In the wake of Black Lives Matter, spoken and written debates among activists, artists, politicia... more In the wake of Black Lives Matter, spoken and written debates among activists, artists, politicians and scholars about the fate of existing monuments of historical figures and what form new ones should take have been rich and exhaustive. Official policy and spontaneous action, both varied and contentious, have brought to the fore the absence of common ground. Because these kinds of monuments are invested in portraying an idealized reality, and because most are inspired by Graeco-Roman antiquity, they are arguably not strongly positioned to capture or even interpret the past. This article argues that historic cemeteries, classified as monuments through usage, preserve the lived past and simultaneously hold potential pathways for a communal future in ways that conventional monuments cannot. Drawing on selected examples of hemispheric American cemeteries devoted to people of African descent, particularly one from the former Dutch colony of Suriname, this article argues that the multidi...
ABSTRACT In 1817 and 1818, Great Britain signed bilateral agreements with Spain, the Netherlands,... more ABSTRACT In 1817 and 1818, Great Britain signed bilateral agreements with Spain, the Netherlands, and Portugal to eradicate the illegal slave trade and to establish mixed courts to locally monitor adherence to the treaties. The tribunal representing the Dutch Caribbean was established in 1819 in Suriname. In 1822, a British barrister named John Henry Lance (1793–1877) was appointed the tribunal’s Commissioner of Arbitration. Like many of his colleagues, Lance quickly became an accomplice to both the illicit slave trade and the institution of slavery. This article seeks to illustrate how and why he became increasingly invested in the local slave regime, economically, politically, and emotionally. His actions and testimonies offer an ideal opportunity to study in detail the gradual and, arguably, inevitable adjustment of European newcomers to slave societies.
... son, nephew, and widow, respectively, of the late Henry V. Besso; Rachel Amado Bortnick; Dani... more ... son, nephew, and widow, respectively, of the late Henry V. Besso; Rachel Amado Bortnick; Daniel Bouskila; Irma Cardozo; Jack and Sara Calderon; Barry Cohen; Stanton Cole; How-ard Danon; Louise DeFez and Mathilda Turiel; the late Marco DeFunis; Lilly DeJaen; Máximo ...
Ladino literature, encompassing some 3,000 titles from the 1540s to the present day, and includin... more Ladino literature, encompassing some 3,000 titles from the 1540s to the present day, and including genres as varied as translated biblical texts, rabbinical commentaries, prayer books, novels, dictionaries, plays, and newspapers, has rarely been used as a historical source. Nor has any scholar attempted a history of this literature, its producers and its consumers. This article argues that the lack of historically-oriented bibliographies largely accounts for this scholarly neglect. Surveying major Ladino collections worldwide, the mostly enumerative bibliographies that have been produced since the late 19th century, and historical insights from three annotated Ladino bibliographies, this study argues that the crafting of annotated bibliographies constitutes in itself a form of historical research. Suggesting new directions for cataloguing Judeo-Spanish items, especially the incorporation of detailed content analysis and what the late D. F. McKenzie called, “the sociology of texts,” ...
By the onset of World War I, thousands of Ottoman immigrants, including a significant proportion ... more By the onset of World War I, thousands of Ottoman immigrants, including a significant proportion of Jews, were living and trading in Britain. During wartime and through much of the interwar period, these multi-ethnic Ottomans were automatically classified as enemy aliens, subject at times to internment and deportation, stripped of their freedom of movement, and uniformly barred from British citizenship. Drawing on nearly sixty recently declassified naturalization applications of Ottoman Jews, this article discusses the demographic profile of Middle Eastern newcomers, xenophobia, and the role of the state in shaping national and ethnic identities, focusing on the British government's invention of an 'Ottoman (Spanish Jew)' designation that legally Hispanified Ottoman Jewish applicants, allowing them to be considered for citizenship.
