Gabi Newman meets the descendants of the Anusim – Jews who were forced to abandon Judaism against there will centuries ago.
Welcome to Jewish Majorca
The Jewish community on Majorca is quite small – only a few hundred. But Majorca is an island brimful with “Jewish memory” (“Memória Jueva” in the local language).
If you plan to visit Majorca or move here permanently, and you ned some information about the Jewish life here – today or in the past – you have come to the right place.
The Jewish history of Majorca
The first Jewish communities on the Balearic islands were probably established after 70 C.E., the year of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. The first archaeological evidences date back to the III and IV centuries. The first written proof dates back to 417 C.E. Through the centuries the Jews developed flourishing communities and played an important role in the society and economy of the Balearic islands. Among the Jews could be found important merchants, navigators, cartographers, booksellers, translators, astrologers, lawyers and doctors. The Jews of Palma lived in two different eighbourhoods: Call Mayor and Call Menor. There existed synagogues in both Calls: in the streets of Monti-Sion, San Alonso, Pelleteria and Sant Bartomeu.
On August 2nd 1391 the Call of Palma was looted and burned, killing 300 Jews. Some Jews converted to Christianity. Others fled the island, while some, faithful to their Jewish identity, stayed on and tried to rebuild the synagogues.
In 1413 the king Ferdinand enacted severe prohibitions for the Jews, with the prime objective of avoiding contacts between Jews and Conversos, causing an extremely difficult situation for the Jews. According to these rules the Jews were obligated to live only in the Jewish quarter and had to wear a distinctive mark (the red and yellow “Rodella”). Their rights were also considerably limited in matters of business and profession.
In 1435 four Jews of Mallorca, among them the Rabbi, were falsely accused of torturing and crucifying an arab slave. This lead to riots among the population which in its turn caused terror among the Jews on the island. Some tried to escape while others chose to join the Church. Encouraged by these conversions, the authorities decided that the Jews only could stay if they chose to convert to Christianity. This meant the end of official Jewish presence on Majorca.
The Spanish Inquisition was established on Mallorca 1488, and through centuries continued the persecution of Christians who were suspected of judaizing. In 1679 the Tribunal of the Inquisicion on Majorca organizad five big autos-de-fé. More than 250 of the Jewish descendants were accused of judaizing. After these events, the descendants of the Jews attempted to integrate in the society, but the stigma, manifested by the humiliating garments of penitence, the Sanbenito, made it to a great extent difficult to assimilate. In this situation many of them embarked a ship to abandon the island, but because of a heavy storm they had to return. They were arrested and condemned a second time. These events culminated in the four autos-da-fé of 1691, the bloodiest in all the history of the Inquisition on Majorca. Most of the convicted chose to affirm their Christian faith and thus were punished with a relative “mild” execution – decapitated before being burned. But three persons refused to deny their Jewish faith and were thus burned alive.
To publicly humiliate the condemned Jews, the Sanbenitos were hung out with the names of the condemned persons in the monastery of S. Domingo. This meant that these families were stigmatized and considered a lower class within society. These families were called Chuetas (“lard” in the local language) and were ostracized so that they only could marry within their own group , a situation that has continued up until modern times. The 15 surnames of the Chuetas are: Aguiló, Bonín, Cortès, Forteza, Fuster, Martí, Miró, Picó, Pinya, Pomar, Segura, Tarongí, Valentí, Valleriola and Valls.
Inquisition Tribunal by Goya
Only in 1782 king Charles III set out the rights of equality for the Chuetas: freedom to live outside the “Call”, the right to enrol in the army and the right to practice any profession. In spite of the fact that the situation for the Chuetas was improving as a result of these enactments, it was not possible to eradícate the social segregation.
In 1820 the Inquisition was finally abolished. The sanbenitos were burned and the secret archives of the ignominous Inquisition were destroyed. But in spite of this, in 1823 the Chueta quarters were once again attacked and looted without any punishment for perpetrators.
At the end of the XVIII century the Chuetas were liberated from almost all legal sanctions, but without any doubt they continued to suffer social isolation and discrimination, keeping the intermarriage rate at about 5%.
During the XX century drastic financial and social changes swept the island. In this process of modernisation and gradual globalization, the Chuetas – although still being identified as such – has integrated in the Majorcan society. The level of intermarriage has increased significantly and today many important public persons are Chuetas.
But it cannot be said that the concept of Chuetas only belongs to history. Still at the begining of the XXI century the subject is still controversial. In an opinion poll by the university of the Balearic islands, showed that about 30% of the Majorcans stated that they didn’t want to marry a Chueta, while about 5% note even wanted to have friends among this group.
Simultaneously, the Chuetas as a group and as individuals have taken active part in process of searching for their identity. On one hand there are those who want to eradicate any sign of their past history. On the other hand, many Chuetas today mean that their belonging to this group constitute a fundamental part of their identity, and therefore want to focus upon it through different cultural, intellectual and religious canals.
Some have returned fully to normative Judaism and thus have decided to adopt a Jewish way of living; others have decided to connect to their ancestral legacy through studies of Jewish history and culture; for others their contact with their roots is being realized through contacts on a personal and communal level, be it with other Chuetas or with Jews.
The Jerusalem-based organization Shavei Israel has as its objective to help and support descendants of Jews all over the world, to answer the questions of those who, on their own initiative, have chosen to to look for their roots. For this reason, with the sending of Rabbi Shaul Friberg Shavei Israel was established in Palma in 2001.
As a result of these activities Shavei Israel in 2007 supported the foundation of the institute for Jewish studies for the descendants of Jews (Institut Rafel Valls) and the museum of the local Jewish history (Museu de Memória Jueva).