Spain’s Sephardi sounds

Spain and the Jews must be mentioned in the same breath and nowhere is this relationship more deeply embedded than in the city of Córdoba.

The date of the first Jewish presence in the Iberian Peninsula is shrouded in speculation. Some historians speak of Jews from the Middle East accompanying the Phoenicians who sailed west to the edge of the Mediterranean in search of copper and other metals, where they founded the trading port of Cádiz around 1,100 BCE. Other scholars have it that Jewish refugees from the second destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in 70 CE journeyed to the Iberian Peninsula and made their way up the Guadalquivir River to the Roman settlement then known as Corduba.

"What we know from documented evidence is that the earliest Sephardic settlements were established in Córdoba in the first century CE and that the Jews comprised a prominent community here until the Expulsion of 1492,” says Sebastián de la Obra, founder and director of Casa de Sefarad. The exhibition centre, located in the heart of the Judería (Jewish Quarter), was created to recover the memory of the Jewish history and traditions of Sepharad, the Hebrew name for the Iberian Peninsula. In 1994, Córdoba’s Judería was declared a World Heritage Site.

A meander about the quarter’s cobbled streets, through a labyrinth of narrow, twisting alleyways, takes the visitor on a journey to the 14th century. In its earliest days this sector was separated from the rest of the city by a wall enclosure that protected its inhabitants from sporadic attacks by Christian enemies. The district is bordered on one side by the synagogue which, after 1492 Edict of Expulsion, became a Catholic sanctuary and was later used as a medical centre specialised in treating hydrophobia. In the 16th century it served as the headquarters of the Brotherhood of Shoemakers. Its final incarnation was as a school, before being rescued from its derelict state and declared a national monument in 1885.

A discreet distance from the synagogue, on the other end of the Judería, lies one of the greatest monuments of the conquest by the Muslims, with whom the Jews of Córdoba got on famously. This is the 8th century Great Mosque with its stunning array of 1,250 columns. After defeating the Moorish invaders in 1492 Spain’s victorious Christian rulers took it upon themselves to erect a cathedral inside the mosque. When proudly displayed to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, he pronounced it a disgraceful mutilation of a world monument

The rich cultural and commercial heritage that Spain lost with the Expulsion ordered by the Catholic monarchs, Isabella and Ferdinand, has long been a thorn in the side of Spanish leaders. This was acknowledged in 2015, when Spain took steps to make amends for the expulsion of its Jews, with the passage of an Act of Parliament granting Spanish citizenship to Sephardic Jews of Spanish origin. The Law enabled Sephardic Jews who are descendants of those expelled in the 15th century to obtain Spanish nationality without renouncing their current citizenship or requiring residency in Spain. Since then, some 127,000 people have applied for Spanish citizenship under the new law.

Córdoba is justifiably proud of its Jewish heritage, which includes great figures like Maimonides, the distinguished Torah scholar of the Middle Ages, as well as the early 14th century CE Synagogue, one of three left in Spain. It is considered the most outstanding relic of Jewish life in Andalucía and has been declared a national monument.

The event that most dramatically pays homage to Córdoba’s Jewish legacy is the annual four-day International Sephardic Music Festival. Four nights would be more accurate, as the concert starts at 10pm in the Royal Botanical Garden, when groups from Spain and elsewhere take to the stage with a medley of Sephardic song.

The tradition traces its origin to 2001 in Toledo, at a seminar of the association of Spanish Jewish quarters. Rafael Pérez de la Concha, director of the Córdoba Tourism Bureau, came up with the proposal for an international music festival to celebrate the city’s Sephardic history. “The first concert was held the following year, as part of Córdoba’s guitar festival,” he says. “Since then, we have received support from the network of Juderías, the Embassy of Israel, the Israeli Sefarad Centre, El Al Airlines and our local branch of Cajasol bank. Along with the concerts, we have on several occasions organised workshops on Sephardic culture, dance, theatre and cookery, as well as kosher wine tastings.”

Since it was established, the festival has hosted performances by 120 groups from more than 30 countries of the diaspora. This year’s programme brought to Córdoba singers and musicians from Greece, Morocco, Spain and a group representing Croatia and Syria.

It might be asked what exactly characterises Sephardi music, apart from being simply ballads that have evolved over more than five centuries of a people’s exile. Is this merely nostalgia put to music? In part, the answer would be yes, but there is also a wide repertoire of themes inherent in this genre.

“There are nursery rhymes as well as love stories, sung in Castilian or Ladino, the Sephardic tongue derived from Judaeo-Spanish,” says Miguel Ángel Ortega, the festival’s current organiser. “In many cases, what you are hearing is played on medieval string instruments made by the musicians themselves.”

“We can identify four types of Sephardic music,” says Sebastián de la Obra. “There is first of all liturgical music sung in the synagogue, one of only three remaining in Spain. We can also speak of romantic songs and couplets and finally, more modern songs composed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They speak of a lost heritage with which most Sephardic people still closely associate, to the point that someone from an exiled family living in Warsaw is unlikely to identify fully as a Pole.”

Indeed, several years ago, on a stroll through the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul with some friends from Madrid, we were approached by the owner of a jewellery shop who was keen to strike up a conversation with us in his Cervantine Spanish. He introduced himself as Yakob and invited us into his shop for a cup of tea.

It soon became apparent that Yakob was no mere shopkeeper: he exported his merchandise to buyers around the world and was a regular traveller to markets in Europe and the US. He also spoke English, French and most probably several other languages fluently.

I could not rest asking him what country he identified with. After giving it a moment’s thought, he replied, “I am a Spanish refugee.”

https://www.spain.info/en/calendar/international-sephardic-music-festival/