In 1777, the widow of Moses Pacheco of Paramaribo, Suriname was busy with preparations for her da... more In 1777, the widow of Moses Pacheco of Paramaribo, Suriname was busy with preparations for her daughter's upcoming marriage to Jacob Nunes Nabarro. As the wedding day approached, a proverbial ax swung down. The local religious teacher, Rabbi Aron Acohen, came forward to declare that her daughter could not legally wed because she was the product of a forbidden relationship between widow Pacheco and her brother-in-law, Jacob Jona, initiated while both were still living in Amsterdam. In fact, according to Acohen, the Amsterdam Mahamad (the governing body of Portuguese Jews) had banished Jona from the land because of his crime. But when widow Pacheco was called before the Surinamese Jewish regents to discharge herself, she claimed that the child she had conceived after her husband's death was the product of a fleeting relationship with an itinerant Jew from Bayonne. Moreover, she knew nothing about her brother-in-law Jona's expulsion other than its cause: the Amsterdam Mahamad wished to rid itself of an impoverished family. The wedding was indefinitely postponed as the opposing parties, the Pachecos and the Jonas, gathered testimony in support of their version of the truth and the honor of their respective families.1 In the early modern Dutch Republic and in some of the overseas colonies adultery was-at least officially-among the most serious of crimes and rather common.2 Preoccupation with real and imagined cases of criminal Ben-Ur and Roitman
3 Minuut-notulen van vergaderingen van de Senhores do Mahamad (Minutes of the Mahamad) ( Aug. ... more 3 Minuut-notulen van vergaderingen van de Senhores do Mahamad (Minutes of the Mahamad) ( Aug. ), Nationaal Archief Nederland (NAN), Nederland-Portugees-Israëlitische Gemeente in Suriname (NPIGS) . This example and the one in n. are extracted from a database of enslaved and manumitted Eurafrican Jews I am currently compiling based, at this stage of my research, on a exhaustive study of the Minutes of the Mahamad until . 4 Minuut-notulen van vergaderingen van de Senhores do Mahamad ( Apr. ), NAN, NPIGS . Joseph de David Cohen Nassy may have been the husband of Pumba d'Avilar, who inherited and served as executor of his estate (Minuut-notulen van vergaderingen van de Senhores do Mahamad ( Sept. ), NAN, NPIGS ). - 27 NAN, SONA. When I began my examination of these wills in , the following eight registers were not available to the public: , (before ), (-), - (-), (-), - (-), (-). 28 However, Siporah, the name of Moses's wife, may be a distinctly Eurafrican Jewish name in Suriname, since she is described in the Torah as a 'Cushite' (Ethiopian) (Num. : ), and Surinamese Jews may have been influenced by a variety of medieval Jewish exegetes, who identify her as 'dark' or 'black' (see Abraham Melamed, The Image of the Black in Jewish Culture: A History of the Other (London, ), -, , . It is also possible that Dina is a distinctly Eurafrican Jewish name, since I have not identified any who were white. 29 The year of her birth is based on my conjecture that she was Moses da Costa's son (will of Isaac, son of Moses da Costa ( May ), NAN, SONA , p. ). 30 Book of inventories, NAN, SONA , pp. -. 31 Separate interment of Eurafrican Jews in the Jewish cemeteries at Cassipora Creek, Jodensavanne, and the old Sephardi cemetery of Paramaribo was officially abolished in (Minuut-notulen van vergaderingen van de Senhores de Mahamad (Parnassijns) en van de Junta (Parnassijns en ouderlingen) (Minutes of the Mahamad (parnasim) and the Junta (parnasim and elders)) ( Oct. ), NAN, NPIGS , p. ). In the Ashkenazi community, a Eurafrican section existed since at least (Wink, 'Creole Jews', , -). - 90 NAN, SONA , p. 91 Ben-Ur, ' A Matriarchal Matter'; ead., 'Peripheral Inclusion'. 92 When he pledged a nominal sum to the Beraha Vesalom Synagogue in , his racial status was also unspecified (Bijlagen tot de notulen van mahamad en Junta: Mem das promesas que Prometeraõ os Sres nomeados Abaixo (Appendices of the minutes of the Mahamad and the Junta: Memorandum of pledges promised by the below-mentioned people) (), NAN, NPIGS ).
