Toward a Political History of the Sephardic Diaspora

The Zionism of the Sephardic world was based more on a vision of restoring traditional Jewish life in the ancient homeland than one of revolution which sought to replace tradition with some modern ideology. Unlike their Ashkenazi brethren, Sephardim always saw themselves as actors in the political arena, not only within their communities but in the larger entities of which their communities were a part. This essay represents a first cut at what we know about the political history of Sephardic Jewry and especially the exiles from the Iberian peninsula in the years between 1492 and the demise of their communities in the twentieth century. Special attention is given to the Sephardic world's pre-lberian antecedents, the involvement of Jews in imperial Iberian politics, the styles of Jewish community organization in Spain, and the various forms of political participation and involvement after the Expulsion.