An “amazing” novel about the diaspora of Sephardic Jews amid the tumult of twentieth century history (The Washington Post Book World). From one of Spain’s most celebrated writers, this extraordinary blend of fiction, history, and memoir tells the story of the Sephardic diaspora through seventeen interlinked chapters. “If Balzac wrote The Human Comedy, [Antonio] Muñoz Molina has written the adventure of exile, solitude, and memory,” Arturo Pérez-Reverte observed of this “masterpiece” that shifts seamlessly from the past to the present along the escape routes employed by Sephardic Jews across countries and continents as they fled Hitler’s Holocaust and Stalin’s purges in the mid-twentieth century (The New York Review of Books). In a remarkable display of narrative dexterity, Muñoz Molina fashions a “rich and complex story” out of the experiences of people both real and imagined: Eugenia Ginzburg and Greta Buber-Neumann, one on a train to the gulag, the other heading toward a Nazi concentration camp; a shoemaker and a nun who become lovers in a small Spanish town; and Primo Levi, bound for Auschwitz (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel). From the well-known to the virtually unknown, all of Muñoz Molina’s characters are voices of separation, nostalgia, love, and endless waiting. “Stories that vibrate beneath the burden of history, that lift with the breath of human life.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review “A magnificent novel about the iniquity and horror of fanaticism, and especially the human being’s indestructible spirit.” —Mario Vargas Llosa “Moving and often astonishing.” —The New York Times

The 2015 law granting Spanish nationality to the descendants of Jews expelled in 1492 is the latest example of a widespread phenomenon in contemporary Spain, the "re-discovery" of its Jewish heritage. In The Memory Work of Jewish Spain, Daniela Flesler and Adrián Pérez Melgosa examine the implications of reclaiming this memory through the analysis of a comprehensive range of emerging cultural practices, political initiatives and institutions in the context of the long history of Spain's ambivalence towards its Jewish past. Through oral interviews, analyses of museums, newly reconfigured "Jewish quarters," excavated Jewish sites, popular festivals, tourist brochures, literature and art, The Memory Work of Jewish Spain explores what happens when these initiatives are implemented at the local level in cities and towns throughout Spain, and how they affect Spain's present.

Prior to 1492, Jews had flourished on the Iberian Peninsula for hundreds of years. Marked by alternating cooperative coexistence and selective persecution alongside Christians and Muslims, this remarkable period was a golden age for Iberian Jews, with significant and culturally diverse advances in sciences, arts and government. This work traces the history of the Sephardic Jews from their golden age to their post-Columbian diaspora. It highlights achievements in science, medicine, philosophy, arts, economy and government, alongside a few less noble accomplishments, in both the land they left behind and in the lands they settled later. Several significant Sephardic Jews are profiled in detail, and later chapters explore the increasing restrictions on Jews prior to expulsion, the divergent fates of two diaspora communities (in Brazil and the Ottoman Empire), and the enduring legacy of Sephardic history.

Sephardim are the descendants of the Jews expelled from the lands of the Iberian Peninsula in the years 1492-1498, who settled down in the Mediterranean basin. The identifying sign of the Sephardim has been, until the middle of the twentieth century, the language known as Jewish-Spanish. The history, identity and memory of the Sephardim in their Mediterranean dispersal are analysed by the author with a special reference to the Sephardi community of Jerusalem and to the cultural and social changes that characterized the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. However, because of the crucial changes related to modernization and the political circumstances that came into being at the turn of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, the Sephardim lost their unique identity.

