https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Judaeo-Spanish<\/a>). \u00a0<\/p>\nWhen I researched Ladino
\nin the online catalog for the partners of the Center for Jewish History Library
\nand Archives Collections, I found a master\u2019s thesis from a professor at the
\nUniversity of Washington on the few remaining Ladino speakers in Seattle. The
\nstudy discussed a bit about the origins of Sephardim in Seattle, and how
\nSeattle Sephardim became increasingly detached from Ladino and sometimes even
\ntheir Sephardic culture. I decided to further look into the topic of Seattle
\nSephardim. Through more research, I was able to broaden my topic to Sephardim
\nin the 19th-20th centuries from three cities on the West Coast: Seattle, Los
\nAngeles, and San Francisco.<\/p>\n
I decided to organize my
\nfindings into three blog posts \u00a0each of
\nwhich analyzes one research question for at least two of the three cities: Seattle,
\nLos Angeles, and San Francisco. Here are the questions:<\/p>\n
1. How did the wealth and status of the Sephardim
\nin West Coast cities affect their development in the late 19th- early 20th
\ncenturies? (Assessed for Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco)<\/p>\n
2. What was the relationship between Sephardim on
\nthe West Coast\u00a0and Ashkenazim on the West Coast in the late 19th-early 20th
\nCenturies? (Assessed for Seattle and San Francisco)<\/p>\n
3. What was the relationship between Turkish and
\nRhodesli Sephardim on the West Coast in the late 19th-early 20th Centuries?
\n(Assessed for Seattle and Los Angeles)<\/p>\n
The goal of this project
\nis to compare and contrast the status and development of Sephardic Jews in
\nSeattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. In addition, \u00a0I explore the relationships between different
\ngroups of Sephardim in those places, as well as \u00a0how Sephardim there related to Ashkenazim and
\neven non-Jews. My research was largely based on books held by the American
\nSephardi Federation (ASF) and the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS). I
\nlearned that Sephardim started moving to Seattle and Los Angeles around the
\nsame time, at the beginning of the 20th century, and the vast majority of the first
\ngeneration of Sephardim in these cities immigrated directly from other
\ncountries. However, the first Sephardim came to San Francisco during the Gold
\nRush period, and many of them were born in the US. In my posts, I explore this
\ncontrast and how it affected the growth of each Sephardic community.<\/p>\n
What was the Financial and Social Status of the
\nSephardim in West Coast Cities and How Did This Affect Their Development in the
\nLate 19th- Early 20th Centuries?<\/h2>\n
This
\nis my first blog post in a series of three posts in which I discuss the theme
\nof Sephardim in the West Coast in the 19th-20th century. In this post, I
\ncompare and contrast the wealth and prominence of Sephardim in each of the three
\ncities: Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. <\/p>\n
Seattle:<\/h2>\n
The first Sephardic
\nimmigrants to Seattle, Solomo Calvo and Jacob Policar, came directly from the
\nisland of Marmara in 1902 (Adatto, 55-56). They came searching for jobs in the
\nfishing industry that would make them enough money to sustain themselves and
\nensure a happy life for themselves. Calvo and Policar soon brought over family members that were
\nalso searching for a more financially comfortable lifestyle. These family
\nmembers spread the word about the opportunities available in Seattle, so soon
\nenough dozens of Turkish Sephardim living in poverty\u00a0 arrived in Seattle, searching for a better
\nfuture (Adatto, 60). The first few generations of Sephardim living in Seattle
\nwere uneducated (Adatto, 30) and took up jobs as unskilled laborers. Many of
\nthem worked in the fish industry, or as tailors, shoe shiners, or cigar rollers
\n(Sidell, 578). However, they worked hard and encouraged their children, so the
\nnext generation was more prosperous (Angel, \u00a0564). As their prosperity
\ngrew, the Sephardim of Seattle had more time to engage with secular and Jewish
\nintellectual ideas, and they focused more on educating the next generation. The
\nSephardic Talmud Torah improved (Angel, 571). At Bikur Holim, one of the two
\nSephardic synagogues that still exists in Seattle today, there is a thriving
\nadult education program filled with interesting lectures by guest speakers (Read more about these synagogues in my third
\nblog post). In addition, there is a large library at Bikur Holim.<\/p>\n
Los
\nAngeles:<\/h2>\n
Many of the early
\nSephardim living in Los Angeles were from Rhodes. Like in Seattle, most of the
\nSephardim living in Los Angeles in the early 20th century did menial labor
\nbecause they couldn\u2019t speak English. Most of the profits made from their
\nmenial labor were given to their struggling families in Rhodes. When their
\nfamily members back in Rhodes saw this money, many decided to come to Los Angeles themselves.
