Kylie Hall – Classes 5-6: Premodern Destinies: Ashkenazim/Sefardim: Women/Men

Kylie Hall

By Light Of Hidden Candles – Daniella Levy

Daniella Levy’s book, By Light Of Hidden Candles, is a beautiful and emotional journey filled with Sephardic Jewish culture and tradition, family drama, the struggles of interfaith relationships, discovering self-identity, and uncovering history. I thoroughly enjoyed reading, and I was able to see major themes that we have discussed in class thus far like antisemitism, what it means to be a Jew, the prominent presence of food, and who the Jews are in general. I will discuss these ideas throughout this blog post. 

The book begins by introducing the very important Jewish family mission that has been passed down for many generations (with decreasing details and clarity) of thanking and repaying a Spanish family for helping them escape from the Inquisition by returning a ring with an eagle on it to them. The story is structured into three different types of chapters with three different narrators: Miriam, Alma, and Manuel. Through their different perspectives, we are able to see relationships develop, personal faith struggles, fears, and great joys. Alma Ben-Ami is a proud and passionate traditional, Sephardic Jew who has left nursing school to join the genealogy program at NYU where she will spend the semester abroad in Madrid. Her Jewish identity is a very big part of her life as she keeps Kosher, observes the Sabbath, prays often, and plans to only marry within the Jewish faith. She has moved away from her family in Albany to live with her quickly aging grandmother who she has a very close relationship with. Her grandma stays quite busy by constantly cooking Kosher food, working to keep her Judaica store in tip-top shape, ensuring that Alma marries a Jewish man, guaranteeing that her family’s Jewish identity is present and important, and trying to stay young and remember all that she can as she rapidly approaches death. She is proud and excited for Alma to be attending NYU and studying her family’s past which she is so passionate about. However, Alma’s parents and other family members are very concerned with money, career path, and success, and they see Alma’s degree as useless. After cleaning out her grandma and late grandpa’s Judaica store, Alma randomly (perhaps, fatefully) is trampled on by a valuable wooden box filled with all of the Ketubot (marriage contracts) in her family and the ring with the eagle itself! This unlocks her grandma’s memory of their family mission, she tells Alma all that she can remember, and Alma becomes intrigued, passionate, and hungry to learn more. This becomes the root of her research in Spain, and as the story goes on, she is able to uncover more and more details both at home and in Spain with the help of Manuel. 

Manuel Aguilar is a boy from Granada who moved with his mother to New York five years ago. He is a very talented and bright student studying Iberian Studies at NYU, speaking English and Spanish, and reading ancient 15th century documents with ease. At the beginning of the story, we meet Manuel as a devout Roman Catholic who is heavily considering becoming a priest. However, he is uncontrollably curious about Judaism. His father, who he loved very much, passed away from lung cancer. When he died, Manuel became very close with his priest (before he passed), Padre Carlos, who influenced him greatly and inspired him to want to become a priest. However, Padre Carlos did not have good thoughts to share about the Jews and warned Manuel and his other Catholic congregants to stay away from Jews and Judaism as a whole. Manuel’s mother, Raquel Elvira, is a protective and hard-working woman who loves living in America surrounded by good people. She has a very different relationship with and view on the Jewish people. She loves the Jews, often helps them out on the Sabbath, hates and disagrees with the way Padre Carlos used to speak about them, and believes that he was spreading “anti-semitic and racist garbage” (Levy, 48). From the beginning of the story, she looks out for blood spots in eggs (which is a Kosher practice), lights candles in the basement on Shabbat, supports and wants Manuel to be with Alma, and refuses to attend church. Although it seems obvious to us reading those facts now that she must have Jewish roots, it is not until the end that she becomes aware that she is, in fact, Jewish and not Catholic. With the immense help of Alma, Manuel is able to convince his mother to allow him to attend Madrid and continue his father’s work of uncovering his family past and proving that the Aguilar family was once royalty before being stripped of it, perhaps during the Inquisition, and moving to Granada to start fresh. 

