Farewell Espana
The World of the Sephardim Remembered
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
Farewell Espana transcends conventional historical narrative. With the lucidity and verve that have characterized his numerous earlier volumes, Howard Sachar breathes life into the leading dramatis personae of the Sephardic world: the royal counselors Samuel ibn Nagrela and Joseph Nasi, the poets Solomon ibn Gabirol and Judah Halevi, the philosophers Moses Maimonides and Baruch Spinoza, the statesmen Benjamin Disraeli and Pierre Mendes-France, the warriors Moshe Pijade and David Elazar, the fabulous charlatans David Reuveni and Shabbatai Zvi.
In its breadth and richness of texture, Sachar's account sweeps to the contemporary era of Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco, poignantly traces the fate of Balkan Sephardic communities during the Holocaust -- and their revival in the Land and State of Israel. Not least of all, the author offers a tactile dimension of immediacy in his personal encounters with the storied venues and current personalities of the Sephardic world. Farewell Espana is a window opened on a glowing civilization once all but extinguished, and now flickering again into renewed creativity.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The Jews of Spain, integrated into Arab culture since the 10th century, flourished under Islamic and subsequent Christian rule, becoming scientists, poets, merchants and farmers despite periodic outbursts of Christian fanaticism and conversionary pressure. Expelled from Spain in 1492, Sephardic Jews sought refuge in the Ottoman empire, North Africa, Italy and elsewhere. Noted historian Sachar's (A History of Israel) vibrant odyssey charts Sephardic Jewry's dispersal, acculturation and achievements, informed by his own visits to Madrid, Lisbon, Athens, Belgrade and Tel Aviv. The narrative features luminaries such as Beatriz Mendez, who built a trading empire in 16th-century Antwerp and Venice and ran an underground rescue network for Marrano refugees; and Dutch rabbi Menasseh ben Israel, emissary to London, who successfully pressured Oliver Cromwell to grant England's Jews rights of residency, worship and trade. In modern times, Sachar portrays the violence Jews faced in Turkey under Mustafa Kemal, Jewish resistance to Mussolini and the political activism of Sephardim in Israel, where they have encountered discrimination by Ashkenazic Jews of middle or northern European ancestry. A feast for students of Jewish culture and history.
