Sigh in Madrid

One day recently, after the sun had set over Madrid, a "group of Spanish Jews met in a small, neat, new synagogue. On the walls hung the white and blue banner of Israel; the traditional nine candles stood against a background of gold-embroidered drapery. When the candles were lighted, old men in black skull caps joyfully started to chant the ancient Hanukkah hymn. The younger ones barely remembered the words. Once more, the Jews of Spain, who used to be the world's richest and proudest, had an open, permanent place of worship. A bent old man sighed: "Now I can die. Now I'll have a funeral following the religion of my forefathers."

In Spain, the story pf his forefathers dates back over 2,000 years, to the days following the Carthaginian invasion of the Iberian peninsula. Through the successive invasions of the Romans, Goths, Arabs and Berbers, they survived and grew in number. Under Moslem rule, the Spanish Jews produced an elite of brilliant poets and philosophers, and of wealthy bankers. But in the 14th Century, after most of Spain had been freed from Moslem rule by Spanish Christians, the Jews became a persecuted people.

"Never to Return." Many were forced to become Christians. It was said of the converts, however, that, as soon as they were baptized, they went home to wash off the holy water and that they secretly practiced their old religion. A saying of the day held: "There are three ways of wasting water--by the running of a river to the sea, by diluting wine, and by baptizing a Jew."

When the Inquisition held full sway over Spain, its agents found (and painstakingly listed) 27 different ways in which the "New Christians" continued to worship in their old faith. In 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella published an edict: "There yet remains and is obvious the great harm which has come and still comes to Christians from . . . conversation and communication . . . with the Jews. [They] have made it clear that they would always endeavor by all possible ways and means to ... draw away faithful Christians from our Holy Catholic Church . . . For [this] greatest, most dangerous and most contagious of crimes ... we have decided to command all of the aforesaid Jews, men and women, to leave our Kingdoms and never to return to them."

Spain's Jewry was stunned. Its most eminent member, the great theologian Isaac Abrabanel, who had risen to be financial adviser to the Crown, pleaded with Ferdinand to rescind the edict of expulsion. According to Abrabanel's own account of the historic scene, he "wearied himself to distraction in imploring compassion." He cried: "Regard us, Ferdinand, use not thy servants so cruelly." But the King remained "more fierce than Esau." Only when Abrabanel offered him 30,000 ducats did he seem to weaken.

"Do Not Forget." At that point, Tomas de Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor, strode into the room. He was (in the words of Historian Francis Hackett) "lean, ascetic, ominous, with black fires in his hollow eyes, reminding one of certain Spanish landscapes that look like the suburbs of hell." Holding out a crucifix, Torquemada said: "Judas Iscariot sold Christ for 30 pieces of silver: Your Highness is about to sell Him for 30,000 ducats. Here He is; take Him and sell Him." He left the crucifix on a table and withdrew; shaken, the King declared that the edict would stand.

The Jews set about their exodus. Wrote a Spanish priest: "There was not a Christian who did not pity them." Dominican friars indefatigably tried to convert Jews and thus save them from exile. They burst into synagogues to preach the Christian gospel, but rabbis thundered back the teachings of Moses. Some Jews were converted. The majority preferred to leave their homes and their wealth behind. Many Jews removed tombstones from their cemeteries and took them along into exile. Their last ships left Spain the day before Columbus sailed for the New World.

Wherever the Spanish Jews went, they formed proud groups among their fellow Jews. They lived in many countries, mixed with many stocks, but they never lost their pride in their Spanish heritage. Slowly a trickle of their descendants returned to the home of their ancestors. In 1917, one Ignacio Bauer opened Madrid's first synagogue since the expulsion. During the Spanish civil war, it was closed down once more and looted by the Communists. But Bauer managed to save the Torah (sacred book), and the Franciscan nuns of Murcia hid it in the crypt of their convent. Under the Franco regime, which requires police permits for gatherings of more than ten, Spain's 8,000 Jews had no place for public worship.

Last fall, Moise Lawenda, a Spanish Jew from Poland appeared on the scene. He had been repatriated with 365 other Spanish Jews from a Nazi concentration camp; his entire family of 30 had perished. He met secretly with Ignacio Bauer and one Joseph Cuby, a British Jew from Gibraltar. He persuaded them that the time was ripe to reopen a synagogue in Spain.

Cautiously, the three men went to work on the authorities. Last week, Francisco Franco made a historic gesture. His government formally offered full Spanish citizenship (after careful screening) to descendants of those Jews who went to Greece and Egypt after their expulsion in 1492. A week earlier, Franco had granted permission for the opening of Moise Lawenda's temple.

Franco's action was obviously a calculated contribution to his new "liberal" buildup. But as silver-haired old Joseph Cuby, the acting rabbi, intoned a psalm in benediction of Spain and of "Spain's head of state," his voice shook with sincere emotion. At the end of the service, he said proudly: "Brothers, do not forget, we will meet here again Friday next, for evening prayer--openly."

In its appointed compartment in the synagogue rested the sacred Torah, which the nuns of Murcia had safely returned a few weeks before.

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