Lost and Found In Spain by Susan Lewis Solomont

Author:Susan Lewis Solomont
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Disruption Books

THIS SMALL COMMUNITY WOULD BECOME a spiritual home for us during our years in Spain. We continued to experience and explore our Jewishness, and we came to appreciate the blessings of a Spanish-Jewish community. We developed deep and enduring bonds with families belonging to the Sephardic community, some of whom became our dearest friends in Spain. The Hatchwells and the Misrahis would welcome us to their homes for Shabbat or holiday dinners. It was interesting to experience the same traditions, some in Spanish, others in Hebrew, but all universally Jewish—the same prayers, the same beautiful dinner table, the same foods like chicken soup, challah, and roast chicken. Like the holidays of my youth, the Spanish equivalent were family affairs, bringing newborns and great-grandparents alike together in celebration.

That first year in Spain, we had planned to host a Passover Seder, but we had canceled because of my father’s passing. The following year, as Passover was approaching, I realized that I had foolishly forgotten to bring my Seder plate with us from the United States. During Passover, it is on the Seder plate that we place the symbolic foods eaten during this special meal. Mine was especially meaningful as it had originally belonged to my mother-in- law. I needed to find a Seder plate in Spain—I needed one on our table. A member of the local community had offered to put me in touch with her daughter, who might know where I could buy a Seder plate. During our phone call, the daughter said she would get back to me in a couple of days with information. She did get back to me, although not in the way I had anticipated. A couple of days later, what should arrive at the embassy but a beautiful Seder plate—a gift from her family.

Jewish people in Spain and the United States have Passover in common, as all Jews do. But many practices were different. On occasions when we celebrated holidays with local Jews, I eagerly exposed myself to new rituals, new melodies for prayers—even a new tradition called Mimouna. Growing up in the United States, I had never heard of Mimouna, a special day that marked the end of Passover. The tradition originated in Morocco as a way of connecting Jews with their non-Jewish neighbors.

Jews are forbidden from eating leavened bread on Passover, and they’re also forbidden from owning it. An ingenious way around this prohibition, which still adhered to the letter if not the spirit of the law, was for Jews to bring the chametz, as the forbidden food is called, over to their non-Jewish neighbors for safekeeping. Then, during Mimouna, Jews would welcome in their neighbors to express gratitude, and everyone would eat sweets such as figs, dates, or grapes slathered in honey.

Alan and I attended several Mimouna celebrations during our first year in Spain. As we found, traditions varied from family to family. One dinner we attended was as elegant an affair as you could imagine. Everyone sat at the dining room table, and uniformed waitstaff served the dinner.

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