Newsletter Special: Exalting the Reconquista and Denigrating Convivencia
David Shasha
Friends,
Critical to the integrity of the classical Sephardic heritage is the idea of Convivencia, the means by which Jews in Andalusia acculturated to the majority Arabo-Islamic culture and in the process transformed Judaism forever.
In this special newsletter I present a number of articles on how Convivencia is being understood in the Sephardic community, and in the Spanish world.
My introduction to the newsletter reviews the problem of the Reconquista and how many of our Self-Hating Sephardi friends have adopted an anti-Arab and anti-Muslim position that in the end serves to support the Anti-Semitic Catholic apologists.
In a very important contribution to the discussion, the scholar Alejandro Garcia-Sanjuan provides us with a comprehensive study of the divisive politics of Exalting the Reconquista and how that plays into the current Islamophobia and Eurocentrism which has also served to undermine the classical Sephardic heritage. It is an excellent piece of research that will enlighten those who are trying to better understand what the Andalusian tradition means today.
Back in 2016, one of those racist Catholic apologists Dario Fernandez-Morera published a book attacking Convivencia, which immediately garnered praise from two of the most prominent Sephardi Self-Haters, Rabbi Marc Angel and Lyn Julius.
Angel wrote an article effusively praising the book, as he questioned the very nature of Convivencia. In doing so, he once again displayed for us his loyalty to the Ashkenazi YU Modern Orthodox construct and its HASBARAH values.
In contrast, Stephen Schwartz attacked the book as tendentious and a distortion of the Andalusian heritage. His review appeared in The Weekly Standard, and shows us just how extreme Self-Hating Sephardim like Angel really are.
Given her own firm allegiance to HASBARAH values and to the Ashkenazim, it came as absolutely no surprise that Lyn Julius also sought to praise Fernandez-Morera’s book in a Huffington Post article. And she continued her attack on the classical Sephardic heritage and the acculturation to Arab culture in yet another article which cites many scholars, Sephardic and Ashkenazic, who are also intent on reinforcing the HASBARAH talking points.
We have for a long time been looking at the very complicated Self-Hatred of University of Washington Professor Devin Naar. In one of his most explicit statements of his negative attitude towards Convivencia, Naar gives us a repetition of Angel and Julius. It is interesting to note that Naar’s article was a contribution to an academic symposium produced by the Stroum Center Judaic Studies department which sought to provide scholarly discussion of the matter of Islam. Naar is typical of the Self-Haters whose views echo the Ashkenazi paranoid view of Sephardic history.
We close the special newsletter with a classic New York Times Op-Ed from 2002 by the late Maria Rosa Menocal, whose work on Al-Andalus and Convivencia has often stoked the rage of the Islamophobes and Self-Hating Sephardim. Menocal’s dedication to raising the profile of Muslim Spain and its cultural greatness has been one of the most important factors in the preservation of the classical Sephardic heritage and our ability to respond in a positive and educated manner to those who would seek to undermine our many achievements in World Civilization.
David Shasha
The Complicated Politics of Convivencia and the Spanish Reconquista
By: David Shasha
Rejecting al-Andalus, Exalting the Reconquista: Historical Memory in Contemporary Spain
By: Alejandro Garcia-Sanjuan
The Golden Age in Spain: How Golden Was It?
By: Rabbi Marc D. Angel
Book Review Moorish Dreams
By: Stephen Schwartz
Book Review: Andalusia Was No Golden Age
By: Lyn Julius
Was the Golden Age in Medieval Spain a Myth?
By: Lyn Julius
Jews, Muslims, and the Limits of Tolerance
By: Devin E. Naar
A Golden Reign of Tolerance
By: Maria Rosa Menocal