¿identidades ambivalentes? Sefardíes en la España contemporáneaentre nacionalismo, antisemitismo y filosefardismo

Resumen

Sephardim in Modern Spain: between nationalism, antisemitism and philosephardism addresses the complexities and legal and political consequences of the (re)conceptualization of Sephardim in Modern Spain. Sephardim, the descendants of those Jews that were expelled from the Spanish kingdoms in 1492, from the middle of the 19th century were caught in the particular Spanish political-ideological cross-road (weak modernization and conflictive national construction process, colonial crisis and need to recuperate its former power international status and prestige in the concert of the European nations, etc.). The ambivalent treatment of Sephardim in nineteenth and twentieth century Spain allows for a dramatically interesting case study of a historical process of the crossing of geopolitical or socio-cultural borders resulting from and in the development of the ambivalent identification of Sephardim in Modern Spain. From the middle of the 19th century Sephardim where increasingly thought of as a cultural-historical 'mix' of Jews and Spaniards. Contrary to what it may seem, the development of this ambivalent identification did not facilitate the reintegration of Sephardim into the state from where their ancestors had been expelled in 1492. On the contrary, by emphasizing the 'mixed' identity of Sephardim the supposedly original distinctness and separation of pure Spaniards as opposed to Jews was revitalized not in religious but in national terms. The consequence was that while a philosephardic project of political inclusion developed, Sephardim were never accepted as full citizens in Modern Spain. And this had tragic consequences for those Sephardim who had enjoyed partial citizenship status from the middle of the 19th century to the outbreak of the Second World War, when Nazi Germany initiated the systematic extermination of the European Jewry.