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Hispanism and Sephardic studies

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 1; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/17546550903136082

1754-6567

Michelle M. Hamilton,

Medieval and Early Modern Iberia

Abstract After reviewing inherited discourses that have shaped what we come to think of as Sephardic studies, I address from my perspective within Hispanic studies the ways in which contemporary work in Sephardic studies intersects with work being done in the wider academy (such as translation studies, diaspora studies, and African studies), and speculate on how it might develop in the coming decades. One projected path is a focus on the complexity that has characterized Sephardi experience for at least the last 1300 years, not just in the southern Mediterranean but also in northern Europe, the Americas, and parts of Africa and Asia, and that necessarily challenges the presentist bias of much contemporary postcolonial theory, which insists on the novelty/modernity of the postcolonial‐postnational character of today's world. Keywords: Sephardic studiesHispanic studiesHispanismpostcolonial theoryHebrew poetryjarchas Notes 1Evidence of the increasing shift toward cultural studies includes the establishment of the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies in 2000 and the addition of the phrase "Cultural Studies" to the subtitle of La córonica beginning in the Fall 2005 issue. 2See for example, Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs; Pratt, Imperial Eyes; and Rabasa, "Elsewheres;" and "For Empire." 3Gideon Ofrat examines how the experiences of that most famous of Sephardi Jews, the "Jew that is not one," Jacques Derrida, develop into the basic ideas behind postcolonial thought. See Jewish Derrida. A similar argument can be made for the work of Albert Memmi, in which there is a direct connection between his experiences as a Sephardi Jew and his theories on colonialism. See Colonizer and the Colonized; Decolonization and the Decolonized; and Liberation of the Jew. 4On the field of Hispanic studies and Hispanists, see Moraña, Ideologies of Hispanism; Doubleday, "English Hispanists;" Epps and Fernández Cifuentes, Spain Beyond Spain; Gerli, "Inventing the Spanish Middle Ages;" and Millington and Smith, New Hispanisms. 5Greer, "Hispanism," 70–2. 6Beckwith, Charting Memory; Decter, Iberian Jewish Literature, 211. 7Beckwith, Charting Memory, 6; Decter, Iberian Jewish Literature, 211. 8Quoted in Beckwith, Charting Memory, xiv. 9For example, on the Sephardic presence in West Africa, for instance, see Mark and da Silva Horta, "Sephardic Communities on Senegal's Petite Cote;" and Green, "Sephardim of the Petite Côte." On the Sephardim in Shanghai see Meyer, From the Rivers of Babylon to the Whangpoo. For a discussion of the Sephardim across centuries, see Roth, Jews, Visigoths and Muslims in Medieval Spain, 7–40; and Baer, History of the Jews in Christian Spain, 15–22. 10Hutcheson, "Inflecting the 'Converso' Voice," 3. 11Gerli, "Performing Nobility;" Hutcheson, "Cracks in the Labyrinth;" Seidenspinner Nuñez, "Inflecting the Converso Voice." 12Castro's concept of convivencia allowed a space for both Jews and Muslims as actors in Spanish history (España en su historia, 33, 54). This concept (as discussed in detail by Maya Soifer in "Beyond 'Convivencia'") forced his fellow Hispanomedievalists to address the role of the Sephardim in Spanish history and cultural production (España en su historia, 447). Gerli points to the insufficiency of Castro's idea of convivencia to accommodate the complexity of converso identity ("Performing Nobility," 33). Márquez Villanueva, Hutcheson's mentor, also looms large in the critical cluster of La corónica. Although not one of Castro's students, Márquez Villanueva has developed a large corpus of studies on various aspects of converso literature in harmony with Castro's idea of cultural exchange. See, as a small sampling, "Converso Problem" and "Hispano‐Jewish Cultural Interactions." 13This special volume of La corónica was followed, however, by several important studies on converso identity as expressed in cancionero poetry, such as those of Kaplan, Evolution of 'Converso' Literature; and Aaronson‐Friedman, "Identifying the Converso Voice." Nirenberg has recently questioned the concept of the converso in fifteenth‐century Spanish poetry ("Figures of Thought"). 14Recent historical revisionist studies include Meyerson, Jewish Renaissance in Fifteenth‐Century Spain; Ray, Sephardic Frontier; Anidjar, "Futures of al‐Andalus;" Graizbord, Souls in Dispute; and Nirenberg, Communities of Violence. Daniel Schroeter interrogates the impact of such narratives on the Sephardim of North Africa ("From Sephardi to Oriental"). 15Díaz Mas, Sephardim, 117, 148–50. Eleazar Gutwirth addresses liturgical literature that does not figure in contemporary translations and editions ("Politics of the Hyphen," 398–9). 