The Shaping of the Sephardic Mind: The Inquisition and Expulsion

[@Lou_Snuts]

As a "Gentile", I have been following Dr. Abramson for several years now and there are no words that can describe how much that I appreciate his informative lectures! My favorite series is "The Jews of Italy."

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Hey thanks very much!

[@karlschreiber9286]

Thank You. Prof. Abramson is the only person I know who brings together jews christians and muslems. The picture two women together talking I like very much. Long life Abram Accord for real long living dynamic peace.

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

You are very kind.

[@karlschreiber9286]

SOMETIMES I M KIND. 🤠

[@karlschreiber9286]

I wonder who are the better jews? Christians or muslims? May be both? Or? 😧

[@denizalgazi]

Thank you for the fantastic talk! With the dominance of Ashkenazim in the coverage of our people's history, so pleased our Sefardi journey is being discussed!

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

It's a fascinating history.

[@teresabaptista7016]

Fascinating lecture, Professor Abramson. Thank you so much. Shalom, from Lisbon.

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

You are very welcome

[@Michael-el]

Many thanks for this! Prof Abramson’s lectures are fascinating. Both historical fact and analysis.

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Glad you found the video useful!

[@zdzislawmeglicki2262]

I think the strongest evidence of Jews having adopted elements of cultures within which they found themselves embedded are their languages, Ladino and Yiddish perhaps the best known. Today we attend great lectures delivered in English by a gentleman named "Henry" (a name of Frankish-Germanic origin) and dressed in an elegant western-style suit and tie.

[@PEACE2U-ALL]

Found themselves embedded, and are now on the way home. Shema, Israel. 🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱

[@MarkHibbard-r3f]

AM YISRAEL CHAI !

[@zdzislawmeglicki2262]

@@PEACE2U-ALL Israel is a remarkable case of the Phoenix arising from the ashes, centered around a language that was dead for over two millennia. In that time many European languages died out, like Gothic, or transformed completely to become new languages, like English, Russian, Spanish…

[@globaldottools4432]

Wow very chameleon of you guys.

[@doctordirt]

I have always reminded pet-store employees that chameleons are people, too, and they always give me a funny look in response, but I knew that I was not the only person to consider me a chameleon.

[@american1476]

thank you for the beautiful painting

[@lvgdeadgrl]

Oh! Wonderful! Thank you for sharing!

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

I hope you find it useful!

[@sylviabendavid]

Thanks

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Thank you for supporting the research!

[@juliettea6999]

Amazing teaching!! Thank you!!

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@Jo_Em909]

My ancestry has been traced back to the Jews of Iberia whose descendants later fled to England from the Inquisition. There they attended the Bevis Marks Synagogue in London - Benjamin and Sarah Cohen then ended up in Australia. So this was particularly fascinating for me. Thank you for these lectures Dr Abramson 😊

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

I'm glad you found it useful!

[@jasonoconner7863]

Woot! Excited for the public premiere.

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Me too!

[@btugrul]

Mersi muy muncho por este program tan maravillozo! As a scholar myself who is interested in Sephardic identity and the question of cultural trauma, I have been following Dr. Abramson's lectures for quite sometime and It is really fascinating how objective and pedagogical they are. Thank you very much once again Dr. Abramson, awaiting to see more videos on similar subjects. All the best from Turkey!

[@moraemepasikhani9153]

This lecture was fascinating.

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

So glad you found it useful!

[@johnathandoe7079]

Thank you Dr. Smith. After watching many of your videos you have really changed my view on Jews and the necessity of Jewish state. I wish we can find a way for us to rekindle the golden age of coexistence between Muslims and Jews and stop spilling each others blood. (Minus the second class citizen stuff) Much love from a far away desert.

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

You are welcome. Who is Dr. Smith?

[@johnathandoe7079]

Are you not Will Smith, famous actor turned into first class historian?

[@Robespierre-lI]

Fascinating. I'm glad i found your channel. It's far from my own research area but illuminating.

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Enjoy in good health

[@roc7880]

this is a great topic, and the history of the Jewish community in the South of Spain and Portugal is still unexplored. for example, we do not know the extent of the contribution of Jewish scholars to the Spanish exploration of Africa and Americas.

[@eduardoreyes1272]

Espectacular

[@elizabethrancourt302]

Have you found any information about the Acadians and Judaism? My grandfather was Acadian, and from what we can tell, he seems to have been descended from French descendants of Jews who fled the Inquisition. Ultimately there was a group of Sephardi men who were “guinea pigs” in New France, who then married into the tribes there, notably the Mik’maq, but there may be others. I don’t have any biographies of the Spanish Jews who ended up in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, but I so want to know more about this group of people who contributed to Acadian culture, and then after the Acadian Expulsion to Cajun culture as well.

[@geertdecoster5301]

Good posting yet again. Although even the Enlightenment later on didn't enlighten everyone just straight away. In a famous exchange with the Sephardic Jewish writer Isaac de Pinto, Voltaire of all great intellectuals of his time conceded that a minority of assimilated Jews might qualify as philosophers. It's always been agreed that this reply of Talleyrand is telling here: "Qui n’a pas connu les années qui ont précédé la Révolution ne sait pas ce que c’est que la douceur de vivre". My own guess is that we've gained and lost something very precious at the same time right then, and are still doing that on occasions. The art of discussing anything for the right to say anything perhaps?