\nThis led to more Sephardic immigration to Los Angeles. Many Rhodesli Sephardic
\nimmigrants to Los Angeles came in order to become prosperous, and would have
\nstayed in Rhodes if they weren\u2019t living in poverty there (Hasson, 384).<\/p>\n
Similar to the Sephardim
\nof Seattle, first-generation Los Angeles Sephardim wanted their children to get
\nan education, find a job that did not involve menial labor, and assimilate into
\nAmerican society. One of the ways they tried to ensure that their children
\nwould be successful in America was by encouraging their children to speak English
\ninstead of Ladino (Hasson, 387). Although this did help second-generation
\nSephardim in Los Angeles to gain respect from others and to get high-paying
\njobs, it led to the decline of Ladino. Since many second-generation Sephardim
\nin Los Angeles weren\u2019t \u00a0used to speaking Ladino and thought it was not a
\ntool for success in the United States, most of them weren\u2019t inclined to speak
\nit regularly with their children. With each passing generation, fewer and fewer
\nSephardim in Los Angeles spoke Ladino. <\/p>\n
San Francisco:<\/h2>\n
Sephardim started coming
\nto San Francisco during the Gold Rush in 1849. Unlike in Seattle and\u00a0Los Angeles, most of the Sephardim that came to San Francisco
\nwere natives of other parts of the United States. Most of them were prosperous
\nand highly educated (Stern and Kramer, 46). Many prominent politicians and
\neducators in California in the late 19th- early 20th centuries were San
\nFranciscan Sephardim. This allowed San Franciscan Sephardim to have a say in
\nestablishing\u00a0laws and social customs.<\/p>\n
The Sephardim were never
\nable to have a congregation of their own (You can read about this phenomenon in
\nmy second blog post). Therefore, they chose which of the Ashkenazi-run
\nsynagogues to go to: Temple Emanu-El or Temple Shearith Israel. The Sephardim
\nwere split between the two synagogues (Stern and Kramer, 48). \u00a0Due to the
\nfact that they were prosperous and their families had been in the US for a long
\ntime, the Sephardim in San Francisco didn\u2019t see themselves as a minority group
\nthat needed to stick together. Stern and Kramer infer “…that both of the
\nsynagogues must have been wealthy.” <\/i>(Stern and Kramer, 48)<\/p>\n
One of the prominent members
\nfrom this community was Joseph R. Brandon. An activist lawyer, Brandon was also a
\nmember of the Sephardic congregation Sherith Israel in San Francisco. He was a
\nstrictly Orthodox Jew, and he argued against the passage of laws that failed to
\nprotect the religious freedom of the Jews. For example, he opposed\u00a0the
\nrecitation of the Christian Lord\u2019s prayer in public schools, so he wrote a
\n20-page pamphlet stating that the rationale for saying the prayer had misquoted
\nthe scriptures (Kramer, 78). Along with the retired state supreme court judge
\nSolomon Heydenfelt, also a Sephardic Jew from San Francisco, Brandon argued
\nagainst the law that stores must close on Sundays. Brandon and Heyden felt won
\ntheir case, and the law was not passed (Zerin, 19). \u00a0<\/p>\n
Bibliography:Adatto, Albert. Sephardim and the Seattle Sephardic Community. Seattle: U of Washington, 1939. Print.Fitz Morris, Mary K., and University of Washington. Spanish Portuguese Studies. Degree Granting Institution. The Last Generation of Native Ladino Speakers? Judeo-Spanish and the Sephardic Community in Seattle (2014): Masters Abstracts International 53-04(E). Print.Angel, Marc D., Hasson, Aron, Kramer, William M., Maimon, Isaac, Samuels, Beth, Sidell, Loraine, Stern, Norton B. Sephardic Jews in the West Coast States : An Anthology. 1st ed. Los Angeles: Published for the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles by the Western States Jewish History Association, 1996. Print. Western States Jewish History ; v. 28, No. 1-3.Stern, Stephen. The Sephardic Jewish Community of Los Angeles. New York: Arno, 1980. Print. Folklore of the World (New York).Zerin, Edward. Jewish San Francisco. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2006. Print. Images of America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Leora Singer, Former Research Intern Biography and Author\u2019s Purpose I am a New York City High School Student\u00a0that completed a 5-week research internship at The Center for Jewish History this past summer. After taking Advanced Placement Spanish in school, I became interested in the history of Jews of Spanish descent. In addition, my knowledge of Hebrew and Spanish (although it is limited) was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[75,151,171,172,170,169,168],"class_list":["post-1278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-post","tag-american-jewish-historical-society","tag-american-sephardi-federation","tag-interns","tag-leora-singer","tag-sephardic-jews","tag-sephardim","tag-west-coast"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}