Prologue
And Introduction
Prologue
I first became interested in my topic for
this paper when I came across a poem of the Medieval poet al-Ghazal
[i]. I
really had no choice in becoming interested in the topic—much less in writing
the paper—, since I had to write the paper for Dr. John W. Birkenheimer’s
History 362—Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean World—class. Therefore, I had
to be interested in one or another way
[ii]. So, as I was reading through my class
textbook (Barbara H. Rosenwein’s third edition of
A Short History of the
Middle Ages[iii]), I
found the inspiration for my topic and a source to for it to boot
[iv]—
the topic being the life of a Jew in the time of
Al-Andalusia[v].
By
the way, I did not use the term “Muslim” (“submitter”) or “Islam”
(“submission”), given that those two Arabic words did (and still do) not
exclusively belong to Muhammad. Besides, if and since I—as a Christian—can call
myself by what was originally a Syrian pejorative for a
talmid(ah)-HaDerech (follower of The Way), I am sure that
Mohammedans can handle being called what they were called by others up until
recently
[vi][vii]. In fact, I, in reading the parts of
The
Legacy of Muslim Spain[viii]
that were relevant to my topic, was actually a little surprised to find that
even Maimonides—who did not like Messianic Jews or Messianic Judaism—found
Mohammedism more dangerous than Messianic Judaism
[ix] [x].
Nonetheless, Maimonides and I agreed on something.
This is important to note so that I can be
in full disclosure and not unnecessary offend anyone by my (if you will)
political incorrectness. In the same vein, I used “Vaticanists” to refer to
“Catholics” (“Universalists”). By the way, my dad’s relatives (and some of my
mom’s relatives) were “Catholic”
Anusim[xi],
so I can speak about Vaticanists as such
[xii].
Also, I have no reason or motive to lie about any of this—and I cited what was
not knowledge that I had prior to writing this introduction and the rest of the
paper, just so you know
[xiii].
I furthermore hope that you understand
that, since this paper is called “Imagining(?) An Ancestor In
Al-Andalusia in Medieval Mediterranea”,
my writing was informed by my family history (See the endnotes.). As I stated
before, the topic of this paper is the life of a Jew in
Al-Andalusia—namely, one of my imagined(?)
[xiv]
ancestors in
Al-Andalusia. Therefore,
I had to contextualize my paper by prologuing
[xv]
my topic with a summary of part of my family history. Thus, I ask you to bear
with me as you read this following part.
My dad’s ancestors were Ashkenazi Jews,
perhaps of Sefardi descent. For example, the Levitical Foczkos used the Arabic
name “Halva” (meaning “sweetmeat”) for one of their children
[xvi].
Also, Dad’s dad’s parental grandparents (né Czernecki and née Andrulewiczówna)
baptized their son as “Antoni Jan Czarniecki”, who shared his birthday (October
24
th) with to-be Vaticanist saint and notable Spanish clergyman
Anthony Claret—Julian and Aleksjondria Alicja Andrulewiczówna Czernecki
[xvii]
were well aware of the events in
Sefarad[xviii].
The
Foczkos resigned to living as
Anusim
in Aranyida once they were banished from Warszawa by Foczko relatives who had
not become
Anusim, and some
Anusi relatives were already in cities
such as Gelnica. The Andrulewiczówna-Czernecki family did not become
Anusim until the pogroms, although some
Andrulewiczes had been
Anusim and
living in Gmina Sejny
in Suwałki
Gubernia, Polish-Russian Pale
[xix]
when Aleksjondria was born in Bose, Sejny
[xx].
As
I aforestated, I hope that you understand that my writing of “Imagining(?) An Ancestor
In Al-Andalusia in Medieval
Mediterranea” was informed by my family history. Therefore, I had to
contextualize my paper by prologuing my topic with a summary of part of my
family history. So, I thank you for bearing with me.
Introduction
As I stated in
the prologue, I hope that you understand that my writing of “Imagining(?) An Ancestor
In
Al-Andalusia in Medieval
Mediterranea” was informed by my family history. As I also stated, the topic of
this paper is one of my imagined(?)
[xxi]
ancestors in
Al-Andalusia. I have no
records or access to any records of my paternal ancestors who were born prior
to the 1700s or outside of Ashkenazi
[xxii]
Europe before then—if any were born there at all
[xxiii].
My family were
P’rushi[xxiv] Jews,
so making my ancestor a
Qara’i[xxv]
Jew would have been pointless, anyway. Besides, I do not remember the
Al-Andalusian
Qara’it[xxvi]
instructor’s name
[xxvii]; and
I was going to mention her through my “ancestor” if I had remembered her name
on my own. Also, while few—if any—P’rushim did follow Qara’i practice in terms
of
tzitziyot[xxviii], most Sefardim
[xxix]
still do not use
techelet[xxx] unless
it comes from the
chilazon or what is
possibly the
chilazon. What I did
recall was that
tallitot were not
worn until the 13
th Century or the 1300s
[xxxi]—
tzitziyot were just worn on one’s
outfits, and even
tallitot katanot were
not a concern until then.
