“Where are the keys to Spain?/Who will open its doors?/Where does a soulless city keep/all its dead hours?” These beautiful verses are part of the song ‘Luna Sefardita’, in which the musical composer from Toledo Ana Alcaide speaks on behalf of Alina, a young girl who personifies the story of the thousands of Sephardim who were forced to abandon their capital, Toledo, to embark on a long journey of exile after the edict of expulsion of the Jews signed in Granada by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492.
A beautiful but sad story, full of stories, poems, songs and legends that have accompanied this wandering people for centuries, such as the one that refers to the keys to the houses that the Sephardim left behind when they were expelled from Spain, keys that some of these families have kept from generation to generation, as a symbol of the hope of returning to the land of their ancestors.
Part of this legacy was kept for a week in box number 1,447 of the Cervantes Institute safe.as if it were a treasure. Among the contents that have been deposited there, thanks to a gift from the Jewish community of Thessalonikithe discs are found Judeo-Spanish Songs from Thessaloniki (1998), by David Saltiel; In the sea there is a tower (2002), by the Israelite Community Choir of Thessaloniki, and TMusical instruments unknown to Greek Jews (2022), by Mariangela Chatzistamatiou.
Also presented were the minutes of the four international conferences on the Judeo-Spanish language organized by the Jewish community of Thessaloniki; a volume containing a summary of the history of Thessaloniki between 1897 and 1917; minutes of the first assembly of the Jewish community of Thessaloniki in 1946; a model of the city’s Holocaust Museum, under construction; and the most symbolic item: a set of keys to houses in Toledo belonging to some Jews expelled from the Iberian Peninsula by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492.
Links with Sephardic culture
“With this legacy, we want above all to express our gratitude for the support we receive in Thessaloniki, which was decisive in creating an extension of the Cervantes Institute that depends on the Athens center,” says the institution’s secretary general, Carmen Noguero, who emphasizes that this pays homage to Sephardic culture: “We owe a lot to the Jewish heritage in our language, in our music, in our literature and in general in our customs and our way of life.”
Event held last Tuesday at the Caja de las Letras of the Cervantes Institute
He President of the Central Council of Jewish Communities of Greece and of the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki, David Saltielhighlights the “close ties that have united Sephardic culture with Hispanic culture over the centuries, as well as the importance of recognizing this precious heritage.”
It was last Tuesday when the Cervantes Institute Mailbox opened its doors to receive all the legacy that the Sephardim have left for centuries in Spain, as can be seen in Toledo, and in much of Europe, as is the case of Thessaloniki. In fact, as explained in the round table that followed the donation agreement in which David Saltiel himself participated, “Sepharad is the biblical name with which the Jews formerly called the Iberian Peninsula; Today it is still used in the Hebrew language to designate Spain.
Thus, the Sephardim were Jews who resided in the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages and who left great contributions in every imaginable field: arts, sciences, commerce, language…, being the time of greatest splendor of their passage through the This region took place between the 11th and 12th centuries, when the coexistence between Hebrews, Christians and Muslims reached its highest level. But, at the end of the 15th century, they were expelled from the territory by the Catholic Monarchs and dispersed throughout Europe, leaving in their wake the traces of their legacy now preserved at the Cervantes Institute.