16See, for example, La epopeya castellana. In his scholarship on the Spanish epic Cantar de Mío Cid, Menéndez Pidal imaginatively creates a lost epilogue to the "Raquel y Vidas" episode in which the Cid returns to repay the Jewish moneylenders whom he shortchanged in Cantar I (En torno al Poema del Cid, 27–8). 17See Armistead et al., Romancero judeo‐español en el Archivo Menéndez Pidal. 18Menéndez Pidal, Estudios sobre el Romancero, 58–9. See also Alvar, Poesía tradicional de los judíos españoles, xiii. 19On folklore and nationalism see Shuman and Briggs, "Introduction." 20See "Maír José Benadrete" (sic.) in the Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture's website at http://www.sephardicstudies.org/mair.html. 21It was only in 1953 that Benardete published his thesis, Hispanic Culture and Character of the Sephardic Jews, in which he underscored especially the degree to which Sephardim self‐identified with Spanish culture. Armistead and Silverman would later publish the ballads Benardete collected (Judeo‐Spanish Ballads from New York). 22Armistead and Silverman, Romances judeo‐españoles de Tánger. Similar ballad collection was conducted in the 1930s by Emma Adatto in Seattle, Washington. See Armistead and Silverman, Judeo‐Spanish Ballads from New York, 7. 23See, for example, En torno al romancero sefardí. 24While Armistead and Silverman's work revealed a corpus of Sephardi literature that retained the trace of centuries of border crossing, Mariano Gómez Aranda has looked at three medieval Judeo‐Iberian authors (Moses Ibn Ezra, Abraham Ibn Ezra, and Isaac Abravanel) whose lives and works are defined by physical border crossing ("Border Crossing and Identity Consciousness"). Gómez Aranda's essay is part of a collection that interrogates the physical and conceptual borders of Spain and Spanish culture (see Doubleday and Sampedro Vizcaya, Border Interrogations – raising questions Armistead and Silverman's studies on the Sephardic ballad in the 1970s anticipated with regard to Sephardic identity. 25Alonso, "Cancioncillas 'de amigo' mozárabes." 26See Castro, "Mozarabic Poetry." Among the vitriolic articles exchanged, see Monroe, "Pedir peras al olmo?;" Jones, "Sunbeams from Cucumbers?;" Armistead, "Speed or Bacon?" 27Scheindlin discusses the genres and motifs deployed by some of the best known Sephardi poets, including Moshe ibn Ezra and Judah ha‐Levi in Wine, Women, and Death. Also see Rosen, "The Muwashshah;" and The Hebrew "Muwashshaha;" and Brann, "Arabized Jews," 449 and Compunctious Poet, 19–22. 28See Mújica, Milenio: Mil años de literatura española, 4–5; Sánchez Romeralo and Ibarra, Antología de autores españoles, vol. 1, Antiguos, 9–11. Some of the jarchas are anonymous. In the current edition of Sánchez Romeralo and Ibarra's Antología de autores españoles, vestiges of the nationalist currents prevalent in twentieth‐century Hispanism still frame the reading they suggested: the jarchas are presented in a chapter that begins by claiming Castilian linguistic supremacy for the eleventh century ("A mediados del siglo XI, la lengua de Castilla pasa a ser la lengua preponderante de la península [In the middle of the 11th century the language of Castile became the dominant language of the Peninsula]") (Antología de autores españoles, 9). They do, though, provide an explanation of the jarchas' context in the muwashshats and a fairly detailed explanation of the difficulties encountered in transliterating the jarchas from Hebrew and Arabic to Romance characters (ibid., 9–10). 29Menéndez Pidal, "Cantos románicos andalusíes." Margit Frenk tells us, "[E]ste descubrimiento de las jarchas mozárabes está reclamando un nuevo acercamiento a la lírica preliteraria de la Romania [The discovery of the Mozarabic jarchas demands a reconsideration of the preliterary lyric in Romance lands]" (Las jarchas mozárabes, 2). Also see Seniff, Antología. 30Frenk, Jarchas mozárabes, 116, 122–6. 31Mújica, Milenio, 4. 32Cole, Dream of the Poem, 27, 30–4. 33Cole, Dream of the Poem, 305–11, 314–20. Cole's anthology supplements other studies and translations of the Hebrew poets of Christian Spain available as articles, including Sáenz‐Badillos, "La sociedad de Toledo en el siglo XIII;" and Sáenz‐Badillos, Brann and Targarona Borrás, "The Poetic Universe of Samuel ibn Sasson." 34Eleazar Gutwirth is a notable exception. See, for example, "Leer a Bonafed en su entorno." See also Doron, "New Trends in the Conception of Hebrew Poetry." 35Nahmanides's exegesis and letters have recently been reexamined by Nina Caputo, who studies the impact of Christian theology on his thought (Nahmanides in Medieval Catalonia). See also Cole, Dream of the Poem; Einbinder, Beautiful Death; and Fleischer, "'Gerona School' of Hebrew Poetry." 36See, for example, the poetry of Hagorni and Polgar in Cole, Dream of the Poem, 275–7; 287–8. 