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Thanks for the thoughtful comment

[@pheebsbee1280]

Thank you ❤

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Welcome

[@padillas4357]

Another good post! 👍 But I'm of the demographic that remember your jokes... I laugh anyway 😉. I think your thesis has merit. I often think about the differences between my family and our Ashkenazi friends. I definitely feel the animosity between the two cultures at times. The Sephardi seem to have a "survive to fight another day" mindset, where the Ashkenazi have more of a "our way, or die trying".... just my take on it. I definitely think that the Sephardi had a much longer time of persecution by the Catholics. Your term "slow burn" is a good way to put it. I see that you are making an effort in distinguishing Catholic from Christian, and I encourage you to expand this practice. Without going into their respective beliefs, the two are only superficially similar. History shows the track record of the Catholic persecution and attempt at forced conversion, domination, or extermination of Christian groups. It is the Catholic church that originated Replacement Theology. Many Christian communities, even today, are perfectly fine with Jews maintaining their customs. This applies to all the various types: Orthodox, Reform, and even Messianic. I think you should include the Holocaust with the Crusades, as Hitler is a Catholic by their definition.

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Thanks for the supportive words

[@JDL8888]

Great stuff here

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Thanks

[@Alltogether54]

Do you have transcripts of your talks?

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Just whatever the AI records. I don't read from a prepared text.

[@romero522]

How the movie of the dispute of Barcelona is called? 33:39

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

I think it's called The Disputation

[@sixfiftyfive2386]

@24:30 ... if the center of Islam moved from Arabia to Baghdad, why would Baghdad not be the infamous "second city" rather than Jerusalem?

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Hmm. I don't know.

[@jesusalvarez-cedron6581]

Of aprox 200.000 jews that lived in Spain in 1492, half of them converted and in a matter of two generations there was no diference between the conversos and the other christians of spain. Many jews converted and even become bishops and archbisops of the the spanish Catholic church. So I understand the rage of jews nowadays. The XVI and XVIIth century in Europe was a period of religious termoil. Compared with the witchhunt, the persecution and killing of thousands of catholics, puritans and anabaptists in England, the calvinist tribunals in Switzerland and France, the burning of catholic images, churches and cathedrals by luterans (after came the burning and killing of catholics), the Inquisition seems to me rather modern for the time and for the task. Don't forget that european modernity began the uniformity and standarization of beliefs inside the nation.

[@margueriteneuhaus7539]

Thank you for offering this to Members. Was the first lecture posted ? If so , where can I find it? thanks in advance,

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Challenge with the recording of the first lecture. I’ll have to redo it.

[@AngelMalaika1974]

I think you overlook the Christian period of convivencia.

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Hmm

[@AngelMalaika1974]

we Spanish have a profound admiration for the Sephardic people whom we consider somehow our people. As you probably know, after the Almohade invasion, many Jews fled Al-Andalus to find refuge in the Christian Kingdoms where they established new Juderias and thrived. I am talking about Benjamin de Tudela, Moises de Leon, Samuel Levi, Toledo School of Translators or Fernando III of Castile proclaimed King of the Three Religions. I am far from convinced that not even the challenge of Mohamed as God's prophet could be tolerated in a public Disputation. Convivencia was, is and will be a Myth because Muslims, Christians and Jews can only tolerate each other. Unfortunately, Jews were always slandered no matter what. I just wanted to point out that during the Christian period, there were a lot of interesting Sephardic figures and episodes worth studying. Thank you very much for your lessons that I follow with delight.@@HenryAbramsonPhD

[@mikeklein9923]

And the spanish jews who made their way to Amsterdam, etc. I listened to previous lectures. You neglected to mention Eidot HaMizrach

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Next week

[@Melungeonpeople]

People in the South East US are showing very high Iberian Peninsula especially Al Andaluz in their Autosomal DNA. We've tested "unrelated" families in rural Alabama, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia and every individual has Iberian Autosomal DNA and match Jews in Israel. Strangely none match British DNA or have very little British DNA. Our profile seems to be like South America. We are currently calling ourselves Melungeons but this is a very interesting Jewish issue that should be investigated. I was raised believing I was Scot Irish British. My family's Autosomal DNA shows Middle Eastern and Amazigh, Iberian and Balkans. My entire family have converted (returned) to Conservative Judaism.

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Very interesting!

[@samcohenm]

Professor, around min 8-9 you mentioned that Jews from Constantinople were mostly not from Spain. Is there evidence of that? Did you mean Persia instead of Constantinope by any chance? Toda!

[@jimodonnell8752]

Please stop apologising for your jokes. You are a funny guy. Love from Ireland 🇮🇪🇮🇱

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Thank you-but many people seem to like the apologies. They keep asking for them.

[@TroyCutlip]

Followers of JESUS embrace and love the Jews. They also know that Jews are the chosen of the CREATOR.

[@american1476]

Raccared was my ancestor

[@lottyblok383]

to play chess without towers after the attack is different......better, take a rainbow with or without see, there is the rainbow

[@karlschreiber9286]

The expulsion wasnt be done of ächristians. The inquisition has nothing to do with the better jewish belief of joschua who will come some day.

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Hmm

[@elaneradim6117]

רוב תודות

[@lottyblok383]

the joke...........home......weldone, their is a home......

[@eduardoreyes1272]

Espectacular