By the way, there
were natural fabrics such as linen and wool—and silk and cotton if one was
lucky enough to have access to those kinds of fabrics. Thus, acrylic and other
synthetic fabrics did not even exist. Furthermore and in short—and as my mom
imparted to me—life was basically the same across time until the Space Age/Age
of Technology
[xxxii].
Even the Ages of Exploration and
Colonization
[xxxiii],
and the Industrial and Scientific Revolutions
[xxxiv]
were precendented and precendental compared to the Space Age. Keep in mind,
nonetheless, that the Medieval/“Dark” Ages came before and transitioned into
the Even the Ages of Exploration and Colonization, and the Industrial and
Scientific Revolutions.
As a result, you
will already have at least somewhat idea of what my “ancestor”’s life was like
in the 10th-11th Centuries if you truly keep the Medieval
Ages in mind and think about Medieval Spain and Portugal, Medieval Jewry, and
Medieval Mediterranea. Specifics about my “ancestor”’s life and lifetime will
become clear to you as you read this paper (and pay attention to the
endnotes!).
To give you a
general idea, nonetheless, I will tell you that my “ancestor” lived in
Al-Andalusia for 120 years (929-1049
[xxxv]),
before the First Crusade. She, who was named
Rachel Miriam HaLevit bat Yosef Ele’azar HaLevi v’Miriam[xxxvi],
also kept
kashrut, wore
tzitziyot, lived in a patriarchal
household and society, was a
Levit,
married a
Levi cousin, and was a
stay-at-home daughter and wife who—with the mandate of her family—could read
and write. She followed even the “positive
mitzvot”—which P’rushi women are exempted or even prohibited from doing by
the
P’rushi clergymen
[xxxvii].
She followed
Sefardi P’rushi minhag
v’nusach, knew the
Tanakh and
halachah, etc.. She lived in Córdoba,
attended a synagogue and sat on the women’s side of the
mehitzah, was not allowed to make
aliyot to the
bimah, and
provided for her own and her family’s necessities by gardening, cooking,
sewing, and doing whatever other household activities Medieval and Sefardi
Jewish women did.
Imagining(?) An Ancestor
In Al-Andalusia in Medieval
Mediterranea
Bibliography
Prologue
And Introduction
Jayyusi,
Salma Khadra, ed. The Legacy of Muslim Spain, Volume 1. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 1994.
Rosenwein,
Barbara H.. A Short History Of the Middle Ages, Third Edition. Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 2004.
Imagining(?) An Ancestor
In Al-Andalusia in Medieval
Mediterranea
Jayyusi , Salma Khadra, ed. The Legacy of
Muslim Spain,
Volume 1. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 1994.
Rosenwein,
Barbara H.. A Short History Of the Middle Ages, Third Edition. Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 2004.
[Note
as of 24 September 2013: Other sources to be used after 26 September 2013].
[i]
Barbara H. Rosenwein,
A Short History of the Middle Ages, Third Edition
(
Toronto:
University of Toronto
Press, 2009), 114. Cited on Roseinwein 137.
[ii] In
other words, I was going to be either positively interested (writing about a
topic which I liked—since I was actually free to choose the topic) or
negatively interested (obligatory, so to speak, dragging my feet through
writing a college-class paper and hopefully receiving a good grade for what
work I begrudgingly did).
[iii]
Barbara H. Rosenwein,
A Short History of the Middle Ages, Third Edition
(
Toronto:
University of Toronto
Press, 2009).
[iv]
The source being (as I later found out, two volumes of)
The Legacy of Muslim
Spain (Salma Khadra Jayyusi, ed.,
The Legacy of Muslim Spain, Volume 1 (
Leiden,
the
Netherlands:
Brill, 1994), 327. Also see Rosenwein 114 and 137.).
[v]
Today,
Portugal and most of
Spain.
See Roseinwein 115 and 148.
[vi] I
even read
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin once, and
religiously-tolerant Deist Ben Franklin called self-identified “Muslims” by the
name “Mohammedans”.
[vii]
Also, I—as a Jew and a “Muslimah” to “Isa” (submitter to Jesus—the real Jesus,
not Mohammed’s perversion of Jesus)—find Mohammedism (especially the more that
I learn about it) offensive (and one of the tenants of Mohammedism that I
immediately and especially find offensive is the idea that Ishma’el and Esau
[the Arabs] replaced Isaac and Jacob).
[viii]
Salma Khadra Jayyusi, ed.,
The Legacy of Muslim Spain, Volume 1 (Leiden, the
Netherlands: Brill, 1994).
