The Golden Age of the Jews of Spain:
Fact or Fantasy?
with Dr. Jonathan S. Ray
Medieval Spanish Jewry, whose ranks included celebrated courtiers, doctors, poets and philosophers, represents one of the most fabled societies in the annals of the Jewish people. Yet the Spanish Inquisition and subsequent expulsion remain among the most devastating events in our history.
To shed light on those extremes, this lecture will explore the realities of daily life for medieval Jews, which was often far different, and perhaps far more familiar, than centuries of nostalgia, pride, hope and guilt would suggest.
An expert on Jewish life in medieval Spain, especially on the coexistence of Jewish, Christian and Muslim societies and the expulsion, Jonathan S. Ray holds a chair in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Georgetown University and is author of three books. His full biography is available here.
ABOUT THE SPANISH JEWISH EXPERIENCE SERIES
For two millennia, Spanish Jewry swung on a pendulum from the heights of tolerance during the “Golden Age” — when Jews flourished as philosophers and poets, physicians, mathematicians and traders to the depths and degradations of forced conversion, the Inquisition and expulsion.
The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Cultural Center is proud to present a five-part lecture series illuminating the complexities of Sepharad, as Iberia is called in Hebrew, and to discover the rich legacy of Jewish Spain through the lenses of art, architecture, music and the modern diasporic experience.
We will meet ordinary Spanish Jews who struggled with the ever-changing realties, as well as some of Judaism’s most revered thinkers and writers: the physician/rabbi Moses ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides or Rambam; the virtuosic poet Yehuda Halevi; and the biblical scholar and philosopher Abraham Ibn Ezra.
Delivered by leading professors of Sephardic studies from across the US and the Atlantic, each lecture stands on its own. You are welcome and encouraged to attend any or all.