37Samples of the work of the poets mentioned here have been translated into English by Peter Cole, Dream of the Poem. Jefim Schirmann also includes information and a sampling of their work in Toldot ha‐Shirah. Schirmann's work is still used as a starting point for studies of various Sephardi authors, and can be found behind the studies of such contemporary critics as Peter Cole, Ross Brann, and Jonathan Decter. 38Cole, Dream of the Poem, 203. Other such figures include Judah ha‐Levi and Judah al‐Harizi. 39See Sáenz‐Badillos, Literatura hebrea en la España medieval, 205–9. Hispanomedievalists who diminish the impact of Hebrew maqamat on the Spanish tradition include Richard Burkard, Archpriest of Hita and the Imitators of Ovid, 138; and Alberto Blecua; see the Introduction to his edition of Juan Ruiz' Libro de buen amor (xxx–xxxiii). 40Huss has edited Ibn Shabbetai's Minhat Yehuda ("Critical Editions of 'Minhat Yehuda'") and Vidal Benveniste's Efer ve‐Dina (Don Vidal Benveniste's "Melitsat Efer ve‐Dinah"). Segal has translated al Harizi's Tahkemoni, available in the Spanish translation by Valle Rodríguez, Asambleas de los sabios. Scheindlin has translated "Asher in the Harem" by Solomon ibn Saqbel, "The Misogynist" by Ibn Shabbetai, and "The Sorcerer" by Isaac ibn Sahula. See also Navarro Peiro's edition of Yehudá ibn Shabbetay, La ofrenda de Judá. Excerpts from "Minhat Yehuda" have also appeared in Navarro Peiro's Narrativa hispanohebrea: siglos XII–XV, 102–6. 41Wacks, Framing Iberia; Hamilton, Representing Others. 42See, for example, Decter, Iberian Jewish Literature; and Brann, "The Arabized Jews;" and "Textualizing Ambivalence." 43Rosen, Unveiling Eve, 106–10; Scheindlin, "Merchants and Intellectuals," 377. Matti Huss relates several Hebrew mahberot to various Romance works, mostly from the French and Italian traditions. The rhymed prose tradition of the mahberot continues into the fifteenth century, the highpoint of the Romance sentimental novel. See Huss, Don Vidal Benveniste's "Melitsat Efer ve‐Dinah." Decter similarly compares the mahbertot to the Roman de la Rose and calls for further consideration of the Romance context (Iberian Jewish Literature, 118–20). 44On an aljamiado version of the Danza de la muerte, see Hamilton, "Text and Context." John Zemke has published a modern edition of two of Moshe Almosnino's works (Regimiento de la vida and Tratado de suenyos), based on their printed aljamiado texts. 45Gutwirth, "Twenty‐Six Jewish Libraries," 27. 46Gutwirth, "Twenty‐Six Jewish Libraries," 31–2. These lists were restricted to "Talmudic literature," so do not offer a comprehensive list of these libraries. 47Schmelzer, "Hebrew Manuscripts and Printed Books." 48Nelson Novoa, Diálogos de amor. 49Lazar, Sefarad in My Heart; Romero, Andanzas y prodigios de Ben‐Sirá. 50Lazar has edited some of the material, which is available, for example, in his anthology, Sefarad in My Heart. Gutwirth has noted the importance of Lazar's efforts to make such material accessible ("The Politics of the Hyphen," 407). 51Sefami, "Memory and Identity." 52Altschul, "Future of Postcolonial Approaches." Margaret Jacobs, who projects contemporary ideas of cosmopolitanism back to earlier periods, still stays safely within modernity, investigating various early modern institutions and locales as sights of cosmopolitanism teleologically related to modernity: "Historical evidence suggests that in the eighteenth century the cosmopolitan became a viable ideal because, even amid wars and national rivalries, select places existed … where social, religious, and national boundaries were routinely crossed and seeds of an expansive social experience took root" (Strangers Nowhere in the World, 11). 53Spivak and Butler, Who Sings the Nation‐State? 54See Israel, Diasporas within a Diaspora. 55See Robbins, "Introduction, Part I," in Cosmopolitics, 2. 56See Cheah, "Introduction, Part II," in Cosmopolitics, 22. 57See, for example, Armistead, Silverman, and Katz, Judeo‐Spanish Ballad Chapbooks; En torno al romancero sefardí. See also Armistead's work with Rosenstock and Olson, "Folk Literature of the Sephardic Jews." One of the most popular and prolific contemporary performers of Sephardic music is Judith Cohen. 58Sáenz‐Badillos has collaborated on a number of projects with Targarona Borrás and Brann, including co‐authoring "The Poetic Universe of Samuel ibn Sasson." Brann and Alonso have coedited a special issue of Comparative Literature Studies dedicated to "Al‐Andalus and its Legacies" (2008). Sáenz‐Badillos has also worked with Scheindlin for the Hispanic‐North American Committee for Educational and Cultural Affairs on the Project, "Arabic Influences on Hispano‐Hebraic Literature." 59Gutwirth and Motis Dolader, "La aljama judía de Jaca;" Gutwirth, "Twenty‐Six Jewish Libraries;" and Díaz Mas, Sephardim, 106. 60Some of these questions were posed recently by David Wacks and others at the "Diaspora and Return: Sephardic Jews Beyond Spain" Conference held on 7 March 2008 at the University of California, Irvine.