[x]
Christianity; and nowadays, many—if not most—make historical Jews seem like
they favored Mohammedism over Christianity—or at least saw it as the lesser of
what they saw as two evils, anyway.
[xi]
Some still are—Dad’s, for example, being Roman and Byzantine. If you need more
information on this, by the way, feel free to do a Google search for my family
tree on Ancestry.com and my blog on Blogspot/Blogger.
[xii]
To make a long story short (and to get back to my point), Vaticanists
(similarly to Mohammedans after them) used a form of Replacement Theology (what
I call “Replacementism”)—specifically, they replaced Mount Zion (G-d’s “holy
hill”, as He says in the Old Testament) with Vatican Hill (and if you care to
look at the Wikipedia entry on Vatican Hill that I once read, feel free to do
so.).
[xiii]
Incidentally, that whole copyright and citation
drek and
schpiel did not
start until Queen Anne Stuart’s Copyright Act back of 1708-1710—nothing is new
under the sun (as Ecclesiastes makes quite clear); but I could get my
tuchus sued by
feinshmekers for one little—even one little unknown—mistake in
citation because of Her Royal “Highness” (or shall I say “
Macher”ness or “
Feinshmeke”ness?).
Also, I hope that you can tell that I come from an Ashkenazi Jewish family and
have some working (albeit, basically-self-taught) proficiency in Yiddish,
though (given that my proficiency is limited) I am letting you choose between “
Mache”ness (“big-shot”-ness) and “
Feinshmeke”ness (“high-falutin”-ness) to
describe the monarchical ancestor of the Modern Language Association, the
American Psychological Assocation and its publication manual, and Kate Turabian
and her Chicago/Humanities style.
[xiv]
Or, perhaps, not so imagined if G-d really works through me in a similar way
that He worked through the Bible scribes. In the Gospel writers’ cases, they
were writing down the very Word of G-d. In my case, I was writing down history passed onto me by the
Holy Spirit—e.g., who knows if I did not actually write down one of the names
of my ancestors?—and history based on my sources (which, as I stated, I cited).
[xv]
“Prologuing” was used here as a gerund of “prologue” as a verb.
[xvi]
See "Hungary Catholic Church Records, 1636-1895," index,
FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/XCPB-VHH
: accessed 20 Sep 2013), Halva Wyzkiewicz, 1895.
I found this record way before
and seized on this fact. Although the name does have a Greek meaning as well,
the Foczkos/Fockos were Roman—not Byzantine/Greek—Vaticanist Anusim in Slovakia (including Zlatá Idka
and Košice—then Aranyidka and Kassa, when Slovakia was a part of Hungary) and
Hungary (including Miskolc and Diósgyőr, where my great-great-granduncle
Frantisek György “Frank George” Foczko was born and baptized in October of
1888, shortly before his cousin Halva). Incidentally, my grandmother Joan
Gaydos Czarnecki (whose maternal grandmother was Juliana Foczková Rusznaková)
followed Sefardi custom by naming my aunt “Mary Joan” for my dad’s grandmothers
(Mary Czarnecki née Trudniak and Mary Gaydos née Rusnak) and herself
(Ashkenazim generally did and still do not name children for living relatives,
though those who follow Sefardi and
Biblical custom do. Keep in mind, for example, that Absalom named his daughter
“Tamar” after his sister; and John the Baptist was almost named “Zachariah” for
his dad.).
[xvii] With the latter having a brother named Ignacy
Andrulewicz—perhaps for Saint Ignatius or Ignacio de Loyola, unless his parents
used the common name “Ignacy”/”Ignatzy” for him
[xviii]
Including what was
Al-Andalusia.
Sometimes, many or even all Non-Ashkenazi Jews (including Mizrahi Jews) are
labeled as “
Sefardim Yehudim”.
[xix]
Our branch was pretty much the holdout. There was a Rochla Andrelewitz whose
family did not convert, and a Jacob Androlowicz who identified as Jewish and
was buried in a Roman Vaticanist cemetery—his next of kin at the time,
according to his Jewish World War Two Soldiers’ card, was Mary S. Strout née
Andrulewicz. By the way, a Rusznak in-law cousin tells me that “Maria” was used
as a variant of “Mariam” among Jews in
Hungary. Also, I have a Foczko cousin named Mariama
Focková Valková—and there was a cousin named Miriam Fockowa who was a victim of
the Holocaust back in
Poland.
[xx]
Her parents, an unknown Andrulevičus and an unknown Morgevičutė from Stakliškės,
moved from Stakliškės when her cousin Shmuli Morgovich died in April of 1882.
She was born in Bose on June 26, 1882.
[xxii]
Eastern, Central, and Non-Sefardi Western (e.g., German)
Europe.
