Revived and revitalized, the Jewish community in Spain is said to be one of the few Jewish communities in Western Europe that is growing
By BRENDA GAZZAR MADRID12inquisition(photo credit: Courtesy)Extract of an article in Issue 12, September 29, 2008 of The Jerusalem Report. To subscribe to The Jerusalem Reportclick here.
"My voice trem-bled, and everything trembled, but it was impossible to be silent," Adãn Levy recalls. Levy, today a 28-year-old computer engineer, had been attending a conference about the impending Iraq war at the Polytechnic University of Madrid in the spring of 2003, when a professor moderating a panel used his closing remarks to tell the audience that Jews "are the new Nazis of the 20th century" and to cite misleading and unsubstantiated information about Israeli actions in Gaza.
Although the meeting was ostensibly about the Iraq war, Levy tells The Report, its only purpose was to "vilify the United States and Israel." Very little was said about Saddam Hussein or the Kurds.
Horrified, Levy, a handsome, Madrid native of Moroccan descent, stood up, introduced himself as a Jew and told his professor and the audience that "whoever says the Jews are like Nazis, isn't talking about Jews, but is talking about himself."
With a population estimated at around 40,000, local Jewish officials note with satisfaction that the Spanish Jewish community is one of the few Jewish communities in Western Europe that is growing in both numbers and activities. Even the Spanish government is making a concerted and visible effort to increase awareness of the role that the Jews once played in Spanish life and to combat anti-Semitism.
But Levy's experience is not unique. A 2007 survey by the Anti-Defamation League revealed that Spain had the highest percentage of anti-Semitic views out of five European countries polled; Austria, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland.
Modern Spain, still struggling to establish a fully democratic society more than 30 years after the death of long-ruling dictator General Francisco Franco, is also home to domestic and international terrorism and neo-Nazi and fascist groups. While the community's growth symbolizes the Jewish people's triumph over the dreaded Inquisition and the expulsion of 1492, the legacy of these events, combined with traditional church dogma, au courant extreme left-wing anti-Zionism, and the presence of neo-Nazi, fascist and terrorist groups, leave some Jews uneasy about their long-term prospects in this complex society.
After their expulsion in 1492, Jews began to gradually return to Spain in the mid-19th century, motivated in part by the final abolition of the Inquisition in 1834; the Spanish Moroccan War of 1859-1860 in which many Moroccans, including Jews, fled to southern Spain; and the enactment in 1869 of a constitution that allowed for the practice of faiths other than Catholicism.
In 1917, the Jews of Madrid, who by then numbered some 1,000 individuals, most of them German, Austrian-Hungarian and Turkish citizens who fled to Spain at the beginning of World War I, inaugurated their first synagogue in a small apartment. The world economic crisis of 1929 brought additional Jews to the country. Spain remained ostensibly neutral during World War II and an estimated 25,000 Jews passed through the country as they attempted to escape from Europe, while Spanish diplomats protected some 4,000 Jews in France and the Balkans; in 1944, Spain accepted some 2,750 Hungarian Jewish refugees.
According to Uriel Macias, secretary general of the Jewish Community of Madrid - a religious institution that has represented the city's Jews since 1920 - Spain's Jewish community is growing and rejuvenating, due in large part to the influx of Latin American immigrants in recent decades, which have come to Spain to escape political and economic upheaval.
"Spain is a country that has grown in many ways," Macias tells The Report. "Its quality of life is attractive. For Latin American Jews, it's very comfortable
[to immigrate to Spain] because of the
language."
The Jewish community is centered in Madrid, with at least 12,000 Jews, and Barcelona, with at least 5,000. In addition, Jewish congregations, including a handful of Conservative and Reform communities, can be found in cities such as Valencia, Malaga and Marbella as well as the Spanish North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. Last year, a new modern-Orthodox synagogue was established in the city of Alicante on the Costa Blanca, where about 1,000 Jews live. And there are Jewish day schools in Madrid, Barcelona and in Melilla for children up to 16 years old. The Federacion de Comunidades Israelitas de Espana (Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain), a national umbrella organization of 13 traditional and Orthodox communities in the country, represents Jewish interests in the country and helps fund the country's approximately 30 synagogues.
Modern Spain has known terrorism since 1968, when ETA, an illegal armed Basque nationalist separatist organization, killed the police chief of the coastal city of San Sebastian. Since then the group has killed more than 800 people in Spain, including many civilians. And on March 11, 2004, al-Qaeda-inspired Islamist militants planted explosives on four packed commuter trains, killing 191 people and injuring almost 2,000, causing the largest loss of life from any single terrorist attack in modern European history and placing Spain squarely on the map of international terrorism.
But these incidents have deflected world attention from domestic Spanish neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic groups. Spain harbors more than 70 such groups, with an estimated 10,000 members, according to The Movement Against Intolerance, a Spanish anti-racist and pacifist group, which cited figures from the Spanish Interior Ministry. However, "Censorship of Democracy," a Spanish neo-Nazi website, claims that it alone has 15,000 members.
In November 2007, The Movement Against Intolerance and the German International Institute for Education and Research on Anti-Semitism (an academic institution that conducts research on the origins and background of anti-Semitism as well as the development and strategies to combat it) sponsored an international conference in Madrid.