Ethnic tensions among Jews are a transnational, diachronic phenomenon, amply documented by Jews a... more Ethnic tensions among Jews are a transnational, diachronic phenomenon, amply documented by Jews as well as by outside observers. Tradition prescribes Jews to rescue other Jews from affliction, underscored by the halakhic concept of pidyon shvu'im (redemption of captives) and the talmudic dictum kol Israel arevim ze baZe, which teaches that every Jew is responsible for the other.[1] Yet, when the factor of physical remoteness between two communities was eliminated, these timehonored values frequently dissipated. As one eminent historian quipped, "ahavat Israel is inversely proportionate to distance." [2] Scholars of the American Jewish experience have discussed such conflicts at length and have usually understood them as one defining feature of a particular historiographical period. During the so-called Sephardi era of American Jewish immigration (1654?1840), we are told, Sephardim lorded it over their Germanic coreligionists, sometimes refusing to marry them, while beginning in the 1880s Germanic Jews gave their Eastern European brethren the cold shoulder, labeling them "wild Russians" and "uncouth Asiatics," until all groups seamlessly mingled following restrictive quotas of the 1920s that largely barred further Jewish immigration.[3] But historians have not yet examined in comparative context ethnic tensions among the world's Jewish communities, nor are they accustomed to applying sociological, psychological, or anthropological tools to deepen our understanding of these conflicts. This article, inspired by social scientific approaches, reveals two distinct clashes among Jewish ethnic groups that appear consistent across space and time: "ranked stratification," where issues of superiority and inferiority inform the discourse, and "co-ethnic recognition failure," where ethnic belonging is denied. Both historians and sociologists recognize that ethnic belonging is constantly negotiated and that a group's self-ascribed definitions are contextual and transform through time. Particularly in the case of Jews, whose variegated ethnic and religious identities overlap and are exceedingly complex, an explanation of terminology is imperative. Our frame of reference begins in the late seventeenth century with two groups conventionally known as "Sephardim" and "Ashkenazim." In recent centuries, Ashkenazim have been understood to comprise two subgroups, both of whom ultimately trace their roots back to "Ashkenaz," the medieval Hebrew word for "Germany": Jews of Central European or Germanic origin, who spoke German or a western form of Yiddish, and Eastern European Jews, who typically spoke Yiddish or Slavic languages. Sephardim-from the medieval Hebrew word for "Spain"-are also divided into two subcategories, both of them of remote Iberian origin: Western Sephardim, who after their exile from the Peninsula settled in various lands in the West, including the Americas, and spoke Portuguese and Spanish; and Eastern Sephardim, Jews who settled in the Ottoman Empire (Turkey and the Balkans) and mainly spoke Ladino, a Jewish language that fused early modern Castilian with Turkish, Greek, Arabic, Aramaic, and French, and developed in the East after the exile from Iberia. A third group, much larger than both of these two
In the wake of Black Lives Matter, spoken and written debates among activists, artists, politicia... more In the wake of Black Lives Matter, spoken and written debates among activists, artists, politicians and scholars about the fate of existing monuments of historical figures and what form new ones should take have been rich and exhaustive. Official policy and spontaneous action, both varied and contentious, have brought to the fore the absence of common ground. Because these kinds of monuments are invested in portraying an idealized reality, and because most are inspired by Graeco-Roman antiquity, they are arguably not strongly positioned to capture or even interpret the past. This article argues that historic cemeteries, classified as monuments through usage, preserve the lived past and simultaneously hold potential pathways for a communal future in ways that conventional monuments cannot. Drawing on selected examples of hemispheric American cemeteries devoted to people of African descent, particularly one from the former Dutch colony of Suriname, this article argues that the multidi...
ABSTRACT In 1817 and 1818, Great Britain signed bilateral agreements with Spain, the Netherlands,... more ABSTRACT In 1817 and 1818, Great Britain signed bilateral agreements with Spain, the Netherlands, and Portugal to eradicate the illegal slave trade and to establish mixed courts to locally monitor adherence to the treaties. The tribunal representing the Dutch Caribbean was established in 1819 in Suriname. In 1822, a British barrister named John Henry Lance (1793–1877) was appointed the tribunal’s Commissioner of Arbitration. Like many of his colleagues, Lance quickly became an accomplice to both the illicit slave trade and the institution of slavery. This article seeks to illustrate how and why he became increasingly invested in the local slave regime, economically, politically, and emotionally. His actions and testimonies offer an ideal opportunity to study in detail the gradual and, arguably, inevitable adjustment of European newcomers to slave societies.
... son, nephew, and widow, respectively, of the late Henry V. Besso; Rachel Amado Bortnick; Dani... more ... son, nephew, and widow, respectively, of the late Henry V. Besso; Rachel Amado Bortnick; Daniel Bouskila; Irma Cardozo; Jack and Sara Calderon; Barry Cohen; Stanton Cole; How-ard Danon; Louise DeFez and Mathilda Turiel; the late Marco DeFunis; Lilly DeJaen; Máximo ...
