December 18, 2020
This Shabbat: Parshat Miketz
In this week’s Torah portion, Miketz, Pharaoh has two mysterious dreams: that seven healthy cows are eaten by seven gaunt and scrawny ones, and seven healthy ears of corn are swallowed up by seven thin ones. When Pharaoh seeks an interpreter for his dreams, Joseph, an old hand at dream interpretation is brought to help out. Joseph tells Pharaoh that his dreams are foretelling the future - that seven years of plenty for Egypt will be followed by seven years of famine. He exhorts Pharaoh to find an advisor to help him prepare, and Pharaoh chooses Joseph himself to be that advisor. In the years to come, Joseph creates a brilliant system of rationing that allows Egypt to save the surplus from its years of plenty to tide over its people during the years of famine. Pharaoh's dreams are particularly resonant for us today. We are all familiar with a bad spell in our lives seemingly eating up whatever good came before it. But, perhaps that is too simplistic an interpretation of these dreams. Perhaps a better way to look at them is that, just like the healthy cows were eaten by the weak cows and the strong ears of corn were eaten by the weak ears, the good remains inside the bad. Like Joseph, who managed to save food to see Egypt through its difficult years, we too need to draw upon inner reserves of strength, put away during more abundant times, to fortify us for challenges. As we face a long dark winter in what we hope will be the final clutches of the coronavirus pandemic, let us dig deep and remember that we had extra joy and strength stored up from before. We can draw upon those reserves, just as Egypt drew upon the stored food during their famine, until we are able to return to times of bountiful happiness and togetherness again.
This Week in Jewish History
December 16, 1968 - Spain formally rescinds its expulsion edict of 1492
During the Middle Ages and into the Early Modern Period, Jews were expelled by many countries and localities in Europe. Perhaps the most infamous expulsion was that from Spain. Jews had been living in Spain for hundreds of years and were very proud of their particular Sephardic (Spanish-Jewish) culture. During Muslim rule in the Middle Ages, a period known as the Golden Age of Spain, Jews flourished, attaining high status in Spanish society, serving in high government positions and contributing great works of poetry and art. However, Jewish success in Spain was not to last. When Christians reconquered Spain in the fourteenth century, they brought hatred and terrible discrimination against Jews with them. Over the following century, many Jews were forcibly converted to Catholicism. The Spanish Inquisition of the late fifteenth century demonized such converts, called conversos, for being false Christians, punishing them with torture and death. In March 1492, King Ferdinand issued the Alhambra Decree, which ordered all Jews to leave by July 31 of that year. His reason: the Jews were “Judaizing,” or influencing conversos to remain connected to Judaism. As the decree stated, “In order that there should be no further damage to our holy faith…we have decided to remove the main cause for this through the expulsion of the Jews from our kingdoms.” The expulsion of Spanish Jews from Spain began the Sephardi Diaspora. Sephardi Jews settled in the Ottoman Empire, Northern Europe, and even the “New World.” They took their unique culture and their special language, Ladino, a blend of Spanish and Hebrew, with them. Unlike most other European nations, Spain did not welcome Jews back into its borders in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although the Spanish Constitution of 1859 legally overruled the Alhambra Decree, the Spanish government did not formally endorse the abrogation. As a result, Jews did not return in any significant numbers to live in Spain. Indeed, as late as the 1950s, there were only about 3,000 Jews living there. Finally, on December 16, 1968, the Spanish government publicly and formally rescinded the 476-year-old Alhambra Decree. The formal edict to that effect was read aloud at the dedication of a brand new synagogue in Madrid, the first to be built in the city since the fourteenth century. Since 1968, the Spanish Jewish community has grown to number approximately 12,000, although Jews remain a tiny .02% of the Spanish population. In 2015, the Spanish government passed a law that would grant citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled in 1492. More than 130,000 Jews applied for citizenship before the law expired last year. Who knows, though, if the Sephardic community in Spain will ever return to its former glory.
For Shabbat Table Discussion: The European Union's court decision upholding a ban on kosher slaughter
On Thursday, the European Union’s highest court upheld Belgium’s ban on slaughtering animals without stunning them first. This ruling bans kosher and halal slaughter, both of which require an animal to be conscious when slaughtered, in two out of the three states in Belgium and makes it possible for other European countries to enact their own bans. In their decision, the judges stated that the ban does not violate EU principles of freedom of religion. Legislators in the two Belgian states enacted the ban because they claimed that kosher and halal slaughter violated laws protecting animals. However, they declined to ban hunting, saying that it was not a major source of food production. Jewish leaders including Israel’s ambassador to Belgium expressed grave concern about the ruling, with the ambassador calling it “a blow to Jewish life in Europe.” They noted that if government officials had been willing to work with the Jewish community, solutions could have been found because, in fact, the method used in kosher slaughter is no less humane than any other method.
Bans on kosher slaughter have a long history in Europe, often with implicit or explicit linkage to antisemitism. Such bans were enacted at various points in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by Switzerland, Poland, Sweden, and Norway. Perhaps most famously, the Nazi regime in Germany banned kosher slaughter three months after coming to power, a ban that carried over to all German-occupied territories during World War II. The bans were removed after the war.
Questions for your Shabbat table:
- On its face, a law that seeks to protect animals from cruelty seems so benign and unobjectionable. Why do you think Jewish and Muslim leaders argue that this law is actually rooted in antisemitism and anti-Islamic sentiment?
- Can you think of other instances in which a law might seem benign on its face but actually has a more nefarious motive?
- How might Jewish communities in Europe use advocacy to stop the spread of such laws to more nations in the EU?
For more information about the EU court ruling, see AJC’s Transatlantic Institute’s press release, issued in response to the ruling.
Shabbat shalom!
שבת שלום!