Manuel and Alma become research partners, spend an immense amount of time together, and learn everything about one another. Alma helps Manuel explore his religious identity by taking him to the Chabad in Spain on Shabbat, teaching him about Jewish holidays and traditions, and introducing him to Rabbi Udi who helps him explore Judaism even more. He runs into many problems, questions, and doubts about Catholicism as a whole (like their belief that the only way into heaven is through baptism and believing in Jesus), and he feels a great connection to Judaism that he cannot shake. He is truly lost and does not know whether he still wants to become a priest, stay Catholic, or leave the Church altogether and convert to Judaism. While this great struggle is going on within him, Alma and Manuel uncontrollably catch feelings for one another and fall in love, as their families predicted. For Alma, this is absolutely unacceptable and forbidden, and she is very angry with herself for letting the relationship develop at all. As this forbidden love story progresses, the two discover the truth of their families’ pasts and how connected they are. Don Tomás and León are Manuel’s ancestors, and they are the family who helped Miriam and Abraham, Alma’s ancestors, escape from the Inquisition. The whole situation feels unbelievable and like the two were destined to meet and be together, but the problem of religion is not fixed. Their love and deep feelings for one another is especially revealed towards the end of the story when Alma’s grandma unexpectedly passes away after Alma’s last phone call with her did not end well. Alma is a wreck, Manuel comforts her, and the two get a little too close. Alma decides the best decision for her is to leave Manuel and never see him again in order to not let love get in the way of her Jewishness. Many aspects of Alma and Manuel’s situation reflect that of Miriam and León. 

 Miriam de Carmona is Alma’s ancestor living in the times of the Inquisition. She is the root of the ancient family mission, and within her chapters we see her struggle physically to come out alive from the horrible persecution of the Inquisition and mentally with her priorities, love life, and religious identity. She grapples with the important decision of surviving safely by becoming a conversa, forced to get baptized, be outwardly Christian, and hide her Jewishness, or risking her life as a martyr, willing to die as a Jew, for her religion. Miriam is a 16 year old Orthodox Jew living with her spice-selling father, Abraham, in the Juderia of Lorca, a very closed-off Jewish quarter. Abraham puts Miriam and himself at risk after making the dangerous yet brave and thoughtful decision to help conversos hold onto their Jewishness by sneaking them Kosher wine to drink and feel the holiness of G-d during the High Holidays. The Inquisition sees this as an act of corrupting the new pure “converts” with their old and sinful ways. They are saved and able to escape the wrath of the Inquisition with the help of Don Tomás and his son, León. They risk everything for the freedom of their Jewish friends, and as the story progresses, Miriam and León fall in love. Like Alma, for Miriam, this is disappointing and absolutely forbidden due to her passion for and commitment to Judaism. In the end, Miriam is left with the hardest and most important decision of her life: accepting León’s marriage proposal to her and ensuring her safety living as a conversa, or choosing to stay Jewish, leave León forever, and embark on a long and dangerous journey of moving to poor and unknown conditions in Fez with her father. This choice leaves Miriam in immense pain, yet she prays and feels moved to choose the ladder as she refuses to hide her Jewish identity. This is where León gives her the ring, and they depart ways forever.

The story ends happily and perfectly as Manuel discovers that his mother is Jewish, meaning that he is too according to Halakhah, Jewish law! He comes from a family of conversos who have hidden their Judaism for years, and Manuel and his mother just did not know it! This is exactly what Manuel needs to help him solve his religious identity crisis, and he decides that he feels connected to Judaism, wants to be fully Jewish, removes his cross from his neck, and gets to be with Alma, his love!  

Sorry for that long-ish summary, I tried to make it as short as possible, but I could not leave out some important details! Now, I will talk about the central themes that I saw in the book from our class thus far. First, there is a great amount of antisemitism throughout the entire story which reminds me of David Baddiel’s Jews Don’t Count. Obviously, the Inquisition is a huge example of antisemitic sentiment, as the Catholic church persecuted the Jews, wanted them completely gone, did not let them practice their religion in Spain, and forced them to convert, hide their religion, or if they were lucky, escape. Manuel’s great aunt is an example of the pressure that Jews felt. She is a Jew behind closed doors, but is openly Christian, living with a great cross hanging on her door. Another example of antisemitism that we see first-hand in the present is when Manuel and Alma are on the street in Spain, and they run into the group of neo-Nazi young men spray painting a swastika and making offensive, antisemitic jokes. Alma wants to defend herself and the Jews and tell the boys off, but Manuel stops her and potentially saves her life by showing the cross that he is wearing and, therefore, vouching that they are not Jewish. It is a sad, disgusting, and shocking scene to read, yet the presence of antisemitism in the past and present is a harsh reality that is tough to swallow. Also, the bad ideas and warnings that Padre Carlos spreads about the Jews to Manuel and the other Catholic congregants is an example of antisemitism. Another example is the security guard outside of the Chabad in Spain which shows the actions Jews are forced to take in preparation for antisemitic sentiment. This reminds me of my synagogue back home because there is always a police officer outside during every Shabbat and holiday. These are just a few of examples of the discrimination against and hatred towards the Jews within the story.

