Imagined Portuguese Jews: Cultural (Dis)continuities and the Systematization of Traditions
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Abstract
Jews who remained or returned to Portugal after the Expulsion (1496) and Inquisition (1536–1821) adopted and preserved different strategies to resist total assimilation, forced conversion and antisemitism. Today, Jewish communities are small and shy. At the same time, however, many Portuguese insist on an identification with a Jewish matrix. In parallel, there is an unprecedented effort to revitalize Jewish cultural memory in the public and private spheres. This article critically discusses the broad notion of Jewish identity and its representations in present day Portugal. It gives a succinct account of its existing Jewish communities, their power interrelationships and the categorizations used to label who is identified as a Jew. The article examines the making of cultural Jewish heritage and its paradoxes, considering the variety of agents involved and their agendas. While it will be argued that Jewish identity is certainly multidimensional, there are, at the same time, several contemporary native Jewish tangible and intangible cultural traces that are being neglected in the systematization process of Jewish memory and traditions in Portugal. Given the homogenizing tendencies of globalization and the particularizing local reactions to such trends, the present article describes and reflects on how the Jewish past in Portugal is intertwined with the present, and how the plural ways of perceiving Jewish identity and its cultural manifestations can be understood in a glocal frame, in terms of both discursive and material Jewish traditions. Based on a qualitative approach and a collaborative ethnographic method, the article analyzes how the Portuguese matrix of Jewish culture remains part of the Sepharad imaginary while it is subjected to the constraints of time and space.
Topics
Jewish Identity Main Topic: Identity and Community Jewish Community Memory Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations Sephardi Jews
Genre
Geographic Coverage
Original Language
Volume/Issue
40(4)
Page Number
627-649
DOI
Link
Link to article (paywalled), Imagined Portuguese Jews: Cultural (Dis)continuities and the Systematization of Traditions
Bibliographic Information
Imagined Portuguese Jews: Cultural (Dis)continuities and the Systematization of Traditions. 2020: 627-649. https://archive.jpr.org.uk/10.1007/s12397-021-09358-2
