Modern Spain and the Sephardim: Legitimizing Identities

(Hardback)

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Modern Spain and the Sephardim: Legitimizing Identities addresses the legal, political, symbolic, and conceptual consequences of the development of a new framework of relations between the Spanish state and the descendants of the Jews expelled from the Iberian kingdoms in 1492 from its beginnings in the nineteenth century to its unexpected consequences during World War II. This book aims to understand and explain the unchallenged idea of the Sephardim as a mix of Spaniard and Jew that emerged in Spain in the second half of the nineteenth century. Maite Ojeda-Mata examines the processes that led to this ambivalent conceptualization of Sephardic identity, as both Spanish and Jewish, and its consequences for the Sephardic Jews.

Reviews

Starting from two small and local cultural spaces, the Sant Antoni market in Barcelona and the Jewish community of Melilla, this anthropological study takes its readers on a journey that has its origins in the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492. What might appear as a story long past, turns out to be of the highest relevance for a discussion of contemporary Spanish and European identities. The book discusses the relationship between Spain and the Sephardic Jewish diaspora since the nineteenth century, including the attitude of the Franco regime during World War II, and reaches out to the present day when Spainhesitatinglyoffers citizenship to Jews of Spanish origin. Based on thorough archival research both in Spain and its former colony Morocco, Maite Ojeda-Matas work offers an innovative insight into the important role of Jewish/non-Jewish relations for the development of European memory and identity. -- Joachim Schlr, University of Southampton
Jewish, Spanish, or both Ojeda-Mata reveals the ambivalent images of the Sephardim and its political consequences in contemporary Spain, challenging dominant ideas about identity in a very well documented piece of historical anthropology. -- Josep Llus Mateo Dieste, Universitat Autnoma de Barcelona
An in-depth, well-documented, and well-argued work of critical research that challenges the poor and uncritical accounts on the idea of Sephardic identity in modern Spain. It is packed with a lot of data and information from several archival and ethnographic sources, which are carefully analyzed and critically interpreted. It is essential reading that is already a classic in the field. -- Eloy Martin Corrales, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
A fascinating and superb book of obvious interest not only to scholars interested in Jewish studies but also to those who study the construction of the social and political categories of Jewish, Sefardi, race, and nation from a historical and anthropological perspective. -- Alexandre Coello de la Rosa, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Author Bio

Maite Ojeda-Mata is Marie Skodowska-Curie Fellow at the Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/Non-Jewish Relations at the University of Southampton.