A second theme I saw while reading is the idea we have been discussing as a class: what it means to be a Jew. Miriam grapples with this question many times throughout the story. At the beginning, Miriam cannot understand why her father finds it important to help the conversos by giving them Kosher wine. She initially does not consider them Jews and calls them “pig-eaters” and sinners (Levy, 16). Her father tries to explain the immense difficulty of choosing between staying outwardly Jewish and dying versus converting, surviving, and staying in Spain. But she cannot fully understand that at this time and only considers Jews to be those who do not become conversos. Her father considers them Jews and attempts to help them hold onto their Judaism in any way he can. Miriam is unable to understand the great struggle that Jews go through in choosing to give in to the Inquisition and choose life or dying as martyrs. I think at the end of the story when she is forced to make this decision for herself, she is truly able to feel the pain and confusion. We see her praying to G-d looking out at the water, and we are able to see that her belief has changed when she says, “I don’t have to give up on the Torah entirely… I can still be a Jew in secret…” (Levy, 295). She experiences the severity and trouble of this decision and realizes that one can be a Jew in secret, yet it is difficult, painful, and delicate. As we know, she eventually chooses to not convert because she is unwilling to hide her Jewish identity. So, I am curious, do you all consider the conversos to be any less of Jews than someone like Miriam who chose to not give in to the Inquisition? In other words, do you consider martyrs more Jewish than the conversos? Is there even such a thing as being less or more Jewish? I think this is an interesting question with regards to what it means to be a Jew. I also think about when Manuel discovers that he is Jewish according to Halakhah because his mother is Jewish, yet he also says that he wants to be Jewish anyways. So another question I raise is, does Jewish law make someone Jewish or is someone’s Jewishness a decision from within?

I was also reminded of some of what we read in the Bible while reading this story, particularly of who the Jews are. I remember in class Professor Seeman talked about Sarcha (I very well may have that name wrong; I apologize) who answered the question of “what are Jews?” as “a people defined by antisemitism.” We all agreed that this is part of the definition, but not enough. I think that Abraham de Carmona would agree with our class because he attempts to answer this question on page 277 in the entire bottom paragraph. He says that the Jews are NOT just a people who suffer as they are oppressed and persecuted. They are a people who bravely face the worst hatred and misfortune, overcome it, and end up triumphant and even stronger with their unshakable faith in G-d. He references the Bible and says, “G-d promised our father Abraham that he would curse whoever curses us and bless whoever blesses us” (Levy, 277). He has faith in G-d’s promise and believes that the Spaniards will eventually face consequences for their actions. I also remember León asking Miriam why she does not just convert, and she says that G-d is protecting the Jews not punishing them and, “My life would be easier if I were a Christian. But I’m not a Christian. And I have no desire to be one.” (Levy, 190). Although it is very hard to be Jewish at times like this and feels like the Jews are always being punished, Miriam has faith and believes that G-d is keeping them alive and safe. This also reminds me of Exodus when the Jews are being exiled and oppressed, yet G-d promises to help them make it out alive. What do you all think of how Abraham and Miriam de Carmona answer the question, “who are Jews?” Do they help us in answering the question as a class? 

Lastly, food is very prominent in the entire story which reflects its importance in Jewish identity and culture. I think of the importance of the Kosher diet to Alma, Miriam, and the rest of their family, specific foods eaten on holidays, and the fast of Yom Kippur. Manuel is very confused why the Jews are so strict about their diet and dishes, and Alma says that they do it because G-d tells them to in oral tradition (Levy, 151). I am reminded of what Professor Seeman said when we were talking about Genesis about how food is central in Judaism, and food prohibition is how it all started with Adam and Eve not allowed to eat the fruit from the tree. I just find it very interesting that food and keeping Kosher is emphasized immensely in this book, and I think it reflects what we said in class on Tuesday about it being central in Judaism.

Thank you all for reading, I look forward to discussing these ideas with you!!