Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in America by Saba Soomekh

Author:Saba Soomekh [Soomekh, Saba]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781557537287
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Purdue University Press
Published: 2015-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE SEPHARDI CAMPAIGN: RESISTANCE AND RECONCILIATION

The Sephardi campaign not only sought to recast Ottoman, Oriental, and Levantine Jews as “Spanish” and “Sephardi,” but also sought to displace another set of self-designations involving local, town-based identifiers, such as Selanikli, Izmirli, Rhodesli. Local designation was likely the most entrenched, most obvious method of self-identification. Like many immigrants in the United States, including Yiddish-speaking Jews who established an array of Landsmanschaft organizations, Ladino-speaking Jews initially organized themselves into mutual aid societies according to town of origin. Whereas the “crowning” of Sephardi in place of terms such as “Oriental” came more readily, the substitution of the term “Sephardi” for city-based labels met considerable resistance. In addition to resisting the name change due to local attachments, other Ladino-speaking Jewish leaders in New York opposed the Sephardi campaign because they objected to the Zionist leanings of its main promoters. The conclusion of World War I and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire ultimately resulted in reconciliation among the various factions debating the merits of the Sephardi campaign, whose proponents secured a number of victories and established a “pan-Sephardic” taxonomy.

In terms of city-based affiliations, groups from Salonica, Adrianople, Rodosto, Silivria, and Chorlou founded their own societies in 1915 and reinforced local identities at the same time that the movement launched to abandon them began. “Here in America,” the editor of La America asserted as part of the Sephardi campaign, “no one asks who you were [before you arrived] and where you came from. A Sephardi immigrating here forgets all of his past in the old world and becomes an American Sephardi” (“Sefaradim orientales i portugezes”). But many of these potential “American Sephardim” expressed serious reservations about relinquishing identification with the “old world.” While the thrust of editorials in La America presented aspirations for a unified Sephardi community, in practice, the various groups often preferred independence and attended to their own members’ needs or raised funds to send back to their native towns on their own (e.g., “Por remitir moneda a Izmir”; “Ayudo a los sufrientes de la gera en Angora”). In one instance, thirty representatives of organizations from the Dardanelles, Izmir, and Gallipoli initially put up resistance until a flyer campaign convinced them to “embrace the crowning [enkronamiento] of the name Sephardi over the name Oriental” (Saltiel, “Una grande viktoria”). These individuals did not necessarily perceive of their separation as sin’at achim (“hatred among brothers”), as some of their detractors claimed, but rather as reflecting a legitimate understanding of difference and independence among the groups (Sevi). As late as 1930, linguist Max A. Luria argued that twenty-two separate “dialects” of Ladino could be found in New York, each city of origin home to a distinct “dialect” (Luria).

Like those who sought to preserve local identity, political opponents to Zionism also resisted the Sephardi campaign, most significantly, the leaders of the prominent Salonican Brotherhood of America in New York. Zionist advocates in favor of the Sephardi campaign, such as La America’s editor, Gadol, believed that the creation of a

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