Ladino literature, encompassing some 3,000 titles from the 1540s to the present day, and includin... more Ladino literature, encompassing some 3,000 titles from the 1540s to the present day, and including genres as varied as translated biblical texts, rabbinical commentaries, prayer books, novels, dictionaries, plays, and newspapers, has rarely been used as a historical source. Nor has any scholar attempted a history of this literature, its producers and its consumers. This article argues that the lack of historically-oriented bibliographies largely accounts for this scholarly neglect. Surveying major Ladino collections worldwide, the mostly enumerative bibliographies that have been produced since the late 19th century, and historical insights from three annotated Ladino bibliographies, this study argues that the crafting of annotated bibliographies constitutes in itself a form of historical research. Suggesting new directions for cataloguing Judeo-Spanish items, especially the incorporation of detailed content analysis and what the late D. F. McKenzie called, “the sociology of texts,” ...
By the onset of World War I, thousands of Ottoman immigrants, including a significant proportion ... more By the onset of World War I, thousands of Ottoman immigrants, including a significant proportion of Jews, were living and trading in Britain. During wartime and through much of the interwar period, these multi-ethnic Ottomans were automatically classified as enemy aliens, subject at times to internment and deportation, stripped of their freedom of movement, and uniformly barred from British citizenship. Drawing on nearly sixty recently declassified naturalization applications of Ottoman Jews, this article discusses the demographic profile of Middle Eastern newcomers, xenophobia, and the role of the state in shaping national and ethnic identities, focusing on the British government's invention of an 'Ottoman (Spanish Jew)' designation that legally Hispanified Ottoman Jewish applicants, allowing them to be considered for citizenship.
In 1777, the widow of Moses Pacheco of Paramaribo, Suriname was busy with preparations for her da... more In 1777, the widow of Moses Pacheco of Paramaribo, Suriname was busy with preparations for her daughter's upcoming marriage to Jacob Nunes Nabarro. As the wedding day approached, a proverbial ax swung down. The local religious teacher, Rabbi Aron Acohen, came forward to declare that her daughter could not legally wed because she was the product of a forbidden relationship between widow Pacheco and her brother-in-law, Jacob Jona, initiated while both were still living in Amsterdam. In fact, according to Acohen, the Amsterdam Mahamad (the governing body of Portuguese Jews) had banished Jona from the land because of his crime. But when widow Pacheco was called before the Surinamese Jewish regents to discharge herself, she claimed that the child she had conceived after her husband's death was the product of a fleeting relationship with an itinerant Jew from Bayonne. Moreover, she knew nothing about her brother-in-law Jona's expulsion other than its cause: the Amsterdam Mahamad wished to rid itself of an impoverished family. The wedding was indefinitely postponed as the opposing parties, the Pachecos and the Jonas, gathered testimony in support of their version of the truth and the honor of their respective families.1 In the early modern Dutch Republic and in some of the overseas colonies adultery was-at least officially-among the most serious of crimes and rather common.2 Preoccupation with real and imagined cases of criminal Ben-Ur and Roitman
3 Minuut-notulen van vergaderingen van de Senhores do Mahamad (Minutes of the Mahamad) ( Aug. ... more 3 Minuut-notulen van vergaderingen van de Senhores do Mahamad (Minutes of the Mahamad) ( Aug. ), Nationaal Archief Nederland (NAN), Nederland-Portugees-Israëlitische Gemeente in Suriname (NPIGS) . This example and the one in n. are extracted from a database of enslaved and manumitted Eurafrican Jews I am currently compiling based, at this stage of my research, on a exhaustive study of the Minutes of the Mahamad until . 4 Minuut-notulen van vergaderingen van de Senhores do Mahamad ( Apr. ), NAN, NPIGS . Joseph de David Cohen Nassy may have been the husband of Pumba d'Avilar, who inherited and served as executor of his estate (Minuut-notulen van vergaderingen van de Senhores do Mahamad ( Sept. ), NAN, NPIGS ). - 27 NAN, SONA. When I began my examination of these wills in , the following eight registers were not available to the public: , (before ), (-), - (-), (-), - (-), (-). 