Art and architecture lovers, ecotourists, history buffs, gourmands, wine aficionados, culture scholars, outdoor sports fanatics—Spain truly has something for everyone. Its good weather and many varied attractions make it ideal for year-round vacationing. Spain is the home of diverse cultures and traditions. From the stoic independence of the Basques to the progressive architecture and design of the Catalans and the sultry rhythms and sun-drenched siestas of the Andalusians, you’ll discover an intriguing, welcoming country. This guide gets you going with info on: The three major areas: Northern Spain, including Barcelona, the Costa Brava, and the Basque Country; Central Spain, including Madrid and Castile, and Southern Spain, including Andalusia, Seville, Cordoba, and Granada How to get the best seats at a bullfight Strolling Barcelona’s La Rambia, a vibrant street parade, or tripping along on a tavern and tapas crawl Racing with beasts at the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona or leisurely strolling the crooked streets in a lively old district such as Cordoba’s Juderia, Salamanca’s old quarter, Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, Granada’s Albaycin District, and more Exploring some of the finest art museums in Europe and seeing masterpieces by El Greco, Goya, Picasso, Miro, Dali, Chillida, Titian, Raphael, Botticelli, Rubens, and more Dining on Catalan haute cuisine in Barcelona, traditional Basque dishes in Bilbao, nueva cocina vasca in SanSebastian, truffles and foie gras in Madrid, regional and traditional French dishes in Cordoba, or tantalizing tapas anywhere Architecture dating back to the Romans and Moors, including Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, Segovia’s Roman Aqueduct, Avila’s city walls, and Granada’s Alhambra, a place of magic, mystery, and legend Staying in an opulent easly-20th-century palace, a 16th century convent, a farmhouse estate dating to the tenth century, an intimate inn, or roughing it and backpacking around Spain Meandering through Andalusia’s pueblos blancos amid the rolling hills and olive groves and near the famous sherry wineries and prancing horses in Jerez and the southern beaches of the Costa de la Lux and Costa del Sol Like every For Dummies travel guide, Spain For Dummies, 4th Edition includes: Down-to-earth trip-planning advice What you shouldn’t miss — and what you can skip The best hotels and restaurants for every budget Handy Post-it Flags to mark your favorite pages Whether you enjoy fiestas or siestas, vibrant cities or laid-back seacoasts, with this guide, you can plan a fantástico vacation.

Charting Memory: Recalling Medieval Spain elaborates an interdiscursive picture of how Medieval Spain has been remembered by various Arab, Jewish, and Hispanic peoples from well before 1492 to the present. The collection breaks with traditional foci on the legacies of separate Iberian communities and their descendants, and on limited, largely textual sets of their related cultural practices. In distinct ways, this collection takes a multi-ethnic and multi-modal approach, departing from sociologist Maurice Halbwachs' premise that collective memories form not within individuals alone, but through the inner and inter-workings of actual and conceptual social milieux. The volume hereby foregrounds the constitutive roles of communities created through prayer, literary resonances, architecture, musical performance, and name giving, in shaping memories of medieval Spanish contexts as well as complex identities in the Balkans, the Near and Middle East, North Africa, Latin American, and the United States. The ten original essays in this collection, by international specialists in anthropology, ethnomusicology, literary criticism, folklore, and onomastics, are not arranged according to Arab, Jewish, and Hispanic cultural memories of medieval Spain. Instead, the collection's unique comparative emphasis illuminates ways in which various peoples have re-articulated memories relating to medieval Spain in and across physical, temporal, and social locations, with different types and degrees of impact.

From one of Spain's most celebrated writers, an extraordinary, inspired book--at once fiction, history, and memoir--that draws on the Sephardic diaspora, the Holocaust, and Stalin's purges to tell a twentieth-century story. Shifting seamlessly from the past to the present and following the routes of escape across countries and continents, Muñoz Molina evokes people real and imagined who come together in a richly allusive pattern--from Eugenia Ginsburg to Grete Buber-Neumann, the one on a train to the gulag, the other heading toward a Nazi concentration c& from a shoemaker and a nun who become lovers in a small Spanish town to Primo Levi bound for Auschwitz. From the well known to the virtually unknown--all of Molina's characters are voices of separation, nostalgia, love, and endless waiting. Written with clarity of vision and passion, in a style both lyrical and accessible, Sepharad makes the experience our own. A brilliant achievement.

In Jewish Questions, Matt Goldish introduces English readers to the history and culture of the Sephardic dispersion through an exploration of forty-three responsa--questions about Jewish law that Jews asked leading rabbis, and the rabbis' responses. The questions along with their rabbinical decisions examine all aspects of Jewish life, including business, family, religious issues, and relations between Jews and non-Jews. Taken together, the responsa constitute an extremely rich source of information about the everyday lives of Sephardic Jews. The book looks at questions asked between 1492--when the Jews were expelled from Spain--and 1750. Originating from all over the Sephardic world, the responsa discuss such diverse topics as the rules of conduct for Ottoman Jewish sea traders, the trials of an ex-husband accused of a robbery, and the rights of a sexually abused wife. Goldish provides a sizeable introduction to the history of the Sephardic diaspora and the nature of responsa literature, as well as a bibliography, historical background for each question, and short biographies of the rabbis involved. Including cases from well-known communities such as Venice, Istanbul, and Saloniki, and lesser-known Jewish enclaves such as Kastoria, Ragusa, and Nablus, Jewish Questions provides a sense of how Sephardic communities were organized, how Jews related to their neighbors, what problems threatened them and their families, and how they understood their relationship to God and the Jewish people.