In fact, Eastern and Central European Jews are descended from Diasporan Jews
who came from places such as the Rhineland, Sefardi Jews who escaped the
Inquisition and (as I cited) who escaped
Al-Andalusia
and the Reconquista, and “Khazar” Jews who escaped the fall of the
Byzantine Empire (Sidenote: Kevin Alan Brook’s Khazaria.com is where I got a
substantial amount of my prior knowledge. When I first encountered the “Khazar
Theory”, I was—figuratively and literally—pulling my hair to prove that
Ashkenazi Jews are Jews and not, as Anti Semites and Self-Hating Jews like to
claim, Khazars and Edomite posers.).
[xxiii]
See the prologue. If nothing else, the Foczko Wyzkiewiczes and Andrulewicz
Czerneckis were well aware of Sefardi Jewish experiences and history.
[xxiv]
Pharisee, “Rabbi”nate, “Rabbi”nical, Talmudic. “P’rushi” literally means “self
separating” or “self cutting off”.
[xxv]
Karaite, “Scripturalist” (“Kara” or “Qara” means “Scriptualist”,
viz. “Tanakh-only”). At your own risk,
see Nehemia Gordon’s Karaite Korner website (I qualify my statement with “at
your own risk” because he is Anti Messianic/Anti Christian—
not Anti
Christ—, as I learned the hard way when he twisted my defense of his argument
that “Rashi” (Shlomo Isaacides) was not Messianic. For more on this, see my
YouTube video “Verbal Abuse From Nehemia Gordon And Evidence Thereof”—which
Nehemia even managed to get removed with a false cyberbullying report until I
uploaded it again and explained that he is a public figure. As knowledgeable as
Nehemia Gordon is, he is not a trustworthy person—which is why I qualify my
statement regarding Karaite Korner with “at your own risk”. A better website is
http://www.karaitejudaism.org/,
especially because the person does not seem to be abusive as is Nehemia Gordon.
You may also want to look at
http://kahana.hubpages.com/,
which is maintained by a Karaite
kohen
and has at least some good content. Also keep in mind that Qara’im, like
P’rushim, generally do not believe in Yeshua (Jesus)—though Nehemia Gordon’s
affirmative “No” to the question “Do Karaites believe in Jesus?” is false, as
some Qara’im (including
Tzdukim—
“Zadokians”, “Sadducees”, literally “Righteous Ones” [cf. Ezekiel 44:15-16,
48:11]) and P’rushim have believed in Yeshua throughout time.
[xxvii]
All I remember is that Nehemia Gordon stated that she was in Spain in the 10
th
Century and that her name began with “al”, and was something like “al-Malmudah”
or “al-Malhudah”. Besides, I am not going back to Nehemia’s website ever again
if I can help myself.
[xxviii]
And other matters as well; such as the calendar, Torah
parshot, and eating the fat of the tailbone (included among
chelev, or forbidden fat).
[xxix]
Most Sefardim, like most Non Sefardim, are P’rushim. Even many Messianic Jews
are P’rushi or follow
P’rushi minhagim
v’nusachim—Pharisee traditions and customs (e.g., from the
Talmudim Bavlim v’Yerushalayimi).
[xxx]
E.g., When I used to shop at Eichlers.com, Sefardi
tallitot did not include the option for
techelet. In full disclosure, by the way, I use the Microsoft® Word
2003 “Research” bar or (if I could not find what I wanted in the Research bar)
Google to double check my Hebrew, prior knowledge, etc.; so I did not cite what
I double checked and/or corrected unless I needed to absolutely cite it. I did
not want to be compulsive about citing. By the way, as I stated before, nothing
is new under the sun—so much for the MLA, the APA, Kate Turabian, and others
paying attention to (if not the Word of G-d itself, at least) the wisdom of
Solomon, though. Also, I have Obsessive Compulsive/Generalized Anxiety, Major
Depressive, and Attention Deficit Disorders; and I did and will not kill myself
with obsessive citing.
[xxxi]
I cannot remember which. I just remember reading it. I have read a source that
have said that tallitot were used back in the days of Sh’mu’el.
[xxxii]
My mom was born in the 1950s in the
United States of America, by the
way.
[xxxiv]
Including the “Age of Reason/Age of Enlightenment”; beginning with Galileo
Galieli, 15
th-20
th Centuries
[xxxv]
P’rushi years 4689-5709 AM. The Qara’im generally follow the Biblical calendar,
and there are 165 missing years—thus, the years are actually probably closer to
4853/4854-4973/4974 AM. (Today is
Tishri 18, 5773 AM/5774 AM; perhaps
5938/5939 [September 24-25, 2013].). The Jewish New begins for P’rushim in
Tishri, and for Qara’im in
Aviv.
[xxxvii]
Not “rabbis”, “Chazal”, or “sages”. See Jeremiah 8:8-9 and Matthew 23:8-10.
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