During the month of the conference, several coincidental incidents caused the organizers concern. A 16-year-old youth, on his way to a pro-immigrant rally, was stabbed to death by an off-duty soldier with neo-Nazi affiliations. Former Ku-Klux-Klan leader and former Louisiana representative David Duke made several appearances around the country, promoting the Spanish translation of his 2003 book, "Jewish Supremacism: My Awakening to the Jewish Question." Duke spoke to audiences in Valencia, Madrid and Valladolid but ultimately suspended his planned conference at the Europa Bookstore in Barcelona, claiming that all attendees would have to register with the police - a claim the police denied. A number of Spanish journalists, intellectuals and politicians filed a complaint against him for incitement to hatred, racism and anti-Semitism.
Of even greater concern to the Jewish community, Spain's constitutional court has ruled that imprisonment for Holocaust denial is unconstitutional since it violates freedom of expression. The ruling was handed down in response to a number of lawsuits involving the owner of the Europa Bookstore that carried pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic materials. Until this ruling, Spain's criminal code had provided for one to two years in jail for anyone who disseminated theories or teachings that denied or justified genocide or other crimes against humanity. The new ruling - also issued in November - makes only the justification of genocide punishable by prison.
Jewish community leaders worry that the court's decision will strengthen the activities of neo-Nazi groups. "It is going to make Spain a place where Nazi propaganda and literature are spread and this is contrary to the well-being of the Jewish community," Israel says. While the court explained its decision in terms of freedom of expression, Israel argues that "this freedom is limited by citizens' rights, security, honor and certainly the right not to be discriminated against."
Esther Bendahan, a novelist who is active in the Jewish community, recalls that when the law passed in 1995 making it a crime to justify or deny the Holocaust, it was "a source of great pride" and a relief for the Jewish community which had rallied for it - together with human-rights groups.
Last year's decision to curtail that law cannot be appealed any further in Spain. But the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain and the Movement Against Intolerance intend to appeal the decision in a European tribunal, such as the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. (In a landmark decision in April the European Union made inciting racism and xenophobia crimes throughout its 27 member states though there are caveats to appease free speech concerns.)
The process, however, is a long and complicated one and may not bear fruit for several years, Israel notes. Meanwhile, Jewish officials, the Movement Against Intolerance and the Spanish opposition party (Partido Popular) have asked the government to name a special state prosecutor to deal specifically with issues of racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism. Activists say the special prosecutor - rather than local authorities who often don't have the necessary training, expertise and know-how - would be best positioned to identify and handle hate crimes related to anti-Semitism.
Partly as a result of demo-cratization and subsequent acceptance into the European Union in 1986, Spaniards have begun to review their history, including the chapters of Jewish history. Most recently, the Spanish government has begun to collaborate with the Jewish community to promote Jewish history
and culture as an antidote to ignorance and prejudice.
And the Jewish community, which kept a low profile during the Franco regime, has become more open to the general community. In recent years, "there has been… a greater intent to be present in social and cultural life," Macias says. "There have been more events, especially cultural, that are open to everyone. And people representing public life try to participate in these events of the community. There is a change of mentality - Spanish society is more open and the Jewish community is more sure of itself with regard to its role in Spanish society."
Much of this new confidence and activity stems from the creation of Casa Sefarad-Israel (The Israel-Spain House) in Madrid. This cultural and educational center was established by the Spanish Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Ministry to foster greater understanding of Jewish history and culture. The center, which opened in June 2007 and is financed completely by the government, also promotes Sephardi culture as an integral and vibrant part of Spanish culture and aims to strengthen bonds between Spanish and Israeli societies.
"Thanks to Casa Sefarad, we have a greater presence of Jewish culture" in society, says Bendahan, who also directs Casa Sefarad's cultural activities. "And above all… being Jewish has ceased to be an issue that must be kept quiet and is now part
of something that is Spanish and mainstream. This is the first benefit of this place of culture."
In addition to concerts, lectures and seminars on Jewish themes, the center is currently working with the Spanish Ministry of Education to integrate Holocaust education into secondary schools and train teachers on the subject. This represents a significant change in Spanish policies. During World War II, Franco, while officially neutral at the outset, was sympathetic to the Axis powers. Spain did not have anti-Semitic policies like Germany and never sent Jews to concentration camps, says history professor Kevin Ingram of St. Louis University's Madrid campus, who spoke with The Report in a telephone interview. However, he says, Spanish authorities have largely overplayed Spain's role in saving Jews and allowing them to escape through Spain. And it was only in 2006 that the Spanish government held its first official state ceremony commemorating the Holocaust. Today, Spain is also an observer of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Awareness.
Under these newer attempts at Holocaust education, twenty secondary school teachers, for example, visited Israel and the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial for nearly two weeks of instruction last fall and additional trips for teachers are planned.
"For the first time in Spanish culture there is awareness" of the Holocaust, says Bendahan. In addition, she continues, "the government has the will to improve Israel's image in Spain. It's a new will, a change."
Extract of an article in Issue 12, September 29, 2008 of The Jerusalem Report. To subscribe to The Jerusalem Reportclick here.
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