Jewish History as “Historia Patria”: José Amador de los Ríos and the History of the Jews of Spain

Abstract

This article describes the pioneering work of José Amador de los Ríos, author of the first modern history of the Jews of Spain. Through discussion of his life and work, the article illustrates how Spain's Jewish past became an object of debate in the nineteenth century, as Spanish scholars and politicians placed historiography at the service of rival political causes. It also explores some of the ways in which the Sephardic past figured into emergent questions of national identity and the so-called Jewish Question in Spain and elsewhere in Europe. The recovery of the Jewish past in Spain was marked by deep ambivalence, as the debate concerning Jewish absence and presence in Spain was marked by a nationalism that, though liberal, remained firmly Catholic.

Américo Castro’s Conversos and the Question of Subjectivity

“…(Castro, 1954: 570. My emphasis) 35 For a discussion of similar ambivalence, albeit expressed along different lines, see Friedman (2011). 36 The locus classicus for the idea that with the coming of Christ the Jews had ceased to thrive is Romans 11.…”

“…Although his conception of Spain remained a Catholic nationalist one, and ultimately denied a valid place for Judaism, Amador de los Ríos established as undeniable the role of Jews in Spain's history. (Friedman, 2011). A generation later, the Jesuit scholar Fidel Fita energetically sought to recover Jewish texts and inscriptions -precious elements, in his view, of the Spanish patrimony.…”