28 However, Siporah, the name of Moses's wife, may be a distinctly Eurafrican Jewish name in Suriname, since she is described in the Torah as a 'Cushite' (Ethiopian) (Num. : ), and Surinamese Jews may have been influenced by a variety of medieval Jewish exegetes, who identify her as 'dark' or 'black' (see Abraham Melamed, The Image of the Black in Jewish Culture: A History of the Other (London, ), -, , . It is also possible that Dina is a distinctly Eurafrican Jewish name, since I have not identified any who were white. 29 The year of her birth is based on my conjecture that she was Moses da Costa's son (will of Isaac, son of Moses da Costa ( May ), NAN, SONA , p. ). 30 Book of inventories, NAN, SONA , pp. -. 31 Separate interment of Eurafrican Jews in the Jewish cemeteries at Cassipora Creek, Jodensavanne, and the old Sephardi cemetery of Paramaribo was officially abolished in (Minuut-notulen van vergaderingen van de Senhores de Mahamad (Parnassijns) en van de Junta (Parnassijns en ouderlingen) (Minutes of the Mahamad (parnasim) and the Junta (parnasim and elders)) ( Oct. ), NAN, NPIGS , p. ). In the Ashkenazi community, a Eurafrican section existed since at least (Wink, 'Creole Jews', , -). - 90 NAN, SONA , p. 91 Ben-Ur, ' A Matriarchal Matter'; ead., 'Peripheral Inclusion'. 92 When he pledged a nominal sum to the Beraha Vesalom Synagogue in , his racial status was also unspecified (Bijlagen tot de notulen van mahamad en Junta: Mem das promesas que Prometeraõ os Sres nomeados Abaixo (Appendices of the minutes of the Mahamad and the Junta: Memorandum of pledges promised by the below-mentioned people) (), NAN, NPIGS ).
Ethnic tensions among Jews are a transnational, diachronic phenomenon, amply documented by Jews a... more Ethnic tensions among Jews are a transnational, diachronic phenomenon, amply documented by Jews as well as by outside observers. Tradition prescribes Jews to rescue other Jews from affliction, underscored by the halakhic concept of pidyon shvu'im (redemption of captives) and the talmudic dictum kol Israel arevim ze baZe, which teaches that every Jew is responsible for the other.[1] Yet, when the factor of physical remoteness between two communities was eliminated, these timehonored values frequently dissipated. As one eminent historian quipped, "ahavat Israel is inversely proportionate to distance." [2] Scholars of the American Jewish experience have discussed such conflicts at length and have usually understood them as one defining feature of a particular historiographical period. During the so-called Sephardi era of American Jewish immigration (1654?1840), we are told, Sephardim lorded it over their Germanic coreligionists, sometimes refusing to marry them, while beginning in the 1880s Germanic Jews gave their Eastern European brethren the cold shoulder, labeling them "wild Russians" and "uncouth Asiatics," until all groups seamlessly mingled following restrictive quotas of the 1920s that largely barred further Jewish immigration.[3] But historians have not yet examined in comparative context ethnic tensions among the world's Jewish communities, nor are they accustomed to applying sociological, psychological, or anthropological tools to deepen our understanding of these conflicts. This article, inspired by social scientific approaches, reveals two distinct clashes among Jewish ethnic groups that appear consistent across space and time: "ranked stratification," where issues of superiority and inferiority inform the discourse, and "co-ethnic recognition failure," where ethnic belonging is denied. Both historians and sociologists recognize that ethnic belonging is constantly negotiated and that a group's self-ascribed definitions are contextual and transform through time. Particularly in the case of Jews, whose variegated ethnic and religious identities overlap and are exceedingly complex, an explanation of terminology is imperative. Our frame of reference begins in the late seventeenth century with two groups conventionally known as "Sephardim" and "Ashkenazim." In recent centuries, Ashkenazim have been understood to comprise two subgroups, both of whom ultimately trace their roots back to "Ashkenaz," the medieval Hebrew word for "Germany": Jews of Central European or Germanic origin, who spoke German or a western form of Yiddish, and Eastern European Jews, who typically spoke Yiddish or Slavic languages. Sephardim-from the medieval Hebrew word for "Spain"-are also divided into two subcategories, both of them of remote Iberian origin: Western Sephardim, who after their exile from the Peninsula settled in various lands in the West, including the Americas, and spoke Portuguese and Spanish; and Eastern Sephardim, Jews who settled in the Ottoman Empire (Turkey and the Balkans) and mainly spoke Ladino, a Jewish language that fused early modern Castilian with Turkish, Greek, Arabic, Aramaic, and French, and developed in the East after the exile from Iberia. A third group, much larger than both of these two
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