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Medellín

The Caribbean Colombia

In Cartagena today the sixth summit of the Americas, a city filled with racial hatred receives 200 years after an afro-american who arrives as it´s most honored guest, President Obama for two days comes to the former inquisition headquarters for all of the Caribbean, and stays in probably more comfortable rooms than the dungeons at the Castle of San Felipe were years before his fellows coming from Africa were chained by the Spanish conquerors.

As well the story of this city, where many jews who fled the cross of Torquemada if not willing to convert to Catholicism, not only chained but burned alive. Jews who live here today in peace where several new Jewish communities in the Carribean cities as; Cartagena, Monteria and Barranquilla have appeared, and their Christian churches have become synagogues, and many find in Judaism the answer to their spiritual quest.

Yes, the world changes, may we all open our eyes and see that history tells us, we should not stay focused in our obsessive thoughts of racial hatred.

I want to share in this post for all my Spanish speaking readers (or  those who wish to pass it through google translate) the interesting article from Dr.  Adelaida Sourdis Nájera, about the Jews in Barranquilla, part of a major study  about the Caribbean Jews made by the University Jorge Tadeo Lozano.

Sefaradim in Barranquilla Spanish language 

Passover with music, our story told, which I have to share, thanks to “aish.com”

My Wife at her prefered place

Antge is an Art Historian with a thesis about Botero, and a Museum Pedagogue. Here she feels at home.

At Botero Museum, Medellin

The Botero collection at Museo de Antioquia, Medellin

Video about medellin

The Jews in Medellin Part II

Vayda, Flat Green

As I wrote earlier in a post about Medellin, this is a city which stands for one of the first in the world in medical care. One would not believe the many medical facilities one finds everywhere, last week I visited a patient in a very modern hospital, we commented with my wife it had nothing different from those we had been in Europe, also with the latest technologies. Patients from all over the world (at this moment four from Israel), come for treatments, between other procedures which are offered heart, lungs, kidneys and liver transplants. And since my arrival I have permanently been asked to give interviews on bioethics, a field so near to my heart as this blog can stand for, f.e.x. at Teleantioquia on the Jewish view on surrogates, not an easy task to approach, but thank G-d rabbis I know could give me a hand and supply the literature I had to read and then answer adequately. Because, and I love it, I have been reading and studying to be able to deliver as expected, now I can see, and many had told me before, I will develop my professional skills in this job, every time more opportunities of growth are showing up, even since I came for my job interview. The first week at work I was already participating in an ecumenical panel at the Catholic University together with a seminarist of Salamanca, Spain and a muslim Spiritual leader from Trinidad. I am also looking forward to next week’s conference I will share with Prof. Catherine Chalier from the University of Paris and the scholar with most expertise in philosopher Levinas on the theme “G-d in Judaism” at the local University EAFIT.

Jewish life in Medellin, who would think with so many activities and institutions interested in Jewish culture, as I wrote in my last post. This not to mention the inauguration of the exposition of world-famous sculptor Ronny Vayda and the many invitations we have received from members of this small but warm community. Because this is a city with a climate you only get in spring elsewhere and were not by casuality brought other known artists to the global arena as Fernando Botero or Juanes proud representatives of the “paisas”, which means “from Antioquia”, the also home for the biggest companies in export of kosher “phumaric acid” and also fine “kosher” chocolates of the National de Chocolates, which I can testify for, excellent production of textiles, plastics, flowers and not the narcotics center it used to be.

Have a good week.

The Jews of Medellín. Part I

What makes  Judaism so appealing to the Antioqueňos? Is it the return and conversion of  the “anusim”? those who were forced to reject Judaism by the Inquisition, in hebrew mar-anus, and later known as marranos,  or the involvement of the of State of Israel looking for settlers? or even more the business for rabbis who take advantage of  a genuine interest and offer more than they are capable of to those looking for a so called “redemption”?. I have been told that a group of  men trying to reorganize their lives after the aftermath of the war and terror of the drug cartels that governed not only the city but the country at large, found in a program called “desintoxication of christianity” answers in the way of life that Judaism offered, with hope and a different reality of a world of chaos they lived in. The result, a community created in the northern outskirts of Medellin in the municipality of Bello, with at that time more than 200 hundred souls in the newly named ”Sephardic Community of Antioquia”, now I‘ve been told only seventeen families are left.

Medellín offers more Jewish life one would expect in a city with a  Jewish Community, Unión Israelita, I work at, since more than a month ago, celebrating this year its 80 years of establishment  by its more than  250 active members with strong ties to traditional Judaism,  which has also a prosperous Jewish school celebrating its 65 years of existence, one of the best in the country, following models brought from Israel. A daily participating minjian, and a very challenging community for any religious  leader to participate in it’s growth.

It is also a city which  has a running Cabala Center with links to  the Los Angeles headquarters  and which brings in speakers as for ex. Rabbi Berg, last month. A Cultural Study Center,  created by my predecessor Rabbi Gershon Switman, who stayed and profits of the crescent group of non jews learning  Judaism.

Although one would think that ladino would be spoken here, that is  not the case, as I came across in Loja, Ecuador, were words as “zarcillos” is still used.  Stories of the origins of Jews in  this region are told and written .

Examples are: The story of  the poncho  resembling a talit katan, the four corner garment used by traditional Jews under their shirts,cannot be confirmed since, the ruana in the cold Boyaca could be probably more the origin of this lighter apparel.

Other statements that appear in certain studies as: the origin of the typical dish, la bandeja paisa, a stew made of beans, rice and meat that could be similar to the Shabbat delicacy known as cholent in the  Ashkenazic world, adafina in the Sephardic circles or chamim in hebrew, and that is eaten after long cooking all Friday night, for lunch after shul ends, chol-ent ( since it is prohibited by law to cook on the Shabbat itself).

But, the most remarkable Jewish tradition found in the old casonas or  farms in Antioquia,  is the mikveh , the ritual bath found in many of these old houses  ( see pictures). But how old are these? 

Journalist and  writer Azriel Bibliowicz , gives us the answer, he mentions that “the Jewish presence was evident during the seventeenth century, as evidenced by the records of the Inquisition in Cartagena, since there was a small community of crypto-Jews or Marranos, who  had a Rabbi as recorded, Don Blas de Paz Pinto, tortured to death by the Inquisition, accused of being ‘overseer of the Jews “. Bibliowicz ensures that the presence of Jews in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was sporadic and minimal, however, they left a testimony of its passage through certain regions, with the wave that brought many to Barranquilla with surnames as Senior and De Sola.

In any case, the small Jewish community living in the thriving Colombian city of Medellin, the birthplace of artist Fernando Botero, is not the product of heroic deeds of past centuries, but a migration at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century which envisioned a future in the capital of the Department of Antioquia, northwest of the country, in the heart of Aburrá Valley and along the Medellin River. Professor and writer Memo Anjél mentioned to me that at that time the city was the settlement of  Jews who were permitted only to work here and develop the  Aburrá Valley.

Today the city has a population of over three million inhabitants, the second in the country and the most important commercial and industrial center of Colombia.

Now you know, with a very active Jewish life. More to come……….……………

Medellin Sunday

Life in Medellin is not only the best climate year around, it is the center of heart transplants for patients from all over the world, why? Because it is law that all Colombians are donors. More to come.

COLEGIO THEODORO HERTZL, MEDELLIN

Www.theodorohertzl.edu.co