Black Power and Pride: Sephardic Style (Part Two)

Black Power and Pride: Sephardic Style (Part Two)

In my first in a three-part series of blogs on Black Power and Pride, I wrote about Tommie Smith and John Carlos and their Black Power salutes at the 1968 Olympic Games. In part two, I sought to point out that Sephardic Jews are the "black Jews," although many of them don't necessarily look black. This "black Jew" label can be especially applied to Sephardic Jews in Israel: A political, socio-economic, and cultural proletariat vis-a-vis European Ashkenazi Jews since Israel's foundation in 1948.

In today's blog entry, I will highlight the various Sephardic Jewish communities throughout the world, major Sephardic figures of yesterday and today, and how Sephardic Jews hold a key for Middle East peace.

The largest Sephardic community in the world is in Israel, the country of my birth. I was born in Beersheba, a town in the Negev desert with a substantive Moroccan Sephardic population. It is estimated that there are about 800,000 Sephardic Jews in Israel, although the figure is probably much higher, if we include all non-Ashkenazi communities in Israel. The second biggest Sephardic Jewish community will surprise many people: France with 350,000. I have relatives on my mother's side that live in France and came their from Morocco. Unlike its Ashkenazi counterparts that sought to demonstrate that they were Frenchmen and women of the "Mosaic persuasion" for centuries, the Sephardic Jewish community in France was extremely assertive about its Judaism beginning in the 1980s. When a Sephardic Jew, Ilan Halimi, was murdered in a brutal slaying in 2006 they made it clear to political and police authorities that the crime should be classified as a race killing.

The Americas have the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh largest Sephardic communities in the world: the United States (80,000), Canada (60,000), Argentina (60,000), Brazil (60,000), Mexico (40,000), Venezuela (35,000), and Uruguay (30,000). Other sizable Sephardic communities in the world include: Italy (30,000), Turkey (25,000), United Kingdom (18,000), Spain (12,000), Greece (8,000), Bulgaria (5,000), Colombia (5,000), Morocco (3,000), Cuba (3,000), and Serbia (3,000). There are also small Sephardic communities in the Netherlands, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Portugal, Gibraltar, Tunisia, Peru, and Puerto Rico, numbering 600 to 3,000 individuals.

Historically, Sephardic Jews have made many contributions to all fields of human existence from literature to politics and medicine to astronomy. If you take a look at the photo above, we have Maimonides (12th century Spanish Jewish philosopher, physician, and rabbi), Isaac Abrabanel (15th century Portuguese Jewish statesman and financier), Baruch Spinoza (17th century Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Jewish descent), David Nieto (Italian-born philosopher, astronomer, physician, and leader of the Portuguese and Spanish community in London in the early 18th century), Daniel Mendoza (English boxing champion from 1792-5), and David Ricardo (world famous political economist who lived from 1772-1823).

The second row in the picture has more prestigious figures: Moses Montefiore, Benjamin Disraeli, Sabato Morais, Emma Lazarus, Benjamin Cardozo, and David de Sola Pool. In order these figures are: A world renowned financier, a 19th century British prime minister, a Leghorn-born Italian Jew and founder of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, the famous American poet, a US Supreme Court judge from 1932-1938, and a renowned London-born US rabbi.

And finally the third row of Sephardic who's who includes: a famous Jewish philanthropist, a French politician and prime minister, a singer, the founding father of philosophical deconstruction, Israel's Chief Sephardi rabbi since 2003, and an American film and television actor.

Now my claim at the outset was that Sephardic Jews are a key to peace in the Middle East. Peace between Israelis and Palestininans, Jews and Arabs, Muslims and Jews (and Christians) must come one day. We will wake up and see our common humanity. We will wake up and stop preaching ideologies of hatred, division, and war. And as Sephardic Jews lived and soaked Arab and Muslim cultures, they can assist in the process of peace in Israel between Israelis and Palestinians. Even within Israel proper itself between Jews and Arabs. Sephardic Jews are the bridge of many world cultures: Jewish, Arabic, Berber, and various European cultures. It is this cultural melange that is the future of humanity. A culture melange that is open to different cultures and yet proud and strong of its own cultural richness and identity.

Peace will come! Shalom, salam, paix, and paz will ring in the Middle East. And Ashkenazim and Sephardim both understand that it is necessary for the future of the Jewish people and for the spiritual improvement of humanity. I stretch my hand of peace to my Arab brothers and sisters from Palestine to Morocco to take the path of peace. The path of two peoples, two sovereign peoples, with two states. And I ask Europeans and Americans to help us in this fundamental "peace of the brave." We are tired of the dead on both sides. One dead Jew or Palestinian is too much. One dead Jew or Palestinian is a loss for all of humanity.

Tamir Bar-On