The Memory Work of Jewish Spain

by Daniela Flesler, Adri n P rez Melgosa

Overview

The 2015 law granting Spanish nationality to the descendants of Jews expelled in 1492 is the latest example of a widespread phenomenon in contemporary Spain, the "re-discovery" of its Jewish heritage.
 
In The Memory Work of Jewish Spain, Daniela Flesler and Adrián Pérez Melgosa examine the implications of reclaiming this memory through the analysis of a comprehensive range of emerging cultural practices, political initiatives and institutions in the context of the long history of Spain's ambivalence towards its Jewish past. 
 
Through oral interviews, analyses of museums, newly reconfigured "Jewish quarters," excavated Jewish sites, popular festivals, tourist brochures, literature and art, The Memory Work of Jewish Spain explores what happens when these initiatives are implemented at the local level in cities and towns throughout Spain, and how they affect Spain's present.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253050120
Publisher:	Indiana University Press (Ips)
Publication date:	12/08/2020
Series:	Sephardi and Mizrahi Studies
Pages:	390
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 9.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Daniela Flesler is Associate Professor of Hispanic Languages and Literature at Stony Brook University. She is author of The Return of the Moor: Spanish Responses to Contemporary Moroccan Immigration and editor (with Adrián Pérez Melgosa and Tabea A. Linhard) of Revisiting Jewish Spain in the Modern Era.Adrián Pérez Melgosa is Associate Professor of Hispanic Languages and Literature at Stony Brook University. He is author of Cinema and Inter-American Relations: Tracking Transnational Affect and editor (with Daniela Flesler and Tabea A. Linhard) of Revisiting Jewish Spain in the Modern Era.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Memory Work of Jewish Spain
1. The Long Journey of Sephardi Myths
2. Tourism and the Embracing of Spain's Jewish Legacy
3. Loss, Rescue, and Converso Dissonances at the Sephardi Museum of Toledo
4. Exhibiting Jewish Heritage at the Local and Regional Levels
5. Memory Entanglements: Hervás's Jewish Inheritance and the Francoist Repression
6. Returns to Sepharad
Conclusion: Memory and the Future
Bibliography

What People are Saying About This

"Based on extensive fieldwork, The Memory Work of Jewish Spain offers a well-theorized and well-historicized account of the heritage industry in contemporary Spain that encourages tourists to visit former Jewish quarters (real or invented) where Jewish culture was, precisely, obliterated. The book's most original feature is its analysis of the "multidirectional memory" that entangles the "recovery" of Jewish culture with the memory work around the victims of Francoist reprisals in and after the Spanish Civil War, in both cases predicated on an unpalatable history of violence that many prefer to ignore. "

Jo Labanyi

Based on extensive fieldwork, The Memory Work of Jewish Spain offers a well-theorized and well-historicized account of the heritage industry in contemporary Spain that encourages tourists to visit former Jewish quarters (real or invented) where Jewish culture was, precisely, obliterated. The book's most original feature is its analysis of the "multidirectional memory" that entangles the "recovery" of Jewish culture with the memory work around the victims of Francoist reprisals in and after the Spanish Civil War, in both cases predicated on an unpalatable history of violence that many prefer to ignore. 

David Wacks

Erudite and accessible, Flesler and Pérez Melgosa's study is a long-awaited deep dive into the present of Spain's Jewish past.

Editorial Reviews

"Erudite and accessible, Flesler and Pérez Melgosa's study is a long-awaited deep dive into the present of Spain's Jewish past."—David Wacks, University of Oregon, author of Double Diaspora in Sephardic Literature

"Based on extensive fieldwork, The Memory Work of Jewish Spain offers a well-theorized and well-historicized account of the heritage industry in contemporary Spain that encourages tourists to visit former Jewish quarters (real or invented) where Jewish culture was, precisely, obliterated. The book's most original feature is its analysis of the "multidirectional memory" that entangles the "recovery" of Jewish culture with the memory work around the victims of Francoist reprisals in and after the Spanish Civil War, in both cases predicated on an unpalatable history of violence that many prefer to ignore."—Jo Labanyi, New York University

"a wide-ranging book that analyzes the ways in which public imaginary has taken form in heritage sites throughout Spain."—Sephardic Horizons

"The Memory Work of Jewish Spain does more than fill a crucial gap. It is a breakthrough in both Spanish and Jewish studies, modeling new paths in memory and heritage studies with its thorough and illuminating assessment of Spain's current engagement with its Jewish past."—Dalia Kandiyoti - College of Staten Island, CUNY, AJS Review

"It is an extremely rich volume relating with wit and depth to the most up-to-date research, with insights and contributions nurtured by in-situ observations and encounters with some of the protagonists of the complex and elusive stories that fill out its pages."—Esra Almas - Bilkent University, Studies in Contemporary Jewry

"Many of the efforts in Spain to reconnect with its Jewish past, especially focusing on the growing visibility of Jewish locations, associations, buildings, and activities, are documented and analyzed in The Memory Work of Jewish Spain. An underlying question throughout is the impact of, as the authors point out, the Jewish past which has not been forgotten on Spanish culture. Thus, the authors grapple with understanding the significance of spaces that were Jewish long ago. In addition, they illustrate how several intersecting facets, the Jewish history with the more recent and tangible impact of the Civil War/Franco years, impact the re-creation of memory. The rich text is complemented generously by the equally rich endnotes closing each chapter. Full of commentary, they also serve as a valuable source of additional information."—Annette Fromm, H-NET Reviews Humanities & Social Sciences

From the Publisher

The Memory Work of Jewish Spain does more than fill a crucial gap. It is a breakthrough in both Spanish and Jewish studies, modeling new paths in memory and heritage studies with its thorough and illuminating assessment of Spain's current engagement with its Jewish past.

AJS Review - Dalia Kandiyoti - College of Staten Island

It is an extremely rich volume relating with wit and depth to the most up-to-date research, with insights and contributions nurtured by in-situ observations and encounters with some of the protagonists of the complex and elusive stories that fill out its pages.

Studies in Contemporary Jewry - Esra Almas - Bilkent University

a wide-ranging book that analyzes the ways in which public imaginary has taken form in heritage sites throughout Spain.

Sephardic Horizons