the religious observance of holi-
days in civil institutions, such as the armed
forces, grant tax exemption for synagogues
and give civil recognition to religious wed-
dings.
"It took a long time because we had to
break ingrained habits acquired over hun-
dreds of years between the church and
state,” said Toledano, explaining the 10
years it took the community to get the
agreement before Parliament.
Toledano and others said that despite
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Wisch, J. A. & Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 46, No. 15, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 9, 1992, newspaper, April 9, 1992; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth754778/m1/2/: accessed July 10, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .