Friday, March 14, 2014
Congressional B (Omni Shoreham)
In the 1980s, and intensifying with the 500th anniversary in 1992 of the expulsion, Spain has sponsored numerous initiatives that invoke Sepharad--most recently, the announcement to fast-track Spanish citizenship for descendants of those forced to flee in 1492 (Right of Return, 2012). After a period of willed amnesia marking Spain's infatuation with its newfound status as a democracy no longer marked by difference from Europe, the preoccupation with memory returned with the insistence of a long-repressed phantom. Set against a landscape of increasing antisemitism, what does this proposed recovery of Ibero-Jewish history signify for Spanish identity? Is Sepharad viewed as the site of mythical coexistence, similar to the contemporary invocation of Al-Andalus, whose legacy is now showcased in dialogue with Muslim/Arab communities? In this paper I outline political aspects of this revival of Jewish culture and discuss two novels that plumb the Ibero-Jewish past: Riera's En el último azul (1994) and Muñoz Molina's Sefarad (2001). Both texts reject the portrayal of Sepharad as erotic fantasy or intercultural idyll. Sepharad represents neither the beloved home where Jews flourished during their Golden Age nor the object of nostalgia in post-idyllic times. Rather, it is a trope signifying surveillance, fear, and deracination. Such works contest the politically opportunistic visions of national history now propagated not just by the Spanish right (myth of Catholic orthodoxy and cultural homogeneity) but also by a certain segment of the Spanish left (vision of peaceful convivencia that fosters cultural hybridity).
